Organization of African Unity
During the first post–Cold War decade, the most important regional organization in Africa was the Organization of African Unity. Estab-lished in May 1963 by thirty-two independent African states, the OAU promoted national liberation in territories still under colonial or white
minority rule and provided liberation movements with military, eco-nomic, and diplomatic support. For nearly four decades the organization served as an important voice for African emancipation. Many African states argued that the OAU should assume responsibility for conflict pre-vention and resolution on the continent, countering the great-power bias on the UN Security Council. However, the OAU Charter was the product of compromise, drafted under the conservative influence of Ethiopian emperor Haile Selassie and sensitive to the political realities of a divided continent. It prohibited the organization’s interference in the internal af-fairs of member states. Moreover, unity among African states was both fragile and superficial. The OAU was marked by political, economic, religious, and personal rivalries, and the organization represented the interests of autocratic rulers more often than those of grassroots citizens.
Because the organization did not possess enforcement powers, its reso-lutions had little effect beyond their moral appeal.
African Union
In July 2002 the OAU was succeeded by the African Union, an amal-gam of the OAU and the African Economic Community, which was established in 1991 to promote African economic integration. Address-ing deficiencies in the OAU mandate, the AU’s mission is to integrate Africa politically and economically and to promote peace, security, sta-bility, and sustainable development on the continent. In contrast to the OAU Charter, which supported the principle of noninterference in the internal affairs of member states, the AU’s Constitutive Act permits the organization to take punitive action against member states that violate principles of democracy, good governance, and the rule of law. It may authorize military intervention in a member state if it determines that
“war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity” are being commit-ted or if the state’s actions threaten regional stability.7 However, even the AU’s strengthened mandate provides insufficient protection to victims of human rights abuses. The actions of corrupt or authoritarian regimes may fall outside the categories stipulated in the Constitutive Act, and governments that engage in human rights abuses are unlikely to support intervention in states with similar practices. The Constitutive Act autho-rizes the establishment of an African standby force composed of military, police, and civilian brigades from each of Africa’s five subregions, which would be capable of rapid deployment to crisis areas. However, such a
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force was still in the formative stages in 2017. Other factors that weaken AU effectiveness include rivalry between Nigeria and South Africa and AU dependence on outside sources for funding. Many of the organiza-tion’s peacekeeping missions are financed by extracontinental entities—
most importantly, the UN, the EU, the United States, and France. Their financial clout gives these external powers undue control over AU mis-sions and actions.
European Union
Established in 1958 to promote economic cooperation between European countries, the European Economic Community (EEC) was renamed the European Union in 1993, reflecting an expanded mission that embraced foreign policy and security, climate change and environment, and inter-national development and migration. In 2017, the EU had twenty-eight members.8 Strong historical and geographic links and rich natural re-sources have made Africa central to European concerns. The Joint Africa- EU Strategy, endorsed in 2007 by eighty African and European heads of state, highlighted areas of common interest, including peace and se-curity, international development and migration, and democracy, good governance, and human rights. The EU has provided substantial funds to strengthen African conflict resolution, security, and counterterrorism capacities and for African-led peacekeeping operations, such as the AU mission in Somalia. Its financial role gives the European organization significant influence over African affairs and establishes yet another kind of Northern dominance. The EU has also contributed considerable sums to develop African capacities to impede the flow of refugees and other migrants to Europe, an effort that serves European, rather than African, interests.
Arab League
Established in 1945 by Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Trans- jordan, and Yemen, the League of Arab States, or Arab League, was a product of the pan-Arab nationalist movement that rose in response to Ottoman and European rule in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
The League’s vision also harkened back to the Islamic caliphates estab-lished by Muhammad and his successors, which, during the seventh and eighth centuries, united all Muslims in a single political entity. The or-ganization aspired to promote collaboration between its member states,
to protect their independence and sovereignty, and to advance Arab interests more generally. It opposed the violent settlement of disputes between members and often mediated in regional conflicts. However, it had no mechanism to enforce compliance with its resolutions, and only member states that approved the resolutions were bound to adhere to them. As a result, actions taken in the name of the Arab League were often motivated by the interests of particular member states, which fi-nanced and spearheaded the operations. In fact, Arab unity was more a hope than a reality. The Arab world, like other invented communities, was torn by rivalries—political, economic, religious, and personal. Mem-ber states’ divergent interests often resulted in paralysis in the face of regional conflicts. Like the OAU, the Arab League has generally repre-sented the interests of powerful autocratic regimes rather than those of its members’ citizens.9
By 1958, the League included four newly independent North African nations: Libya, Sudan, Morocco, and Tunisia. In 2017 it comprised twenty- two member states, ten of which were African.10 Although it remained on the sidelines in many African conflicts, the Arab League or its mem-bers played significant roles in some. Acting unilaterally or through the League, Egypt, Iran, Libya, Saudi Arabia, Syria, the United Arab Emir-ates, and Yemen intervened in Somalia’s affairs after the Cold War. The Council of the Arab League endorsed the UN-imposed no-fly zone in Libya in 2011, and member states Qatar and the United Arab Emirates participated in the NATO-led military operation that paved the way for regime change in that country. During the Arab Spring and its aftermath, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates supported opposing sides in Libya’s civil war and in Egypt, where an elected Islamist-led government was ousted in a military coup.