The Organization of African Unity and the Algerian-Moroccan Border Conflict: A Study of New Machinery for Peacekeeping and for the Peaceful Settlement of Disputes Among African States

Abstract

The Algerian-Moroccan border conflict provided the Organization of African Unity (OAU) with the first test of its machinery and procedures for peacekeeping and for the peaceful settlement of disputes. The following examination of that dispute and of its treatment by the Organization of African Unity is a case study of the operation of a newly founded regional organization. The Organization of African Unity was endowed with no supranational powers which might have enabled it to enforce its will on the disputants in the Algerian-Moroccan case. The Organization had to function on the basis of cooperation among its members. Yet the Organization of African Unity was more than the mere instrument of the foreign policies of its members in the Algerian-Moroccan case. When individual African statesmen were disqualified from acting as mediators by their respective preferences for one or the other of the disputants, the existence of an organization representing all of Africa greatly assisted in the mitigation of the conflict and contributed much to the peace of Africa.