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Week Twelve Notes: Dreams of Unity
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Reading Notes
Reading One: From OAU to AU: Rethinking Supranational Governance in Africa
SOURCE: Babatunde Fagbayibo, “From OAU to AU: Rethinking Supranational Governance in Africa”, in
Oloruntoba and Falola, The Palgrave Handbook of African Politics, Governance and Development
(London: Palgrave, 2018), chapter 47.
SUMMARY: 10 pages to 8
Introduction
● Having existed for over a decade, it is important to understand the place of the African Union
(AU) in the matrix of regional integration.
● The transformation of the Organization of African Unity (OAU) into the AU in 2000 was
predicated on a number of factors…
○ Chief of which was the inability of the former to effectively drive a continental
integration process.
○ The need to reform the institutional process of the continental organ in order to
respond efficiently to global and regional politico-economic dynamics.
○ To provide a more effective platform for addressing issues such as development,
democratic governance, peace and security, and the overall socio-economic condition of
the continent.
● In order to achieve these objectives, the Constitutive Act of the AU stipulated, amongst other
principles, a number of normative principles such as
○ The harmonization of the policies of the regional economic communities (RECs)
under the AU umbrella
○ A common defense policy
○ The right of intervention
○ The establishment of judicial and parliamentary organs
● The underlining rationale behind the transformation of the OAU was the imperative of creating
institutions that exercised binding powers and thus were able to assert far-reaching authority
over member states. It is this understanding that placed the continental integration process within
the theoretical context of supranationalism.
● It was a continuation of the ideological drive that started in the 1960s, spearheaded by Kwame
Nkrumah, which hinged the development and relevance of Africa on the immediate
establishment of a “United States of Africa” or a “Union Government for Africa”
○ Nkrumah ensured that the Ghanaian constitution stipulated the partial or wholesale
surrendering of sovereignty as a contribution towards the attainment of continental
unification.
○ In a similar vein, Guinea, Mali, Tunisia, and Egypt also provided for limitation of
sovereignty in their constitutions.
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○ On the other side of the spectrum were people such as Julius Nyerere of Tanzania and
Abubakar Tafawa Balewa of Nigeria, who preferred an incremental approach that
places an emphasis on the strengthening of subregional formations as the first step to
achieving continental supranationalism.
● Although the establishment of the OAU in 1963 was largely settling for a rigid state-centric
approach, the idea has evolved and Nkrumah’s federalist ideology remains a referential point of
discourse in fashioning the appropriate supranational path for continental integration.
From OAU to AU: A Supranational Transformation?
In over five decades, the discourse on deepening the African regional integration drive has mainly existed
within two ideological paradigms.
● Shaped by global and regional politico-economic dynamics, these ideological paradigms have
provided some definitive methodologies on how to proceed with the quest of integrating Africa.
1. Intergovernmental approach → the dominant approach on the continent
● Affirms the primacy of member states in international law and relations.
● International organizations are configured only to serve as a platform for engagement
between and amongst member states.
● Two features define an intergovernmental institution:
A. Decision-making resides solely with representatives of member states
B. Decisions are arrived at through unanimity or consensus amongst member
states, with regional institutions playing a markedly subsidiary role.
● The OAU was an archetypal intergovernmental organization, as the Charter was very
clear about the non-interference of the organization or member states in the affairs of
other member states and made no explicit normative or institutional reference to
deepening regional integration efforts on the continent.
● The primary functions of the organization were the eradication of colonialism, the
ending of Apartheid in South Africa, and upholding the independence of African states
● The General Secretariat was not granted any real decision-making powers, such powers
residing in intergovernmental structures such as the Assembly of Heads of States and
Government and the Council of Ministers
● The organization was thus unable to meaningfully address intra-African conflicts, curtail
the deluge of gross human rights violations or confront contemporary challenges facing
the continent
● The organization was thus unable to meaningfully address intra-African conflicts, curtail
the deluge of gross human rights violations or confront contemporary challenges facing
the continent
The OAU transformation into the AU in 2000
● The OAU transformation was seen as a significant turn of events in Africa’s post-colonial history,
especially as it relates to the move to deepen and enhance regional integration.
● However, the divide between “absolute and minimal integrationists” again emerged:
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○ The “absolute integrationists” led by the late Muammar Ghaddafi of Libya, advocated
for the creation of a federalist AU, with extensive executive, legislative and judicial
powers
○ The “minimal integrationists” led by Thabo Mbeki (South Africa) and Olusegun
Obasanjo (Nigeria), who pushed for an intergovernmental approach that would
incrementally evolve into a supranational entity.
2. The Supranational approach
● Supranationalism has been defined as “the development of authoritative institutions and network
of policy-making activity above the nation-state”
● Pescatore identified three elements of supranationalism as:
A. the recognition of common values and interests
B. the creation of an effective power
C. the autonomy of these powers.
● Weiler made a distinction between normative and decisional supranationalism:
A. Normative supranationalism: the emphasis is the extent to which the laws of regional
institutions supersede, and in some cases nullify, competing laws in member states.
B. Decisional supranationalism: the focus on the procedural mechanism for arriving at
decisions, particularly through a majority voting system rather than the rule of consensus.
● Note that no organization is completely supranational, as institutions exercise variations of
supranational powers and in some cases a mixture of intergovernmental and supranational
elements.
● The question should not so much be about the designation of an institution as supranational as the
question of whether the AU can be described as a supranational entity (assessed against the
factors explained above).
● Compared with the OAU, the AU has a much broader and more elaborate institutional
architecture and objectives. Unlike the OAU, the AU has institutions such as the:
○ Pan-African Parliament (PAP)
○ African Court of Justice and Human Rights (ACJ&HR)
○ Peace and Security Council (PSC)
○ African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM)
○ AU Commission (with functions much broader than that of the OAU General
Secretariat).
- The similarity between the institutional architectures of the AU and the EU is deliberate,
and thus an indication of the supranational ambition of the former
● These institutions are expected to exercise supranational tasks ranging from the binding
interpretation of AU instruments, determining the modus of intervention in conflict zones, review
of the standard of governance in member states and the policy initiation and implementation
functions of the AU Commission.
● In terms of the objectives and principles of the AU, there exist a number of normative
prescriptions that illustrate an intention to grant the institution supranational powers.
● These include the institutional mandate to coordinate and harmonize the policies of the
subregional organizations, the AU’s right to intervene in member states, and the majority voting
system rule in the PSC in relation to the decision on intervention.
