Continental Body Research Articles

The African Union's quest for a "peaceful and secure Africa": An assessment of Aspiration Four of Agenda 2063

This article undertakes a comprehensive assessment of the African Union (AU)'s Agenda 2063 Aspiration 4: A peaceful and secure Africa and the progress made at continental level towards it. Aspiration 4 is informed by the AU's acknowledgment that the scourge of conflict on the continent plays a significant role in hampering socioeconomic development. Against this background, the article examines the role played by the AU and its regional economic communities (RECs) in response to armed conflict on the continent, as exemplified by the AU and Southern African Development Community (SADC) response to the Cabo Delgado conflict in northern Mozambique. The AU's response to the recent surge of military coups in Africa is also examined, with a focus on the coups in Sudan in 2019 and 2021. The article concludes that the Agenda 2063 blueprint is a useful tool for the continental body when dealing with the scourge of conflicts and unconstitutional changes of governments, which threatens to hamper the AU's developmental agenda.

The ‘Flexibility’ Standard in the African Union and Its Ramification for the Implementation of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) Agreement

African Union’s (AU’s) integration history indicates that the continental body is plagued by flexibility hindering its goal of continental unity. This article investigates the utility of ‘flexibility’ standard in the adoption, ratification, and the implementation of AU treaties. Through an empirical analysis of the seventy treaties currently in force at the AU, thirty-four treaties have been able to secure the minimum level of ratification. Results show that a treaty that lacks the required number of signatories and ratifications creates a big challenge for the continental body. On the other hand, treaty ratification is not a guarantee for successful implementation. Historically, differing views on AU’s role, goals and effect on regional stability has forced a gravitational pull on the essence of the body. Yet, AU continues to facilitate regional free trade agreements and customs union. One of these is the recent African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) Agreement. This article argues that achieving flexibility under AfCFTA is illusionary, hence AU should strive towards attaining a clear roadmap for flexibility milieu in the implementation of AfCFTA. We argue that, for AfCFTA to be effective, all AU Member States must ratify the agreement, thereby ensuring the harmonization of regional trade agreements, and elimination of tariff and non-tariff barriers. The article concludes that the AU must utilize the principle of variable geometry to have a differentiated level and speed of integration, still achieving the same objective of a unified continent towards maximum intra-trade realization. flexibility, African Union, AfCFTA, variable geometry, regional integration, trade barriers, and trade liberalization

Mindful of their Bellies and gullets: Anatomical imagery in English Colonization

This essay examines the anatomical language that appears in 16th- and 17th-century English travel narratives, which authors used to portray efforts to colonize North America as a series of encounters between an American continental body and the English nation. Imagery related to the digestive tract marked struggling or failed efforts, while reproductive and marital imagery described successful ventures or encouraged new ones. The imprecision of early modern anatomical terms left them versatile enough to appear in relation to both digestive and reproductive images, allowing English observers contrasting colonial projects to provide lessons about proper modes of colonization. Anatomical language thus provided English authors with a mechanism for representing the changing nature of England’s encounter with the American continental body, redirecting anxieties about the dangers America posed into confidence about the continent’s productive potential, and England’s future on its lands.

A Comparative Analysis of the Charter of the Organization of African Unity (OAU) and the Constitutive Act of the African Union (AU)

This article takes a critical look at comparative analysis of the Charter of the Organization of African Unity (OAU) and the Constitutive Act of the African Union (AU). In doing so, the article will compare the organs and institutions of both the OAU and the AU. It will also access the achievements and failures of the two bodies and in doing this, the article will argue that if OAU has been performing as expected, there will be no need for the AU. It will in addition go further to list some provisions in the Constitutive Act of the AU that were not included in the Charter of the OAU. It will also argue that in modeling the AU like the European Union (EU), there has been no linkage in the achievements of this continental body that can make it comparable to the EU. Also, in accessing the AU, this paper will proffer answer to the question, whether there has been any significant change since AU come on board, or if it was just a name change. Finally, the article will conclude by making recommendations and suggestions for better performance of the continental body before it clocks twenty (20) years.

