CHAPTER 3: THE AFRICAN UNION’S PEACE AND SECURITY ARCHITECTURE
3.4 THE ROLE AND FUNCTIONS OF THE PEACE AND SECURITY COUNCIL
the two bodies are directly linked to the stability of the continent. NEPAD and the CSSDCA place emphasis on human security, whilst the central instrument of the AU’s new peace and security architecture is the PSC, which is modelled after the UN Security Council.
3.4 THE ROLE AND FUNCTIONS OF THE PEACE AND
The latter two principles depict the most important difference between the AU and its predecessor, the OAU. At the same time these principles bring the most difficult implementation aspect to the AU security framework.
While recognising sovereign equality and the principle of non-interference, they also recognise rights to intervene in the internal states of member states. According to Ajulu (2004:271), what is lacking in this arrangement is the fact that the Constitutive Act or the PSC does not state which criteria the Assembly should use to make decisions on intervention. This could easily lead to adopting declarations but without the commitment to implement them. Baimu and Sturman (2003:5) further argue that this lack of clarity on when and how interventions should be conducted may enable leaders to act in order to protect state security instead of human security as it was intended. It was hoped that the fact that such decisions will be taken through a two-third majority vote as per Article 7 of the Constitutive Act would help guard against such a situation. From the past, it is clear that African states have “fostered a kleptocratic ruling elite whose most distinctive trademark has been the systematic deployment of the state for predatory activities” (Ajulu, 2002:3). Can the new African leaders reinvent themselves, and put human security before state security?
On a positive note, the Assembly will decide an intervention on two levels:
on its own initiative (Article 4(h)) and at the request of a member state (Article 4(j)). This means that the Assembly will not be obliged to wait for the consent of the member state concerned. But the bottom line, as alluded to by Ajulu (2002:2), is that sovereignty is likely to remain one of the areas of unmitigated contestation, even in future AU efforts to bring peace to the continent. Issues emanating from interpretation of sovereignty have been discussed in Chapter II, under State Sovereignty and the Need for Intervention. What might be important is the power vested in the PSC.
Through the PSC the AU has more authority than its forerunner, the OAU.
Amongst others, the PSC has the authority to:
• undertake peacemaking and peacebuilding missions;
• develop guidelines and authorise peace support missions;
• recommend to the Assembly intervention in a member state as well as approve the modalities for the intervention;
• institute sanctions against member states in cases of unconstitutional changes of government;
• implement the defence policy of the AU;
• pursue action against international terrorism;
• promote regional cooperation regarding the peace and security agenda;
• take appropriate action where the sovereignty of a state is threatened by acts of aggression; and
• support and facilitate humanitarian action in situations of armed conflicts or major natural disasters (African Union, 2002:Article 7).
The PSC comprises fifteen member states, five elected for a three-year term and the remaining ten for a period of two years. Decisions are based on consensus, but in the case of failing, voting can be used. Voting has to be done by at least two thirds of members and decided by majority. The chairmanship is rotated amongst members on a monthly basis (African Union, 2002:Article 8).
The PSC has four main components aimed at helping it accomplish these challenging tasks and most importantly to meet its objectives. These are the Panel of the Wise, a Continental Early Warning System, the ASF and a Special Fund. The Panel of the Wise will at any given time comprise of five highly respected African personalities who must have distinguished themselves and contributed to the course of peace, security and development of the continent (African Union, 2002:Article 11). The five members must be chosen from the five respective regions11. The panel will be responsible to advise the PSC and the Chairperson of the Commission on all matters relating to the promotion and maintenance of peace, security and stability.
The Continental Early Warning System shall consist of an observation and monitoring centre, that is a Situation Room at the Conflict Management Directorate at AU Headquarters, and will be responsible for data collection and analysis (African Union, 2002:Article 12). There will also be such observation rooms at sub-regional level linked directly to the one at AU Headquarters. The Early Warning System will collaborate with the UN and its agencies and other relevant international organisations to facilitate its effective functioning (Cilliers and Sturman, 2004:101). Article 12(4) of the Protocol Relating to the Establishment of PSC also maintains that the Early Warning System shall develop an early warning module based on clearly
11 The five regions of the AU are the Southern African Development Community (Southern Africa), the Economic Community of Western African States (Western Africa), the Inter- Governmental Authority on Development (Eastern Africa), the Economic Community of Central African States (Central Africa) and the Arab Magreb Union (Northern Africa).
defined and accepted political, economic, social, military and humanitarian indicators that will be used to analyse developments on the continent so as to recommend the best course of action to the PSC. This requirement sets the stage for an objective process, where the Early Warning System tracks situations in its member states and alerts the PSC via its chairman.
In essence, the information gathered through the Continental Early Warning System will be used timeously to advise the PSC on potential conflicts and threats on the continent. It will probably be difficult to interpret and convince AU member states to agree that certain situations within the AU itself are actually indicators warranting some form of action. The present situation in Darfur is an example of such a challenge where the state concerned claims that things are in order while innocent people are being killed. As rightly observed by Golaszinski (2004:7) and Cilliers and Sturman (2004:101), in Africa, “good governance and conflict prevention are two sides of the same coin”. Indicators of intra-state conflict and regional instability have repeatedly proved to be abuse of power and transgression of human rights, bad governance and circumvention of democracy. In most of these cases, there was never consensus or acceptance that a crisis indeed existed warranting some intervention.
The PSC also has a special fund known as the Peace Fund governed by relevant financial rules and regulations of the AU. According to the PSC Protocol, Article 21(2), the Peace Fund shall be made up of “financial appropriations from the regular budget of the Union” and from other sources, including private sector, civil society and individuals and appropriate fund-raising activities. In times of deployment, states contributing troops may be expected to bear the cost of their participation during the first three months and be refunded within six months by the AU (African Union, 2002:Article 21 (6) and (7)). As late as 2004, the Peace Fund was funded at 6% from member states’ annual contributions, which was too small to support any peacekeeping mission (Golaszinski: 2004:8).
The last component and probably the most important in terms of peace and security, is the ASF, which is discussed separately below.
Some analysts, including Cilliers and Sturman (2004:98), question the wisdom of prioritising the PSC, which is more expensive to operate than departments such as the Political Affairs Department. In essence, it is a choice between conflict prevention, management and resolution (PSC) against conflict prevention through political dialogue, democratic
institutions, transparency and accountability. They further argue that the development of a Political Affairs Department12 could be more useful as an early warning indicator, which could hopefully avoid conflicts. With this view in mind, political dialogue, which was the main bargaining weapon before the establishment of the AU, failed to stop conflicts in Africa.
Therefore it is a reasonable supposition that political dialogue has to be complemented by military coercion.
3.5 THE ROLE AND FUNCTIONS OF THE AFRICAN STANDBY