The African Union Mission in Somalia: towards a new vision of regional peacekeeping?

Abstract

The African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM), deployed in 2007, is the largest, most complex and longest lasting regional peacekeeping mission in Africa under a UN mandate. This chapter explores the implications that AMISOM could have for future UN-AU cooperation in peacekeeping within the UN Charter. It reviews the development of AMISOM from a peace support mission, initially conceived for six months to pave the way for a follow-on, more robust, UN peacekeeping, to a multiyear combat operation. The considerations made by the UN Security Council of the situation in Somalia as ill-disposed for UN peacekeeping are also addressed. The chapter concludes that the more recent Africa-led missions in Mali (AFISMA) and the Central African Republic (MISCA), deployed respectively in spring and year-end of 2013, show that AMISOM is not an isolated case, but rather an example of what could become a trend when invoking Chapter VIII of the UN Charter on regional arrangements for enforcement operations in Africa. This case study on AMISOM identifies some key lessons to consider in future UN-authorized regional peacekeeping arrangements, notably with regard to the importance of realistic mandates and carefully crafted rules of engagement, including provisions for protecting civilians, predictable and mandate-matching resources, the need for a connection to a political process and arrangements to ensure that UN-established principles, norms and standards for peacekeeping are applied.