Body size downgrading of mammals over the late Quaternary.

Since the late Pleistocene, large-bodied mammals have been extirpated from much of Earth. Although all habitable continents once harbored giant mammals, the few remaining species are largely confined to Africa. This decline is coincident with the global expansion of hominins over the late Quaternary. Here, we quantify mammalian extinction selectivity, continental body size distributions, and taxonomic diversity over five time periods spanning the past 125,000 years and stretching approximately 200 years into the future. We demonstrate that size-selective extinction was already under way in the oldest interval and occurred on all continents, within all trophic modes, and across all time intervals. Moreover, the degree of selectivity was unprecedented in 65 million years of mammalian evolution. The distinctive selectivity signature implicates hominin activity as a primary driver of taxonomic losses and ecosystem homogenization. Because megafauna have a disproportionate influence on ecosystem structure and function, past and present body size downgrading is reshaping Earth's biosphere.

Membership accession in the African Union: The relationship between enforcement and compliance, and the case for differential membership

ABSTRACTIt is argued in this paper that the level of non-compliance is high in the Organisation of African Unity/African Union in part because the organisation failed to institute and enforce strict membership accession conditionalities. Across the life of the organisation, this has resulted in non-compliance, mainly the non-payment of dues and non-implementation of policies. This position adds a historical dimension to arguments that identify weak economic capacity and the lack of political will as the main sources of non-compliance. It also supports the thesis that the enforcement of strict accession rules prepares states to perform their obligations and sets them up to receive benefits from the group. In 2002, Africa's continental body changed its mandate from liberation to integration. Since integration requires the strict enforcement of accession rules, the paper suggests that the organisation proceed by choosing differential membership to align the behaviour of its members to their obligations.

The African Union Non-Indifference Stance: Lessons from Sudan and Libya

The legal and policy documents of the African Union (AU) are founded on a human security paradigm that obliges the continental body to maintain a non-indifference stance on human rights abuses. This doctrine of non-indifference departs from the state-centric security principle of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), which gave excessive privileges to state elites. Although the AU has intervened to address security challenges in the continent, misgivings persist that the continental body’s interventions continually favor state regimes at the expense of the human rights of ordinary citizens. Adducing the cases of the AU’s responses to the conflicts in Sudan (2004–07) and Libya (2011), this article examines the credibility of the AU’s non-indifference stance to gross human rights violations. The study contends that the undue influence of state regimes on the AU’s initiatives as well as its limited capacity for intervention raise doubts on the continental body’s purported transition from a state-centric framework to a human security paradigm.

Why a renewed focus on regional governance is needed post-2015.

Why a renewed focus on regional governance is needed post-2015.

From stopping to preventing atrocities

The Constitutive Act of the African Union (AU) provides for the right of the continental body to intervene in the face of war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity. According to its formulation, Article 4(h) intervention entails military force, which is triggered when a target state fails to discharge its duty to protect its population from mass atrocities. Although Article 4(h) is an ambitious statutory commitment to intervene in a member state by the AU, the Libyan crisis in 2011 showed the ambivalence of the continental institution to act in a decisive and timely manner. The AU's failure to invoke Article 4(h) exposed the need for building the capacity and political will to intervene and to interpret Article 4(h). Therefore, the primary focus of this article is on how Article 4(h) should be interpreted. Flowing from the Pretoria Principles, which seek to provide clarity on the implementation of the AU's right of intervention, Article 4(h) should be viewed as a duty rather than a right to prevent or stop mass atrocities. The duty dimension of Article 4(h) derives from the international instruments that AU member states have ratified to prevent mass atrocities. Rather than being a paper tiger, Article 4(h) should be used in a proactive and timely manner as a military option available to the AU to persuade member states to prevent or halt atrocities. As a last resort, military force pursuant to Article 4(h) should aim at protecting the population at risk and pursuing the perpetrators in order to avoid contravening Article 2(4) of the Charter of the United Nations (UN). Although military intervention can save lives in the short term, it cannot necessarily address the underlying, structural causes of atrocities, such as ethnic rivalries, economic inequalities and scramble for natural resources, among others. Therefore, the prevention of mass atrocities should not be equated with, or be seen through the prism of, Article 4(h) intervention alone. The focus should instead be on the entire spectrum of preventive strategies at the disposal of the AU in the face of mass atrocities, including the African human rights system and the African Peer Review Mechanism.

