In managing peace and security conundrums of African states the African Union grips or drips? A case study of selected countries

2018 ◽  
Vol 15 (4) ◽  
pp. 99-117
Author(s):  
Daniel Chigudu
Keyword(s):  
African Union ◽  
Peace And Security

Regional Arrangements and the Maintenance of International Peace and Security: The Role of the African Union Peace and Security Council

2011 ◽  
Vol 48 ◽  
pp. 97-149 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charles Riziki Majinge
Keyword(s):  
United Nations ◽  
Security Council ◽  
African Union ◽  
International Peace ◽  
African Countries ◽  
Un Security Council ◽  
Peace And Security ◽  
The United Nations

SummaryThis article examines the role of regional arrangements under the Charter of the United Nations (UN Charter) in the maintenance of international peace and security. The African Union Peace and Security Council (AU PSC), the organ within the AU charged with addressing threats to international peace and security on the African continent, is used as a case study. The author contends that the major challenges facing regional arrangements in exercising mandates under Article 53 of the UN Charter of the United Nations have more to do with inadequate financial and logistical resources than the nature of those mandates. Taking the AU’s role in Somalia, Sudan, and other African countries as examples, the article demonstrates that the AU PSC has failed to achieve its objective of maintaining peace and security precisely because the United Nations (UN) Security Council — a more powerful and better resourced organ — has failed to live up to its responsibility of extending the assistance necessary to enable the AU PSC to perform its functions. Consequently, the author concludes that the UN Security Council, when delegating powers to regional arrangements to maintain international peace and security, should provide adequate resources to such regional arrangements, especially those that will otherwise have minimal or no capacity to fulfil their mandate effectively.

scholarly journals SADC Mediation in Zimbabwe's Global Political Agreement (GPA): A Reflection on Opportunities and Complexities

2014 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 21
Author(s):  
Modeni M. Sibanda
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Coming Out ◽  
Democratic Institutions ◽  
Member States ◽  
Peace And Security ◽  
Universal Human Rights ◽  
Regional Organisation ◽  
Power And Authority

This article analyses the opportunities and complexities of the SADC mediation in Zimbabwe’s Global Political Agreement (GPA) in facilitating and operationalising theprinciples and values of peace, security, human rights and democracy as set out in Article 4 of the SADC treaty. It attempts to interrogate the extent to which the regional grouping’s mechanisms for enforcing its principles and values have been successful.   The article argues that despite SADC’s noble commitment to promoting the development of democratic institutions and practices, as well as encouraging the observance of universal human rights, peace and security, the resolution of the Zimbabwe crisis shows that, in practice, the operationalisation of SADC protocol principles and values have been a sorry saga of delays, secrecy, purported agreements and nothing concrete coming out of it.  Using the Zimbabwe case study, this article further argues that SADC either lacks appropriate power and authority or is reluctant to hold member states accountable.  This seems so, given that as a regional body, it has allowed itself to be utterly inadequate to the task envisioned by the organ in resolving the Zimbabwe crisis. The paper concludes that the sum of all this has had the effect of exposing SADC and it being perceived as a weak regional organisation.

The African Union and coercive diplomacy: the case of Burundi

2018 ◽  
Vol 56 (4) ◽  
pp. 673-696 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nina Wilén ◽  
Paul D. Williams
Keyword(s):  
Conflict Management ◽  
State Sovereignty ◽  
Military Force ◽  
African Union ◽  
Management Tools ◽  
Coercive Diplomacy ◽  
Civilian Protection ◽  
Peace And Security ◽  
New Type ◽  
The Government

AbstractIn December 2015, the African Union (AU) took the unprecedented step of threatening to use military force against the government of Burundi's wishes in order to protect civilians caught up in the country's intensifying domestic crisis. This article traces the background to this decision and analyses the effectiveness and credibility of the AU's use of coercive diplomacy as a tool of conflict management. After its usual range of conflict management tools failed to stem the Burundian crisis, the AU Commission and Peace and Security Council tried a new type of military compellence by invoking Article 4(h) of the Union's Constitutive Act. We argue that the threatened intervention never materialised because of (1) the Burundian government's astute diplomacy and (2) several African autocrats’ resistance to setting a precedent for future interventions where concerns about civilian protection might override state sovereignty.

scholarly journals The African Peace and Security Architecture as a Tool for the Maintenance of Peace and Security. Part 1

2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 179-194
Author(s):  
Bewuketu Dires Gardachew
Keyword(s):  
Early Warning ◽  
Early Warning System ◽  
Warning System ◽  
Peace Building ◽  
Security Architecture ◽  
African Union ◽  
Effective Implementation ◽  
Post Conflict ◽  
Peace And Security ◽  
Operational Structure

