Negm: An Introduction to the African Union Environmental Treaties

Namira Negm (Director, African Migration Observatory; formerly, Legal Counsel, African Union) has published An Introduction to the African Union Environmental Treaties (Brill | Nijhoff 2023). Here's the abstract:

An Introduction to the African Union Environmental Treaties sheds light on the African Union legal regime related to environmental issues and provides expert analysis of how the African Union has transitioned from the former management of natural resources approach to strategies of preservation and protection. This book explores different areas of the environment, from livestock to plants, fertilizers, minerals and marine environment. Ambassador Namira Negm convincingly demonstrates the extent to which environmental issues are of critical importance to the African Union. Together with insightful commentary, the book provides full treaty texts and is an indispensable resource for all those interested in the African Union and environmental legal regimes.

Special Issue: The African Union, Pan-Africanism, and the Liberal World (Dis)Order

The latest issue of Global Studies Quarterly (Vol. 3, no. 3, July 2023) includes a special issue on "The African Union, Pan-Africanism, and the Liberal World (Dis)Order." Contents include:

• Rita Abrahamsen, Barbra Chimhandamba, & Farai Chipato, Introduction: The African Union, Pan-Africanism, and the Liberal World (Dis)Order
• Oumar Ba, Exit from Nuremberg to the Hague: The Malabo Protocol and the Pan-African Road to Arusha
• Farai Chipato, The Global Politics of African Identity: Pan-Africanism and the Challenge of Afropolitanism
• Samuel Ojo Oloruntoba, (Re)Negotiating Existence: Pan-Africanism and the Role of African Union in a Changing Global Order
• Antonia Witt, Forging an African Union Identity: The Power of Experience
• Kathryn Nash, The African Union and Emerging Patterns of Global Health Governance
• Thomas Kwasi Tieku & Afua Boatemaa Yakohene, Analyzing the African Continental Free Trade Area (the AfCFTA) from an Informality Perspective: A Beautiful House in the Wrong Neighborhood

Amao, Olivier, & Magliveras: The Emergent African Union Law: Conceptualization, Delimitation, and Application

Olufemi Amao (Univ. of Sussex - Law), Michèle Olivier (Dar Al-Hekma Univ. - Law), & Konstantinos D. Magliveras (Univ. of the Aegean - Mediterranean Studies) have published The Emergent African Union Law: Conceptualization, Delimitation, and Application (Oxford Univ. Press 2021). The table of contents is here. Here's the abstract:

This book is a groundbreaking study of the emergence of a unique African Union legal system, with contributions from a diverse collection of scholars and practitioners. It highlights how law stands at the heart of the successful regional integration effort in Africa and explores, among either issues, the extent to which African Union law is having an impact on domestic laws. This trend has been particularly noticeable in the area of human rights, the rule of law, democratic principles, and aspects of constitutional law. Furthermore, the book examines how the African Union is engendering new norms from its legal order, such as the non-indifference norm, the norm on unconstitutional change of government, free trade, free movement of people, economic regulation, and democratic constitutionalism.

The book also analyses how the African Union legal order has led to the emergence of a continental-level judicial system. The quasi-judicial system put in place under the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights, and administered by the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights, is now complemented by the African Court on Human and Peoples' Rights. This book contends that the continental-level judicial system is playing a crucial role in the moulding of emergent norms.

Kriener & Wilson: The Rise of Nonviolent Protest Movements and the African Union’s Legal Framework

Florian Kriener (Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public and International Law) & Elizabeth A. Wilson (Rutgers Univ. - Law) have posted an ESIL Reflection on The Rise of Nonviolent Protest Movements and the African Union’s Legal Framework.

Mystris: An African Criminal Court: The African Union’s Rethinking of International Criminal Justice

Dominique Mystris (Univ. of Pretoria - South African SDG Hub) has published An African Criminal Court: The African Union’s Rethinking of International Criminal Justice (Brill | Nijhoff 2021). Here's the abstract:

In An African Criminal Court Dominique Mystris explores the potential contribution of a regional criminal court to international criminal law and justice across the continent. As set out in the Malabo Protocol, the court’s approach to international core crimes builds on from the current international system. Yet, the additional crimes and region-centric approach reflect the continental concerns.

To fully realise the court’s contribution, the African Union’s institutional objectives and approach to justice, peace and security, the author argues for the inclusion of the court within the African Peace and Security Architecture. By adopting such a holistic understanding of the Malabo Protocol court within the AU structure, a more accurate depiction of the potential of an African criminal court emerges.

Pillai: The African Union, the International Criminal Court, and the International Court of Justice: At the Fault Lines of International Accountability

Priya Pillai has posted an ASIL Insight on The African Union, the International Criminal Court, and the International Court of Justice: At the Fault Lines of International Accountability.

