ANNEX 3
OVERVIEW OF THE PEACE AND SECURITY MECHANISMS AND MANDATES OF SELECTED REGIONAL ORGANISATIONS
The African Union's Emerging Peace and Security Regime
Opportunities and Challenges for Delivering on the Responsibility to Protect
Kristiana Powell
The Arab Maghreb Union (AMU) operating in northern Africa is the only regional economic community that has not established a peace and security mechanism. The AMU has not met at head of state level since 1994, because of internal disagreement over Western Sahara.
The Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) has not adopted a formal protocol on peace and security. However, in 1999, COMESA Ministers of Foreign Affairs formally acknowledged that chronic insecurity in the region was compromising development and integration efforts. They agreed to meet annually to discuss peace and security issues in the region. COMESA has endorsed a number of state-centric guiding principles, including non-aggression between member states and the peaceful resolution of disputes between member states.
The Eastern African Community (EAC) has developed a Memorandum of Cooperation in Defence and has held joint meetings on small arms and light weapons, joint exercises for peace operations training, counter-terrorism and disaster management.
The Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS) has also developed a peace and security mechanism, the Conseil de Paix et de Sécurité de l’Afrique Centrale (COPAX), and an early warning system. The COPAX Protocol calls for the creation of a non-standing multinational force, Force Multinationale d’Afrique Centrale (FOMAC), that could be deployed in response to humanitarian crises, serious threats to peace and security in the region, and unconstitutional changes of government. FOMAC has already participated in a military mission to the Central African Republic in 2002/03 with assistance from France, although its capacity for deployment and sustainment was limited.
The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) remains West Africa ’s principle multilateral organisation and has the most developed peace and security mandate and mechanisms of Africa ’s regional organisations. Its Protocol Establishing the Mechanism for Conflict Prevention, Management, Resolution, Peacekeeping and Security underscores the region’s willingness to intervene militarily, if necessary, for human protection purposes by calling for a multilateral response to situations that threaten to escalate into “humanitarian disasters”, that constitute “serious and massive violations of human rights and the rule of law, and that present “a serious threat to peace and security” in the region. ECOWAS also possesses the operational infrastructure to offer military responses to conflict. Its peace and security protocol authorised the establishment of the ECOWAS Ceasefire Monitoring Group (ECOMOG), which has undertaken peacekeeping and peace enforcement with varying degrees of success and competency in Liberia (in the 1990s and again in 2003), Sierra Leone, Guinea-Bissau, and Côte d’Ivoire. As noted above, ECOWAS has also advanced on a proposal to develop an ECOWAS brigade-size standby force.
In Eastern African, the reinvigorated Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) has developed a peace and security mandate and established a conflict prevention, management, and resolution mechanism. In contrast to ECOWAS and SADC, IGAD does not possess the operational infrastructure to respond militarily to conflict. It has instead focused its efforts on “conflict prevention” through the on-going formation of a continental early warning system, and “conflict resolution” by mediating the (GoS-SPLM/A) peace processes in Sudan and offering critical support to the Somalia-Djibouti-led peace process.
Southern Africa has also developed a regional security mechanism to operate within the framework of the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC). In 1998, SADC created the Organ on Politics, Defence and Security (now the Organ on Politics, Defence and Security Cooperation) to serve as the region’s primary conflict prevention, management and resolution mechanism. The SADC Protocol lays out the provisions for multilateral enforcement action under the auspices of the Organ. Conditions under which intervention might be justified include intra-state crises characterised by “large scale violence between sections of the population or between a state and sections of the population, including genocide, ethnic cleansing and gross violations of human rights, a military coup or other threat against the legitimate authority of a state; a condition of civil war or insurgency; and, a conflict which threatens peace and security in the region or in the territory of another State Party”. SADC states have limited experience with executing multilateral interventions, including the highly problematic and controversial interventions in 1998 in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) by Zimbabwe, Angola and Namibia, and in Lesotho in the same year by South Africa and Botswana.
