Across the continent, a difficult question is being asked with increasing urgency following repeated waves of xenophobic violence in South Africa.
The question is not just moral, but legal and diplomatic: how can African countries punish South Africa for attacks on foreign nationals, including documented migrants who have lost property and businesses?
The killings, looting, and forced closures of shops owned by Africans from Nigeria, Ghana, Malawi, Zimbabwe, and Mozambique have reignited historical anger over South Africa’s treatment of its neighbors.
For many, the attacks feel like a betrayal of the Pan-African solidarity that defined the anti-apartheid struggle, when other African states sheltered South Africans and funded the liberation movement.
International law gives affected individuals and states several avenues, but using them against a powerful regional economy like South Africa is politically complicated.
The first and most direct path is through the African Union and its human rights architecture.
Member states can formally petition the AU Peace and Security Council to place xenophobia on the agenda as a threat to regional stability.
Ghana and Nigeria have already tested this approach by requesting emergency debates and linking the violence to violations of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights.
Article 12 of the Charter guarantees the right of every individual to move freely and to leave and enter their own country, and Article 14 protects the right to property.
When documented foreign nationals are targeted and their businesses burned, those provisions are directly implicated.
The African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights can receive communications from states or NGOs and issue findings that, while not binding, carry significant moral and diplomatic weight.
Beyond the AU, states can turn to the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights.
The Court has jurisdiction over violations of the Charter, but only 10 AU member states have made the declaration allowing individuals and NGOs to sue directly.
That means most cases would still need to be brought by a state against South Africa.
No African state has yet taken South Africa to the Court over xenophobia, largely because of fear of diplomatic retaliation and economic consequences.
South Africa is the continent’s second largest economy and a hub for banking, retail, and telecoms that other countries depend on.
A legal case could trigger withdrawal of South African companies, job losses, and trade disruptions that would hurt the very citizens governments want to protect.
Economic measures are the second category of punishment being discussed in policy circles.
Countries could impose targeted sanctions on South African goods, restrict work permits for South African nationals, or review bilateral trade agreements.
Under AfCFTA rules, however, such measures would need to be justified and could invite disputes at the AfCFTA Secretariat.
Some analysts argue for a more surgical approach: coordinated diplomatic downgrades, travel advisories, and suspension of non-essential travel, as Ghana did in mid-2026.
Reciprocal action against South African businesses operating abroad has also been floated, including temporary closure of Shoprite, MTN, and Multichoice outlets in retaliatory protests.
But economists warn that economic punishment often backfires, harming migrant workers in South Africa and consumers in the punishing countries.
The third path is criminal accountability for individuals.
Under the principle of universal jurisdiction, countries could investigate and prosecute South African citizens who organized or incited attacks if those individuals travel abroad.
Civil lawsuits for compensation are another option.
Documented victims who lost property and businesses could file claims in South African courts, and if denied justice, take those cases to regional human rights bodies.
The challenge is evidence, legal costs, and the slow pace of litigation.
What complicates all of this is politics.
South Africa sees itself as a gateway to the continent and resists being lectured by smaller states.
It also argues that the violence is criminality, not state policy, and points to arrests and prosecutions as proof of action.
Other African governments, however, say that failure to prevent organized vigilante ultimatums and public hate speech amounts to state tolerance.
In practice, the most effective punishment may not be legal at all, but reputational.
The phrase “Ubuntu is dead” now trends every time violence erupts, and it damages South Africa’s soft power as a leader of African unity.
International media coverage, AU debates, and public shaming by peer states force Pretoria to respond with policy changes, police deployments, and bilateral protection agreements.
Some countries are also choosing exit over confrontation, by funding assisted repatriation and warning citizens against travel.
Ultimately, African countries have tools: AU petitions, human rights litigation, economic leverage, and diplomatic pressure.
But using them requires unity, and that unity has been missing because each country calculates its own economic exposure to South Africa.
Until that changes, the punishment for xenophobia will remain mostly symbolic, and documented migrants will continue to bear the cost in lost lives, looted shops, and destroyed businesses.
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