Responsibility of the East African Community to Safeguard Physical Integrity and Freedom of the Citizens of its Member States

This paper looks at the responsibility that the East African Community (EAC) has in safeguarding the right of physical integrity and freedom among the citizens of the Community’s Partner States. It examines the extent in which the EAC has discharged that responsibility and what needs to be in response to any existing shortcomings. The first part of this work is the conceptual framework where the key concepts have been defined and explained. Those concepts are the right to bodily integrity and freedom. The next part is on the legal and institutional framework of the East African Community which deals with protection of the right of physical integrity and freedom. After that part, I have presented a number of incidents of violation of the right of physical integrity and freedom within the EAC region in order to use them as the basis for examining the performance of the EAC’s responsibility referred to herein. The main findings of this work are that EAC has an enormous responsibility to safeguard the right to physical integrity and freedom within its jurisdiction; and that so far, the EAC has underperformed that task. Most of what has been done is more of strategizing, planning and expression of commitments while very little work has been down on the ground. As a result, many citizens of EAC Partner States continue to suffer gross violations of their right of physical integrity as well as their freedoms both from governmental and non-governmental actors. In view of that, the paper has urged the EAC and its Partner States to be more proactive in discharging that significant responsibility

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