African Union Rising to the Need for Continental IP Protection? The Establishment of the Pan-African Intellectual Property Organization

AbstractIntellectual property rights protection is at the forefront of some of the major controversies regarding the impact of globalization. African countries have in recent years participated to an unprecedented degree in both international and bilateral initiatives dealing with intellectual property. The negotiating positions have been varied and, from a regional perspective, have not been coherent at some levels, with different countries advancing different positions. African countries have adopted regional integration as a strategy to deal with the challenges of globalization. Regional integration is believed to increase negotiating capacities and competitiveness in global trade. It is also believed to improve access to foreign technology. The African Union is facilitating the establishment of a continental intellectual property body. Accordingly, the main aim of this article is to discuss the establishment of the Pan-African Intellectual Property Organization in line with the African Union's vision for regional integration.

Learning on the Job? The 2007-2008 Crisis and Role of the African Union in Transitional Justice in Kenya

Since the transformation of Organization of African Unity (OAU) into the African Union (AU) in year 2000, the continental body has shown itself more willing and perhaps better equipped than its predecessor to play a greater role in the maintenance of regional peace and security by intervening in various ways in conflict situations on the continent. However, the dynamism of conflict situations has proved challenging for the evolving regional body. The area of transitional justice is one that the AU seems untested, hesitant and perhaps less prepared to engage for a range of reasons. The conflict situation that unfolded in Kenya following the disputed presidential elections of 2007 presents one an opportunity to gauge the role of the AU in transitional justice in Africa: its preparedness, legal basis, challenges and opportunities that may exist for the continental body as it seeks to define its broader role in regional peace and security. This paper thus discusses the role of the AU and sub regional bodies in the unfolding transitional justice process in Kenya. In particular, the paper identifies specific interventions by the AU and sub regional bodies (the East African Community) commencing with the negotiated agreement that created the government of National Unity (GNU). More broadly, the role of various actors such as the broader international community (United Nations and key Western governments) as well as civil society is discussed. In the end, the paper makes recommendations for the possible continued role of AU and sub-regional bodies in specific aspects of transitional justice developments in Kenya.

International Criminal Court in the Trenches of Africa

The pursuit of international criminal justice in Africa through the International Criminal Court (ICC) platform has not been without hitches. There is a rift between the African Union (AU), as a continental body, and the ICC owing to the AU’s perception that the ICC is pursuing selective justice and the AU’s misgivings about the ICC’s indictment/trial of some sitting heads of states in Africa. This article argues that the claim of selective justice cannot be dismissed because it undermines the regime of international criminal justice. The indictment/trial of serving heads of states also has serious constitutional and political implications for the countries involved, but this has been ignored in the literature. Further, the hitches arise both from the failure of the ICC to pay attention to the domestic contexts in order to harmonize its operations in the places of its interventions and from the inherent weakness of the ICC as a criminal justice system. The ICC, on its part, insists that any consideration given to the domestic contexts of its operations would undermine it. Yet the ICC’s interventions in Africa have had serious political, legal and social implications for the communities involved, jeopardizing the peaceful equilibrium in some cases. This should not be ignored. Using the law to stop and prevent international crimes in African societies would require a concerted effort by all concerned to harmonize the demand for justice with the imperatives on the ground.

