African Union
The African Union (AU) is a continental organization consisting of 55 member states in Africa. It aims to promote unity, cooperation, and development among African nations, and to address political, economic, and social challenges on the continent. The AU also works to advance peace and security, human rights, and sustainable development in Africa.
5 Key excerpts on "African Union"
eBook - ePubAfrican peace
Regional norms from the Organization of African Unity to the African Union
- Kathryn Nash(Author)
- 2021(Publication Date)
- Manchester University Press(Publisher)
...11 The advent of the African Union Unlike the OAU, the AU was created through a multi-step process over several years. In July 1999, African Heads of State and Government decided to convene an extraordinary summit to discuss the political and economic integration of the continent. This was held in Sirte, Libya on 8–9 September and culminated in the Sirte Declaration. The declaration affirmed the intention of African leaders to establish a new organization – the AU – that would strengthen the unity of the continent and allow African states to achieve their economic goals while also eliminating the curse of conflicts in Africa, “which constituted a major impediment to the implementation of the development and integration agenda.” 1 The Constitutive Act of the AU was negotiated at the ministerial level along with experts and then unanimously adopted by the OAU Assembly of Heads of State and Government at the Lomé Summit in July 2000. The Constitutive Act entered into force on 26 May 2001 when it had been ratified by two-thirds of the member states of the OAU after which there was a period of transition. The 38th ordinary session of the OAU Assembly in Durban, Africa on 8 July 2002 was the last summit of the OAU, and the new institution of the AU held its inaugural session on 9–10 July 2002. 2 The focus of this book is to trace the creation and evolution of norms within the African regional institution from the OAU leading up to the creation of the AU...
eBook - ePubAfrican Foreign Policies
Selecting Signifiers to Explain Agency
- Paul-Henri Bischoff, Paul-Henri Bischoff(Authors)
- 2020(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...3 The African Union as a foreign policy player African agency in international cooperation Tshepo Gwatiwa Introduction The African Union (hereafter AU) is a complex organisation at the interstices of bilateral and multilateral foreign policy execution in Africa. In the first instance, the African continent’s future largely rests in the hands of the AU Commission. The AU is the face of Africa and represents continental interest when it negotiates and implements [international] agreements on issues such as international trade, international law, international security and other important issues. However, most of the precepts and codes in these issue areas are developed elsewhere, both in the West, and often also in the East. The challenge for the AU is to reconcile what are pre-determined, different forms of foreign funding and support, with African preferences and interests. As such, the organisation demonstrates externally oriented agency in its attempts to reconcile international agendas, while it incepts its own new regimes for the continent. This epitomises an organisation that finds itself in the perennial quest to protect African foreign policy agency in international politics, while it forges a unique and actionable course for African multilateralism and regionalism. According to Wight, as cited in Brown (2012), agency is defined as the ability to do something. Article 3(e) of the AU Constitute Act vests a foreign policy obligation on the AU by requiring that it “encourage[s] international cooperation, taking due account of the Charter of the United Nations” (AU, 2000: 5). Giving the AU this emphasis makes it easier for both Africa and the international community to relate since it reduces the transaction cost of having to deal on a bilateral basis (see Abbott & Snidal, 1998). This chapter considers the role of the AU as a foreign policy actor in global politics...
eBook - ePubThe African Union's Role in Peacekeeping
Building on Lessons Learned from Security Operations
- Isiaka Badmus(Author)
- 2015(Publication Date)
- Palgrave Macmillan(Publisher)
...The two-thirds requirement was met when, on 26 April 2001, Nigeria became the 36th country to deposit its instrument of ratification with the OAU Secretariat, and on 26 May 2001, the Act entered into force, exactly 30 days later. The AU was officially launched during the July 2001 OAU/AEC Summit in Lusaka, Zambia, but the African leaders agreed to dissolve and replace the OAU with the AU during the next meeting, fulfilling the 12-month transitional period as stipulated in Article 33 (1) of the Act. The AU finally replaced the OAU on 9 July 2002 in Durban, South Africa with much optimism that the new pan-African unity project will break with the OAU past and provide much-needed solutions to Africa’s manifold challenges in the 21st century. The questions that need to be addressed now are, How and to what extent does the AU represent a departure from its moribund predecessor? Can the AU’s objectives and principles, structures and organisation provide the answers to the continent’s socioeconomic, security and political problems? I answer these questions by examining the AU constitutive framework. The constitutive act of the African Union In the previous section, I examined Africa’s quest for greater unity by looking at the politics of the AU’s creation and how the divergent perspectives of the neo-Casablancans and the neo-Monrovians on OAU reform and African unity were accommodated through the fusion of their respective projects. Since the AU was established to provide strategic responses to the contemporary challenges facing Africa, it is important to examine some of its objectives and how the AU is institutionally designed, and also the powers and financial capabilities at the organisation’s disposal to effectively carry out its duties to achieve these objectives. This task will be accomplished through analysis of the Act...
