Regional Peace and Security Architecture: Challenges of Compatibility between Africa Union Peace and Security Council & Regional Economic Communities
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Date
2016-06
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
One of the fundamental changes that have come about with the transformation of the
Organization of African Unity into the African Union is the establishment of a comprehensive
peace and security regime. The African Peace and Security Architecture is institutionalized
within the framework of the AU Constitutive Act and the Protocol on the Peace and Security
Council.
APSA is a key mechanism for implementing the AU’s vision of promoting peace, security and
stability in the continent. The African Union regards Africa’s sub regional organizations as an
integral part of its peace and security framework and building blocks of the African Peace and
Security Architecture. Therefore the coordination and harmonization of the African Union Peace
and Security Council with sub regional organizations is significant. To strengthen this relation a
Memorandum of Understanding on Cooperation in the area of peace and security was signed
between them.
The study seeks to describe and analyze the relationship of the African Peace and Security
Council with sub regional organizations. To this end the paper first discuss the global peace and
Security Architecture and then the Regional peace and security structure. The structure and the
institutional design of AU PSC will be dealt by further analyzing the provisions of the
Constitutive Act, the MOU and the Protocol on the Relation between the African Union and the
Regional Economic Communities. The paper examines the structures of selected RECs and
studies their involvement in the area of peace and security and the coordination with the AU
PSC.
Finally the paper analyses the prospects and the challenges on the working relationship between
the AU PSC and the RECs. The paper concludes with recommendation for better developing the
institutional relationship between AU PSC and RECs in order to facilitate more lasting and
sustainable peace and security in Africa
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fundamental changes that have come about with the transformation, Organization of African Unity into the African