The AU IDP Convention, formally the African Union Convention for the Protection and Assistance of Internally Displaced Persons in Africa, is commonly known as the Kampala Convention. It was adopted at a special AU summit in Kampala, Uganda on 23 October 2009 and entered into force on 6 December 2012, thirty days after the fifteenth ratification.
It is the first legally binding regional instrument anywhere in the world that imposes obligations on states specifically with respect to internally displaced persons (IDPs) — people forced to flee their homes who, unlike refugees, have not crossed an international border and therefore fall outside the 1951 Refugee Convention.
Key features include:
- Broad definition of displacement causes: armed conflict, generalised violence, human rights violations, natural or human-made disasters, and development projects.
- State responsibility: governments bear the primary duty to prevent arbitrary displacement, protect IDPs during displacement, and facilitate durable solutions (return, local integration, or relocation).
- Prohibition on arbitrary displacement, including displacement based on ethnic or religious discrimination, and explicit obligations during forced evacuations.
- Non-state actor obligations: armed groups operating on a state's territory are prohibited from causing arbitrary displacement (Article 7).
- Protection of humanitarian workers and an obligation to allow rapid and unimpeded humanitarian access.
- Compensation and reparations for damage arising from displacement caused by state acts or omissions.
The Convention draws heavily on the 1998 UN Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement developed under Francis Deng, but converts non-binding soft law into treaty obligations for African states parties.
Implementation remains uneven. Several states with very large IDP populations — including those affected by conflict in the Sahel, the Lake Chad Basin, eastern DRC, and the Horn of Africa — have ratified, but domestication into national law and practical enforcement lag. The AU Commission and bodies such as the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC) publish periodic compliance reviews.
Example
In 2014, Nigeria ratified the Kampala Convention as Boko Haram insurgency displaced millions in the country's northeast, creating one of Africa's largest IDP crises.
Frequently asked questions
The 1951 Convention protects people who have crossed an international border; the Kampala Convention covers people displaced within their own country who remain under their government's jurisdiction.
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