Warner: The African Union and Article 4(h): Understanding Changing Norms of Sovereignty and Intervention in Africa Through an Integrated Levels-of-Analysis Approach

Jason Warner (U.S. Military Academy - Department of Social Sciences and Combating Terrorism Center) has published The African Union and Article 4(h): Understanding Changing Norms of Sovereignty and Intervention in Africa Through an Integrated Levels-of-Analysis Approach (in Democracy, Constitutionalism, and Politics in Africa: Historical Contexts, Developments, and Dilemmas, Eunice N. Sahle ed., 2017). Here's the abstract:

The emergence of the African Union (AU) in 2002 was notable for a number of reasons, especially its inclusion of Article 4(h)—which explicitly allows for the AU to intervene in member states’ affairs—in its Constitutive Act. What caused the inclusion of the highly progressive Article 4(h), especially given the states’ historical commitments to a norm of non-intervention? This chapter suggests that to understand the normative shifts leading to the inclusion of Article (h) in the AU’s Constitutive Act, one must employ an explicitly multi-causal, integrated levels-of-analysis approach, taking into account inputs that informed Article 4(h)’s development at the systemic, pan-African, regional, statist, and leadership levels of analysis.

Pergantis: UN-AU Partnerships in International Peace and Security

Vassilis Pergantis (American College of Thessaloniki; Aristotle Univ. of Thessaloniki - Law) has posted UN-AU Partnerships in International Peace and Security: Allocation of Responsibility in Case of UN Support to Regional Missions (International Organizations Law Review, forthcoming). Here's the abstract:

In the last decade the United Nations and the African Union have forged a close partnership in matters of international peace and security. This paper attempts to shed light to the multifaceted role of the UN on the strategic and operational planning and evolution, as well as the funding, of regional (AU) peace support operations. Such involvement goes well beyond a simple authorization by the UN Security Council and raises crucial questions in respect of the allocation of responsibility between the UN and the AU. The analysis of the relevant responsibility allocation clauses showcases that a holistic approach should be adopted that does not micromanage the different aspects of the UN involvement in regional missions, but treats them as an aggregate that should be taken into account as a whole when allocating responsibility. Otherwise, the soft or indirect (but crucial) influence exercised by the UN will inevitably escape responsibility.

Iyi: Humanitarian Intervention and the AU-ECOWAS Intervention Treaties Under International Law

John-Mark Iyi has published Humanitarian Intervention and the AU-ECOWAS Intervention Treaties Under International Law: Towards a Theory of Regional Responsibility to Protect (Springer 2016). Here's the abstract:

The book reconciles the conflicts and legal ambiguities between African Union and ECOWAS law on the use of force on the one hand, and the UN Charter and international law on the other hand. In view of questions relating to African Union and UN relationship in the maintenance of international peace and security in Africa in recent years, the book examines the legal issues involved and how they can be resolved. By explaining the legal theory underpinning the validity of the AU-ECOWAS laws, the work provides a legal basis for the adoption of the AU-ECOWAS laws as the frameworks for the implementation of the R2P in Africa.

Nouwen: The Importance of Frames: The Diverging Conflict Analyses of the United Nations and the African Union

Sarah Nouwen (Univ. of Cambridge - Law) has posted the abstract to The Importance of Frames: The Diverging Conflict Analyses of the United Nations and the African Union. Here's the abstract:

International legal scholarship on the African Union has focused on the question whether international law allows the AU to intervene militarily in its member states in the absence of authorization by the UN Security Council. The reality of recent practice, however, has revealed the opposite scenario: the AU has often not intervened, even when not only its own Constitutive Act, but also international law on the use of force more generally, allowed it. Indeed, in some situations, the African Union opposed the intervention that the UN had authorized. These remarks made at the Annual Conference of the American Society of International Law explore one possible explanation. It argues that differences in views between the United Nations and the African Union on how to resolve crises in Africa have stemmed from the different lenses through which they have looked at these crises. The different lenses explain disagreements between the AU and the UN about how a conflict is framed. As a result of different framing, the AU and UN differ in their analyses of the conflict and in their theories of change, in other words, in how the situation can be transformed from one of conflict into one of (relative) peace.

de Wet: Regional Organisations and Arrangements and Their Relationship with the United Nations: The Case of the African Union

Erika de Wet (Univ. of Pretoria - Law) has posted Regional Organisations and Arrangements and Their Relationship with the United Nations: The Case of the African Union (in The Oxford Handbook on the Use of Force, Marc Weller ed., forthcoming). Here's the abstract:

The contribution analysis the relationship between the UNSC and the AU in peace enforcement operations in Africa. It pays specific reference to the relationship of Article 4(h) of the AU Constitutive Act with Art 53 of the UN Charter. It also analyzes the peace operations undertaken by the AU to date.

