Africa: Ecowas Court and Women's Rights in West Africa - What's Working - and What Isn't

[The Conversation Africa] The Ecowas Court is a west African regional body located in Abuja, Nigeria, serving the now 12-nation Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas). The court, originally set up to handle economic matters related to the Ecowas Treaty, was given a human rights mandate in 2005. Since then, of the hundreds of cases the court has heard, nearly 90% have been human rights-related. In a recent book, international law and human rights scholar Maame Efua Addadzi-Koom argues that the shift in the court's