Forty-six of the 55 African Union Member States have ratified the Maputo Protocol, the continent’s treaty on the rights of women. Nine of them still limit its reach through reservations or interpretive declarations. RFLD’s new report, Lifting the Reservations: nine country briefs on the Maputo Protocol, explains what these statements do and how they can be lifted. This article sets out the basics.
A definition from treaty law
The report’s glossary defines a reservation as “a unilateral statement by which a State excludes or modifies the legal effect of certain provisions of a treaty in their application to that State”. In plain terms, a State signs up to the treaty as a whole while declaring that one or more of its provisions will not apply to it, or will apply only in part.
The Maputo Protocol is formally titled the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa. Neither the Protocol nor the African Charter contains an express provision on reservations. For that reason, the general rules of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties apply.
What the Vienna Convention allows
Article 19(c) of the Vienna Convention forbids a reservation that is incompatible with the object and purpose of the treaty. The report describes the object and purpose of the Maputo Protocol as the elimination of discrimination against women and the guarantee of their rights. A reservation that strips out whole articles central to that aim is hard to reconcile with it.
Article 27 of the same Convention states that a party may not invoke the provisions of its internal law as justification for its failure to perform a treaty. This matters because several of the nine States explain their reservations by pointing to their own domestic law.
The African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights considers that it has competence, in accordance with its mandate, to assess and pronounce its views on the validity of a reservation. It can do so through its concluding observations on State reports and its resolutions. General comments and requests for an advisory opinion are further tools.
Which States hold reservations
The report covers the nine States Parties that maintain reservations or interpretive declarations:
- Algeria and Cameroon
- Ethiopia and Kenya
- Mauritius and Namibia
- the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic and South Africa
- Uganda
The scope varies widely. Namibia reserves a single provision on the registration of marriages and presents its reservation as temporary. The Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic holds the broadest set of the nine. Algeria reserves three complete articles and gives no reasons. Cameroon has made a general declaration that the report treats as operating like a reservation.
Why the report says reservations matter
Reservations have real effects on women’s lives. The report cites the African Commission’s Advocacy Framework on Kenya, where the reservation on medical abortion “leaves women and girls to procure unsafe abortions”. In Uganda, survivors of rape are “compelled to carry pregnancies to term”. Reservations on health and on marriage are among the most common in the nine States.
At the same time, the report is clear about the limits of a reservation. A reservation does not remove a State’s obligations on equality under the African Charter itself. It does not stop the Commission from asking questions when it examines a State report. It does not bind other States or treaty bodies. It does not last forever either: a State can withdraw it at any time.
How a reservation is withdrawn
Withdrawal is simple in law. Under the Vienna Convention, a reservation may be withdrawn at any time, and the consent of the other States Parties is not required. The withdrawal must be made in writing and notified to the depositary. For the Maputo Protocol, the depositary is the Chairperson of the African Union Commission. The withdrawal takes effect on receipt of the notification.
Withdrawals have already happened. The Gambia withdrew its reservations in 2006. Rwanda followed in 2012. Mauritius withdrew its reservation to Article 6(b) on the minimum age of marriage on 10 April 2023, while keeping others in place.
A new push from the African Commission
In March 2025 the African Commission asked its Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Women in Africa to draft an advocacy framework for the withdrawal of reservations, through Resolution 632. The Commission adopted that Advocacy Framework at its 86th Ordinary Session in 2026. RFLD’s country briefs build on it, State by State, with questions for dialogue and concrete asks for governments, parliaments, national human rights institutions and civil society.
Over the coming days, RFLD will publish a short article on each of the nine country briefs, along with explainers on the legal arguments and the advocacy tools in the report. Readers looking for the wider legal picture in each country can also consult RFLD’s country profiles on women’s rights laws.
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.
