Chapter 3 • The Major Regional Human Rights Instruments and the Mechanisms for Their Implementation v to preserve and strengthen positive African cultural values – art. 29(7); and, finally, v the duty to contribute to the best of one’s abilities to the promotion and achievement of African unity – art. 29(8). 2.1.4 Permissible limitations on the exercise of rights The exercise of many of the rights and freedoms guaranteed by the African Charter is conditioned by limitation provisions, which in some cases indicate specific aims for which limitations might be imposed, but which in others simply refer back to the conditions laid down in national law. Article 12(2) thus provides that the right to leave any country including one’s own, and to return to one’s own country, “may only be subject to restrictions provided for by law for the protection of national security, law and order, public health or morality”. However, everyone has the right to free association “provided that he abides by the law” (art. 10), without there being any indication as to the grounds the national law can legitimately invoke to limit that freedom of association. 2.1.5 Derogations from legal obligations Unlike the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the American and European Conventions on Human Rights, the African Charter does not provide for any right of derogation for the States parties in public emergencies. As indicated in Chapter 1, and, as will be further shown in Chapter 16, this absence has been interpreted by the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights to mean that derogations are not permissible under the African Charter.4 The African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights is specific in that it protects not only rights of individual human beings but also rights of peoples. The Charter also emphasizes the individual’s duties towards certain groups and other individuals. While some provisions of the African Charter allow for limitations to be imposed on the exercise of the rights guaranteed, no derogations are ever allowed from the obligations incurred under this treaty. 2.1.6 The implementation mechanism The African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights consists of eleven members serving in their individual capacity (art. 31). It has the twofold function, first, of promoting human and peoples’ rights, and, second, of protecting these rights (art. 30), including the right to receive communications both from States and from other sources. 4 ACHPR, Commission Nationale des Droits de l’Homme et des Libertés v. Chad, No, 74/92, decision taken at the 18th ordinary session, October, 1995, para. 21; for the text see the following web site: http://www1.umn.edu/humanrts/africa/comcases/74-92.html. Human Rights in the Administration of Justice: A Manual on Human Rights for Judges, Prosecutors and Lawyers 75