The African union - a new dawn for Africa?

摘要

In March 2001 the Assembly of Heads of State and Government of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), meeting in extraordinary session in Sirte, Libya declared the establishment of a new pan-African body, the African Union (Union). The Constitutive Act (Act) of the Union entered into force on 26 May 2001 and in due course this new institution will replace the OAU. The Union, the brainchild of Libyan President Qaddafi, and modeled on the European Union, is the culmination of the OAU's piecemeal process of political cooperation and economic integration. It is designed to provide Africa with the legal and institutional framework to confront the twin challenges of the post-Cold War age and globalisation. Article 2 of the Act provides simply that the 'African Union is hereby established'. There is no stipulation as to whether the Union is an international organisation endowed with international legal personality, able to transact, to acquire rights and assume responsibilities, to institute legal proceedings, etc. The reason for this omission could be that, since the Union is conceived as the successor to the OAU, it will inherit the legal personality of the latter. Notwithstanding this explanation, it is submitted that the Union ought to have been expressly endowed with legal personality, not least because the Act envisages that the two entities will co-exist for a period of at least one year.