Governments make and withdraw reservations, but they rarely do so without advice. National human rights institutions are well placed to provide it. RFLD’s report Lifting the Reservations: nine country briefs on the Maputo Protocol proposes a specific role for these institutions in each of the nine States that still limit the Protocol through reservations or declarations.
An RFLD proposal
The African Commission’s Advocacy Framework, adopted in 2026, contains a chapter on national human rights institutions. RFLD’s briefs summarise other chapters of the framework, and the report is clear that the roles it sets out for national institutions are RFLD’s own proposals. They draw on the framework’s logic and on the institutions’ existing mandates.
The framework does give national institutions a role through the Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Women in Africa. It asks the Special Rapporteur to carry out impact studies on reservations together with national human rights institutions and civil society.
What RFLD proposes
The report suggests that national human rights institutions:
- issue an advisory opinion on each reservation held by their State
- include the reservations in their annual reports
- raise the reservations in their engagement with the African Commission
- monitor the follow-up of concluding observations that call for withdrawal
The advisory opinion
An advisory opinion is the central tool. It gives an independent, national view on whether a reservation can be justified. The report’s toolkit includes a model request that civil society can send to a national institution, titled “Request for an advisory opinion on the reservation of [State] to Article [X] of the Maputo Protocol”.
The model request first summarises the reservation and the latest recommendation of the African Commission. It then asks the institution whether the reservation is compatible with the Constitution and with the object and purpose of the Protocol, and what its effect is on women and girls. It also asks what steps would allow its withdrawal. The requesting organisation offers civil society data and testimonies, shared with consent.
In the report’s twelve-month advocacy plan, the request to the national institution comes in months seven and eight, after the impact of the reservation has been documented and ministries have been approached.
Country by country
Each country brief tailors the ask to the national context:
- Algeria: advise on whether the reservation is compatible with the object and purpose of the Protocol.
- Cameroon: publish an opinion on the legal effect of the general declaration.
- Ethiopia and Mauritius: advise on each reservation and its compatibility with the Protocol.
- Kenya: monitor implementation of the concluding observations that follow the 87th Session.
- South Africa: the national institution and the Commission for Gender Equality should support withdrawal publicly.
- Uganda: monitor maternal deaths linked to unsafe abortion.
- Namibia: the Ombudsman should monitor the registration of customary marriages in rural areas.
For the Sahrawi Republic, the brief addresses the National Council and the African Commission directly.
Why institutions matter here
A reservation is a decision of the State, so the voice of an independent State institution carries weight with ministries and with Parliament. A national institution can also connect the legal question to evidence. Uganda’s brief is an example: the African Commission found that unsafe abortion accounts for 26 per cent of maternal mortality in the country, and regular monitoring by the national institution would keep that issue before decision makers. In South Africa, the brief also names the Commission for Gender Equality, a second independent body that can speak publicly in favour of withdrawal.
Institutions do not need to work alone. The impact studies foreseen in the Advocacy Framework would bring national institutions and civil society together, under the Special Rapporteur’s lead, to document how reservations affect women. Their findings could then feed into advisory opinions and into the State’s next periodic report to the African Commission.
The report’s monitoring checklist includes a simple test for advocates: has the national human rights institution been asked for an opinion? Organisations that want to combine an institutional opinion with a shadow report can use RFLD’s manual on shadow reports under the Maputo Protocol.
About the report
This article draws on RFLD’s report Lifting the Reservations: nine country briefs on the Maputo Protocol, published on 4 October 2026. Read the summary, download the English edition or the French edition.
