Nairobi  - A lack of political will has prevented the African Court on Human and Peoples' Rights from hearing a single case in the ten years since it was established, campaigners said Wednesday.

A spokesman for Minority Rights Group said that the failure to act came despite major human rights crises in Darfur, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Zimbabwe.

"Africa's peoples deserve better," said George Mukundi, the report's author, in a statement. "If human rights on the continent are to come of age, the court must start its work without any further delays."

Eleven judges were appointed to the court in 2006 and it has been given a home in Arusha, Tanzania.

The court has held ten ordinary sessions, but Minority Rights Group said that states seemed wary about seeing it operating properly.

Only 24 out of a possible 53 states of the African Union have ratified the protocol to create the court, the group said.

"The human rights landscape in Africa continues to be of grave concern," said Mukundi. "It is in the interests of states to make good their promises of a decade ago." (dpa)