eBook - ePubAfrican Union Law
The Emergence of a Sui Generis Legal Order
- Olufemi Amao(Author)
- 2018(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...p.48 4 Membership of the African Union Introduction Complete integration is the overarching ambition of the African Union (AU), and this is reflected in its emergent legal order. 1 The strategies put in place to achieve this have implications not only for Member States but also for citizens. The AU currently has 55 Member States (52 republics and three monarchies) spanning the entirety of the continent, including numbering over 1 billion citizens. This chapter examines the requirements for membership and accession to the AU by a non-Member State. The chapter considers how the accession process could moderate the behaviour of Member States. The chapter further examines provisions for withdrawal/renunciation of membership. The chapter analyses the legal implications of membership for States and citizens. The issue of citizenship and nationality is important because it has been at the root of some of the major conflicts in the continent. The AU legal order has the potential to reform and harmonise Member States’ rules and laws regarding citizenship and nationality. Accession to the OAU and AU membership It has been contended that the high level of non-compliance with membership obligations (mainly in relation to payment of dues and implementation of policies) in the predecessor organisation, the OAU, and in the AU is partly due to the failure to put in place strict membership accession conditionalities and to enforce such conditionalities. 2 Having such a strict regime has the added advantage of adequately preparing States for membership and using the process as a quality assurance mechanism. It could shape the behaviour of members and align the values of the AU with those of its membership...
eBook - ePubAfrica's New Peace and Security Architecture
Promoting Norms, Institutionalizing Solutions
- J. Gomes Porto, Ulf Engel, Ulf Engel(Authors)
- 2016(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...The withdrawal of Western and Soviet strategic support for many African regimes led to state collapse and an increase in the number and intensity of civil wars on the Continent. Conflict erupted in Liberia in 1989, in Somalia and Sierra Leone in 1991, in Algeria in 1992 and Burundi in 1993. Nine out of ten of the worst conflicts in the world in the 1990s took place on African soil (Hawkins 2003). An initial increase in United Nations (UN) peacekeeping operations in Africa in the early 1990s dwindled after the embarrassing failures of Somalia in 1993 and Rwanda in 1994. Thereafter, the OAU was encouraged to take regional responsibility for peacekeeping. A new team of OAU officials initiated a Report of the Secretary-General on the Fundamental Changes taking place in the World and their Implications for Africa: Proposals for an African Response, which resulted in a declaration of the same name by the Assembly in 1990. The declaration committed the member states to “further democratization” and to “the consolidation of democratic institutions” in their countries, to human rights and conflict resolution [AHG/Decl. 1 (XXVI)]. It also spoke of “reviving the ideals of Pan-Africanism”, associating the older rhetorical constructs of unity and solidarity with the regional enforcement of human rights and conflict mediation. A meeting of around 500 government and civil society delegates took place in Kampala in 1991, thereafter called the Conference on Stability, Security, Development and Cooperation in Africa (CSSDCA). The CSSDCA policy document made a range of commitments, including to constitutional governance, the rule of law, democracy and human rights as prerequisites for human security. The security proposals included the development of “continental peace-keeping machinery” and an “Africa Peace Council” made up of eminent persons. Institutional reform of the OAU was undertaken in the form of a treaty to create an African Economic Community (AEC) in 1991...