Late Cretaceous extension and Palaeogene rotation-related contraction in Central Anatolia recorded in the Ayhan-Büyükkışla basin

The configuration and evolution of subduction zones in the Eastern Mediterranean region in Cretaceous time accommodating Africa–Europe convergence remain poorly quantitatively reconstructed, owing to a lack of kinematic constraints. A recent palaeomagnetic study suggested that the triangular Central Anatolian Crystalline Complex (CACC) consists of three blocks that once formed an ~N–S elongated continental body, underthrusted below ophiolites in Late Cretaceous time. After extensional exhumation and upon Palaeogene collision of the CACC with the Pontides of the southern Eurasian margin, the CACC broke into three fragments that rotated and converged relative to each other. Here, we date the extension and contraction history of the boundary between two of the rotating massifs of the CACC by studying the Upper Cretaceous–Palaeogene Ayhan–Büyükkışla basin. We report an 40Ar/39Ar age of an andesite at the base of the sequence to show that the deposition started in an E–W extensional basin around 72.11 ± 1.46. The basin developed contemporaneously with regional exhumation of the CACC metamorphics. The lower basin sedimentary rocks were unconformably covered by mid-Eocene limestones and redbeds, followed by intense folding and thrust faulting. Two balanced cross-sections in the study area yield a minimum of 17–27 km of post-mid-Eocene ~N–S shortening. We thus demonstrate the Cenozoic compressional nature of the Kırşehir–Niğde-Hırkadağ block boundary and show that the extensional exhumation of the CACC predates collision-related contraction. A plate kinematic scenario is required to explain these observations that involves two Late Cretaceous–Palaeogene subduction zones to the north and south of the CACC, for which we show a possible plate boundary configuration.

Learning on the Job: The Role of the African Union in Transitional Justice in Kenya

Since the transformation of Organization of African Unity (OAU) into the African Union (AU) in the year 2000, the continental body has shown itself more willing and perhaps better equipped than its predecessor to play a greater role in the maintenance of regional peace and security by intervening in various ways in conflict situations on the continent. However, the dynamism of conflict situations has proved challenging for the evolving regional body. The area of transitional justice is one that the AU seems untested, hesitant and perhaps less prepared to engage for a range of reasons. The conflict situation that unfolded in Kenya following the disputed presidential elections of 2007 presents one an opportunity to gauge the role of the AU in transitional justice in Africa: its preparedness, legal basis, challenges and opportunities that may exist for the continental body as it seeks to define its broader role in regional peace and security. This chapter thus discusses the role of the AU and sub regional bodies in the unfolding transitional justice process in Kenya. In particular, the chapter identifies specific interventions by the AU and sub regional bodies (the East African Community) commencing with the negotiated agreement that created the government of National Unity (GCG). More broadly, the role of various actors such as the broader international community (United Nations and key Western governments) as well as civil society is discussed. In the end, the chapter makes recommendations for the possible continued role of AU and sub-regional bodies in specific aspects of transitional justice developments in Kenya.

African Union and the Evolution of International Criminal Justice in Africa: Challenges, Controversies and Opportunities.

With the concretisation and expansion of international criminal justice, intergovernmental bodies other than the United Nations Security Council UNSC) are increasingly becoming important role players. In particular, the African Union, the premier intergovernmental continental body of African states, is assuming greater and important roles in the evolution and functioning of the broader international criminal justice system. This is best illustrated by recent debates around Universal Jurisdiction and the international criminal court (ICC) in which a number of African Union organs (Assembly of Heads of State and Government, Pan African Parliament and the Peace and Security Council) have weighed in in some respects decisively. Various examples show that the AU is making forays in the unfolding system of international criminal justice and deeply impacting the debate and evolution of related processes. This chapter assesses the role of the AU in ICJ in Africa by reviewing recent debates around universal jurisdiction (as they relate to the proposed prosecution Hissene Habre as well as the controversial process triggered by Rwanda on the alleged abuse of UJ by European courts) and various interventions by AU organs in relation to the ICC, including the contested indictment of President Omar Al Bashir of Sudan. Locating international criminal prosecutions within a broader context of responses to conflict and associated atrocities, it discusses the evolving roles of the various AU organs – political, deliberative and judicial. The chapter/contribution argues that AU has a direct role to play in respect of prosecutions at the international and national levels and indirectly in a number of other ways that has a bearing on international criminal justice. Noting that this involvement by regional and sub-regional bodies in international criminal justice is for the most part novel, it argues that this heralds a new and exciting era of engagement that should contribute to the fight against impunity and by extension to peace and security on the continent. However, the approach adopted and certain measures taken by regional body have potential of undermining or rolling back gains made so far in the fight against impunity and achieving security on the continent.

