Ethiopian Human Rights System: an overview

Abstract

This article employed a more descriptive approach in dealing with the Ethiopian human rights system. To this effect, the national human rights experience in the past regimes along with their respective constitutional principles is referenced for the sake of comparison with the present system on the subject in question. Besides, it attempts to reveal the then socio-political and economic state-society inter-course in the way to assert that whether there is any change  in the present human rights system compared to the hitherto regimes as due emphasis is made to contrast the two (past-present regimes).

An attempts is also did to provide a full image on the present human rights system in particular with a more detail discourse on the institutional structure of the national human rights system of post 1991. Accordingly, the paper explores lists of the institutional function, the mandate given thereby as well as the extent of human rights enshrined in the current constitution. In doing so, the following research questions are answered accordingly:

1. How the present human rights differ from the hitherto regimes both in principle and practice?
2. What are the institutions currently considered as tools of the national human rights system?
3. How do these institutions behave for the realization and effectiveness of human rights?

Keywords: Human Rights, Ethiopian Human Rights System, Ethiopian human Rights commission, Institutes of ombudsman.