Addressing gaps and limitations in the PSC Protocol
As the Peace and Security Council turns 20, its founding protocol has been found wanting in many respects
On 25 May 2024, the African Union (AU) Peace and Security Council (PSC) celebrated its 20th anniversary in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. The event commemorated the maturity of the Council, which opened its doors in March 2004, and was an opportunity to review challenges and progress. It also enabled the Council, whose experimental and learning phase is over, to ponder the future and plan further gains. But progress depends on identifying limitations, addressing weaknesses in its operations and adopting arrangements to entice new gains.
The circumstances that gave birth to the PSC date back to 1994, when the need for a fit-for-purpose continental organisation had gathered enormous policy attention. Nearly nine years of profound reflection preceded the eventual transformation of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) into the AU. These years allowed drafters to craft a living document capturing the reality of the time, answering gaps of the past, and preparing for future challenges. This was necessary as no document central to policy response and sensitive to human needs can be cast in stone. Also, no foresight is wise enough to provide adequately for the very-distant future.
PSC Protocol weaknesses must be addressed and arrangements adopted to entice new gains
However, the Protocol’s silence on certain issues and lack of clarity in providing guidance have had implications for the PSC and indicate the need for a comprehensive review of inherent limitations.
Responsibility without formats
Observers, scholars and policy practitioners in Africa concur that the two key principles inherent in the AU Constitutive Act, non-indifference and the right to intervene in member state affairs, are major innovations that would have been impossible to achieve in the days of the OAU. However, Africa has entrusted observance to or adherence by AU member states of the two innovations to the PSC through its Protocol. In practice, however, achievement may be difficult, due in part to the protocol not providing the implementation framework for such innovations, despite the drafters meaning well. This factor may not be well pronounced when a member state invites the AU to intervene to restore its normalcy. The PSC may be limited in how to handle cases where AU intervention is needed in grave circumstances such as genocide.
For example, the PSC’s decision to deploy an AU preventive mission in Burundi in 2015 to curtail a perceived impending genocide could not be implemented and the decision was ultimately set aside as invalid by the AU. Did the PSC make a mistake? It’s probable rather that the Council became lost in the mist owing principally to:
- The Protocol’s silence on practical steps to qualify, or disqualify, a given situation as constituting or nearing genocide.
- Silence on collective evaluation in the field by global, continental, regional and sub-regional entities in view of their multilayered working relationship.
- Absence of a definition or fixation in the Protocol about the time a PSC recommendation takes to reach and be considered by the AU Assembly before action may be taken.
The Council also faced the dilemma of whether the preventive mission was to be implemented by the African Standby Force (ASF) or another force. Realistically, it would be an ASF function to be deployed for missions to save and protect African lives. But then, a good reading of the PSC Protocol provisions shows a lack of precision in applying tools at the PSC’s disposal to employ the ASF in this way. As limitations arise from imprecision in the provisions, Africa would do well to update and enrich the Protocol.
Constitutional restoration ineffectiveness
The PSC’s milestone birthday comes amid the unprecedented suspension of six member states for unconstitutional changes of government (Burkina Faso, Gabon, Guinea, Mali, Niger and Sudan). Affected West African states are shaking the foundations of their regional economic community by triggering processes for an exit. They have also initiated efforts to launch a community parallel to the Economic Community of West African States.
The PSC’s birthday coincides with the unprecedented suspension of six member states for UCGs
Regardless of suspension and other measures imposed against these countries, the Protocol does not sufficiently empower the PSC to deter potential perpetrators of unconstitutional changes of government or swiftly restore order. Current provisions are evidently inadequate and limiting. The risk, albeit avoidable, is the growing tendency of more countries to drift towards unconstitutional order.
Issues surrounding permanent membership
Members of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) assumed their seats with little controversy in 1945. This was not so with the PSC. While rotating membership for 10 seats applies to both the UNSC and PSC, the motives differed. For the latter, membership was determined from 2002 to early-2004 by a political debate among all member states. The long process deliberated whether the Council was to comprise permanent and non-permanent members. Permanent membership never found a place. Prolonged incumbency on the PSC, which would allow certain members to hold a 10-year membership, also did not happen. Instead, member states settled on elected and non-permanent membership.
While this arrangement has stood the test of time - over two decades, it may now be challenged. First, Africa and its people have been clamouring for reform of the United Nations (UN), including its UNSC, to render the UN more representative and democratic. In this effort, Africa maintains its case for two permanent seats to further the Ezulwini Consensus. However, this may be a dilemma for the Continent, as it has not yet established a format for training a country or countries that would take up the two seats.
The Council is not sufficiently empowered to deter potential perpetrators of UCGs
The PSC would have prepared capable states to take up a similar role in the UNSC, but that has not materialised. While consensus was reached from 2002 to 2004 to avoid permanent PSC members, this has denied Africa the opportunity to school its own countries to play a similar role globally.
If Africa had selected or elected one or two countries to occupy the prolonged incumbency seat in the PSC, such countries would have had to:
- Make annual payment above the assessed contribution into the AU Peace Fund.
- Be at the frontline to provide troops, police and civilian personnel when needed for AU peace support operations.
- Make an annual financial contribution for AU post-conflict reconstruction and development activities.
- Entrench good political governance and democratic institutions.
- Promote continental trade and integration activities.
- Cultivate a deep culture of respect for human freedoms and rights.
- Have stable and sound economic governance.
It is not too late for Africa to introduce a prolonged incumbency seat. It is an issue of foresight and strategic choice. It would mean that member states that had aspired to permanent PSC seats would be able to run for election for prolonged incumbency. Similarly, Africa would have a more enabling window to assess the performance of PSC members to enhance effectiveness. Also, it would reveal countries with real aptitude to genuinely represent Africa above national interests and considerations.
Enriching the Protocol
The time is opportune to explore major gaps and limitations more deeply to guide future Council operations and prepare for the challenges ahead. Efforts to achieve this should be anchored in opportunities for reflection already created by the PSC through its retreats since 2007. The Council should dedicate an annual retreat to intense reflection and assessment of its Protocol and its limitations, and to updating and enriching it. This is urgent and demands proactivity.