This study critically explores the extent to which the African Peace and Security Architecture (APSA) (such as the African Standby Force (ASF), the Continental Early Warning System (CEWS), Panel of the Wise (PoW) and the Peace Fund (PF)) have been successful in achieving their institutional objectives, as well as the degree to which they are able to contribute to the work of the African Union Peace and Security Council (AU PSC). The AU PSC as a key pillar of the APSA is the main decision-making body regarding issues of peace and security. In order to achieve its responsibility, the AU PSC shall be supported by the African Standby Force, the Continental Early Warning System, Panel of the Wise and the Peace Fund. APSA is the umbrella term for the key African Union (AU) mechanisms for promoting peace, security and stability in the African continent. More specifically, it is an operational structure for the effective implementation of the decisions taken in the areas of conflict prevention, peace-making, peace support operations and intervention, as well as peace-building and post-conflict reconstruction. APSA is envisioned as a means by which Africa can take a greater role in managing peace and security on the continent, with the objective of offering “African solutions to African problems”.

Part V Global and Regional Security Mechanisms, Ch.53 The African Union: Security Governance under the African Peace and Security Architecture

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Owino Jerusha Asin
Keyword(s):  
Institutional Development ◽  
Regional Security ◽  
Security Architecture ◽  
African Union ◽  
Dense Network ◽  
Collective Security ◽  
Union Security ◽  
Security Governance ◽  
Security Regime ◽  
Peace And Security

This chapter describes the security regime of the African Union(AU) mandated to promote peace and stability under the AU: the African Peace and Security Architecture (APSA) established in 2003. The chapter charts the institutional development of the mechanisms under the APSA against a volatile threat matrix and the deployment of these mechanisms in situational exigencies. It also illustrates the nature of the APSA as a security regime complex by unpacking the dense network of partnerships that operate within it. The chapter next demonstrates the pillars on which the APSA rests by engaging with select interventions made under each pillar. While the chapter concludes that the APSA has been proven to be an indispensable mechanism in addressing some conflicts, it also partly mirrors the past, present, and potential future of the large and fragmented continent it was designed for. The APSA is therefore not the penultimate representation of a collective security apparatus, but an evolving work in progress.

scholarly journals ‘UhuRuto’ and Other Leviathans: The International Criminal Court and the Kenyan Political Order

2014 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 399-427 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sara Kendall
Keyword(s):  
International Criminal ◽  
Criminal Court ◽  
United Nations Security Council ◽  
African Union ◽  
Legal Process ◽  
Political Effects ◽  
The Hague ◽  
A Site ◽  
Domestic Level

The International Criminal Court’s intervention in Kenya emerged from a complex and contested political history, with different actors advocating for domestic solutions and others arguing for an international legal process in The Hague. Earlier positions have been disavowed and others have changed in the dynamic Kenyan political environment. The icc intervention has produced a number of political effects, including the imbrication of the icc process with electoral politics. This article takes up the case study of the Kenyan situation as a site of political contestation mediated through legal discourse. It considers these dynamics on two registers: at the geopolitical level (considering the relationships between the icc, the African Union, and the United Nations Security Council) as well as at the domestic level (both state and civil society). By tracing the discourses through which these contestations transpire, this article highlights some of the themes, strategies, and practices through which the icc’s intervention has been received.

un Security Council Resolutions before uk Courts

2016 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 39-64
Author(s):  
Alexander Orakhelashvili
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Security Council ◽  
Common Law ◽  
The Past ◽  
Primary Responsibility ◽  
Un Security Council ◽  
Peace And Security ◽  
Effective Performance ◽  
The Uk

Over the past decade, the effective performance by the UN Security Council of its primary responsibility in the area of peace and security has increasingly become contingent on the implementation of its decisions within the national legal systems of the UN Member States. An examination of this issue in the context of the British legal system could offer a useful case-study of the ways to enhance the effectiveness of the UN collective security mechanism, to enforce the limits on the legitimacy of that mechanism, and also to highlight the practical difficulties that may accompany the attempts to apply Security Council resolutions domestically. This contribution exposes all these issues, focusing on the practice of the uk courts over the past decade. It examines the mediation of the effect of Security Council resolutions into English law through the 1946 United Nations Act, the royal prerogative and other common law techniques. After that, the contribution moves on to examine the English courts’ handling of the normative conflict between a Security Council resolution and other sources of international law.

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