The Universal Periodic Review Mechanism (UPR) ofthe UN Human Rights Council and the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) reflect a growing trend in intemational organizations to utilize peer review processes to assess and improve member state govemance and human rights performance. The two mechanisms are distinct in many ways. For example, the APRM undertakes a more in-depth and rigorous examination of a broader range of issues. Both review mechanisms, however, also have similarities e.g. they emphasize follow-up and actions to be taken as a result ofthe reviews and are products of a consensus decision-making process based on voluntary engagement. They represent an evolutionary process by which intemational norms can be integrated in a national context.

This article argues that, after the recent boom, the African Mining Vision (AMV), upon making development central in the extractive industry, is a paradigm whose time has come. We hypothesize that the Vision is forwardlooking with a robust ideational foundation, able to seize emerging policy windows towards lasting paradigm shift for Africa's extractive sector. The article presents a dynamic framework for analysing policy change in the extractive sector in Africa, based on the power of ideas and interests networks. While the crisis in the sector presents an opportunity, the article analyses the binding political economy constraints that African governments would have to overcome at the global, regional and country levels to implement the transformative ideas of the AMV. The article presents a matrix systematically analysing possible scenarios for implementing the Africa Mining Vision. The implementation of the AMV would likely be non-linear. Vested interests, including resistance to change and diversity of country contexts, could lead to varied outcomes in the implementation of AMV in the short and medium terms.

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