Jeng: Peacebuilding in the African Union: Law, Philosophy and Practice

Abou Jeng (Univ. of Warwick - Centre for Human Rights in Practice) has published Peacebuilding in the African Union: Law, Philosophy and Practice (Cambridge Univ. Press 2012). Here's the abstract:

Particularly in the context of internal conflicts, international law is frequently unable to create and sustain frameworks for peace in Africa. In Peacebuilding in the African Union, Abou Jeng explores the factors which have prevented such steps forward in the interaction between the international legal order and postcolonial Africa. In the first work of its kind, Jeng considers whether these limitations necessitate recasting the existing conceptual structure and whether the Constitutive Act of the African Union provides exactly this opportunity through its integrated peace and security framework. Through the case studies of Burundi and Somalia, Jeng examines the structures and philosophy of the African Union and assesses the capacity of its practices in peacemaking. In so doing, this book will be of great practical value to scholars and legal practitioners alike.

Yusuf & Ouguergouz: The African Union: Legal and Institutional Framework

Abdulqawi A. Yusuf (Judge, International Court of Justice) & Fatsah Ouguergouz (Judge, African Court of Human and Peoples' Rights) have published The African Union: Legal and Institutional Framework (Martinus Nijhoff Publishers 2012). The table of contents is here. Here's the abstract:

This work is an introduction to the origins, law and institutions of the African Union (AU). It examines the evolution, structures, legal standards and operational activities of this Pan-African organization, which replaced the Organization of African Unity (OAU) 10 years ago.

Although the AU came into being in 2001, so far there is no comprehensive work which addresses the institution, its organs and structures, the scope of its operations, its legal framework and the normative standards underpinning its objectives and functions or those underlying the conventions, charters and protocols it has enacted or inherited from its predecessor, the OAU. It is the aim of this work to fill that void. It has been conceived as a manual, and not as a scholarly treatise, so as to serve as a basic introduction to the institutional and legal framework of the AU and its affiliated organizations. It is meant to offer a concise and clear picture of the nature and workings of a continental institution aimed not only at promoting peace and unity in Africa but also at ensuring human security, development, human rights protection and good governance for the peoples of Africa.

Barthel: Die neue Sicherheits- und Verteidigungsarchitektur der Afrikanischen Union: Eine völkerrechtliche Untersuchung

David Barthel has published Die neue Sicherheits- und Verteidigungsarchitektur der Afrikanischen Union: Eine völkerrechtliche Untersuchung (Springer 2011). Here's the abstract:

2002 wurde mit der Gründung der Afrikanischen Union die afrikanische Sicherheits- und Verteidigungsarchitektur auf eine neue Grundlage gestellt. Die vorliegende Arbeit untersucht die völkerrechtlichen Konsequenzen dieser Umstrukturierung. Nach einer detaillierten Analyse der organisationsrechtlichen und programmatischen Neuerungen werden die militärischen Eingriffsbefugnisse der Organisation auf ihre Rechtmäßigkeit hin überprüft und einer völkerrechtskonformen Auslegung zugeführt. Kritisch beleuchtet und an vier AU-Missionen überprüft wird ferner die Neubestimmung des Verhältnisses der Afrikanischen Union zu den Vereinten Nationen und den afrikanischen Regionalorganisationen. Nachgewiesen werden kann, dass die Afrikanische Union innovative strukturelle und programmatische Entwicklungen im Recht der Internationalen Organisationen angestoßen und sich im Mehrebenensystem konkurrierender Sicherheitsorganisationen im Einklang mit geltendem Völkerrecht neu positioniert hat.

Sarkin: The Role of the United Nations, the African Union and Africa's Sub-Regional Organizations in Dealing with Africa's Human Rights Problems

Jeremy Sarkin has published The Role of the United Nations, the African Union and Africa’s Sub-Regional Organizations in Dealing with Africa’s Human Rights Problems: Connecting Humanitarian Intervention and the Responsibility to Protect (Journal of African Law, Vol. 53, no. 1, p. 1, April 2009). Here's the abstract:

This article examines the basis for humanitarian intervention (HI) in the United Nations Charter, the African Union (AU) Charter and in a number of African subregional institutions. It traces the historical development of HI and argues that, while the right to HI emerged more than 100 years ago, that right also emerges from the Genocide Convention. The article argues that this treaty connects HI to the developing norm of the responsibility to protect (R2P) and examines the extent to which R2P is garnering wider support around the world. It focuses on the UN, and the various AU and sub-regional institutions and instruments that sanction HI. It assesses whether intervention can be authorized even in the absence of a UN Security Council mandate and examines the principles, application and interrelationship of R2P and HI in the African context. It traces the use of these norms in Africa, including in the various sub-regional structures, and evaluates the AU’s political will and capability to deal with conflict and human rights abuse.