Origin and Mandate

Staffing and Appointment Procedures

Activities

Funding

Assessment

Given its genuine autonomy from the government, stable leadership, and broad mandate, it might be expected that the CBDH would have been one of the most active and effective national human rights commissions over the ten years of its existence. But the facts are otherwise. Indeed, according to NGOs and others consulted by Human Rights Watch, the CBDH has been markedly lacking in dynamism.

Most of the recorded activities of the CBDH have been seminars that it has held since 1997. In early June 1997, the CBDH organized an internal seminar to train its members. In September 1997, the CBDH organized a two-day seminar on human rights for nineteen judicial police officers from the gendarmes and police.36 The same month, the CBDH also organized a nine day training for civil society organizations, which was attended by representatives of twenty-five NGOs, including the most active human rights groups such as the Benin Association of Women Jurists, the Institute for Human Rights and the Promotion of Democracy, and the League for the Defense of Human Rights.37 The meeting called for the establishment of an NGOdirectory and the creation of an NGO network. While none of these objectives had been reached as of 1999, the participation of such active human rights groups indicates that a good climate of cooperation can exist between the NGO community and the CBDH.

Other activities by the commission include its participation in October 1997, in events organized by NGOs and the supreme court to mark African Human Rights Day.38 In December 1998, the commission also helped commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights jointly with a local NGO, the Institut des Droits de l'Homme et de Promotion de la Démocratie [Institute for Human Rights and the Promotion of Democracy] (IDHPD), and with financial assistance from UNDP, organized several sessions on the theme "Benin and the protection of human rights."39

Human Rights Watch was informed of only two cases in which the CBDH undertook a human rights protection role: in January 1998, the CBDH protested against the government's intention to expel some forty Congolese refugees without legal immigration status, resulting in a suspension of the planned expulsion;40 in another case, the commission brought a complaint before the courts in December 1997 on behalf of Tohon Evariste, a mechanic who had been beaten and wounded by his employer, a Jordanian national, and joined as a party (partie civile) in this case.

In an interview with Human Rights Watch, Saidou Agbantou, the commission's president, said that its successes included obtaining "the abolition by the government of unjust laws" including discriminatory laws and regulations permitting solitary confinement in prison; the ratification of several international human rights instruments; the organization of several training seminars; the translation and dissemination of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights into eight national languages; participating in the drafting of the new constitution of December 11, 1990; and serving as observers in four national elections.41 When asked for more details, however, about the CBDH's role in the abolition of unjust laws and the ratification ofinternational instruments, members of commission were vague and uninformative42 Nor was Human Rights Watch able to obtain copies of translations of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights at the commission office. Sixteen members of the commission's members had participated in the 1990 national conference and had helped draft 1990 constitution, but these included the same group of jurists who had promoted the creation two years earlier of the CBDH-including lawyers Robert Dossou, Maurice Glélé Ahanhanzo, and Saidou Agbantou-but not in their capacity as members of the commission, which had yet to be appointed.

One area in which the CBDH does appear to have developed expertise in is in relation to electoral observation and supervision. Saidou Agbantou and other members of the commission have regularly participated in the administration and observation of the 1991, 1993, 1995, and 1999 elections. The CBDH's role in this connection was formalized by law no. 98-034 of January 15, 1999 which established "general rules for elections in the Republic of Benin." It requires that one member of the CBDH be among the twenty-three members of the National Autonomous Electoral Commission (CENA), which oversees elections at the national level, and also that a CBDH representative sit on each Provincial Electoral Commission, which represents the CENA in the provinces (Articles 41 and 43). Consequently, for the March 1999 legislative elections, the CBDH designated one member to sit on the CENA and one representative to sit on each of the twelve provincial electoral commissions.43