THE AFRO-ARABIAN COMPONENT IN THE LEVANTINE MAMMALIAN FAUNA—A SHORT BIOGEOGRAPHICAL REVIEW

ABSTRACT The dramatic transformation of the southern Lev ant during the Miocene from a tropical domain into a southern province of the Palearctic region is what makes this region so interesting and focuses the attention of many scholars. Unfortunately, only partof those events can be traced in the fossil record. The great diversity of the southern Levantine biotas and its extreme biogeographical heterogeneity, the existence of animal species and human forms originating in distant biotic provinces, is primarily the product of the Afro-Eurasian Neogene-Quatemary biotic interchanges, resulting from the drawing up of the northern edge of the Afro-Arabian continent against the margin of the Eurasian continental body by subduction along the present Anatolian-Iranian tectonic suture line. The kaleidoscopic admixture of Palearctic, Paleotropic and Saharo-Arabo-Sindian elements changes constantly during the Neogene and the Quarternary periods, disposing now and then of a new biogeographical configuration. Indeed, ...

Food Fights: The Intertextuality of Food in Cien años de soledad and Gabriela, cravo e canela

Critical insularity will never be a term that will be confused with Gabriel Garcia Marquez' s Cien anos de soledad (1967). Indeed, the novel's manifold linguistic translations and scholarly studies from around the world confirm that this work truly transcends borders. In a purely literary context, Garcia Marquez' s masterpiece has encouraged intertextual investigations with Jorge Luis Borges, Isabel Allende, and William Faulkner, among others.2 Curiously, this comparative critical tendency has not managed to cross South America's linguistic frontiers, however; Brazil's rich literary tradition remains unexplored in this regard. question of literary roots, whether intentional or unintentional, becomes especially pressing when one considers the extensive production of the Brazilian novelist Jorge Amado. While the latter' s artistic oeuvre begins in earnest in the 1930's, it is Amado's 1958 novel Gabriela, cravo e canela that calls particular attention to the motif of food which, in turn, serves as a continuing preoccupation in Garcia Marquez' s novel nine years later. Specifically, the dynamics of power and the satisfaction of basic gastronomic needs constitute two intertextual components that suggest a certain amount of aesthetic resonance detected between Amado's and Garcia Marquez's texts. Beginning with the dominating figures of cacao and bananas respectively, Gabriela, cravo e canela and Cien anos de soledad foreground cash crops as a problematic nutrient in the development of Latin America's continental body of the 1950's and '60's.INTERTEXTUAL AND INTRACONTINENTAL MATTERSUpon embarking on an approach to the concept of intertextuality, one immediately finds him- or herself in an uncomfortable position of theoretical limbo. That is, in a realm of in-between books where the of study is not one text or another but rather, their discursive negotiation. From Julia Kristeva's point of view, this crossing of works should be evaluated in terms of a linguistic thickness that demonstrates multiple textual influences: each word (text) is an of word (texts) where at least one other word (text) can be read Desire in Language 66). This idea of a discursive collision in narrative works is further elaborated in Mikhail Bakhtin's conception of intertextuality. Once again, there is an emphasis on the presence of more than one intention in novelistic language: The word is born in a as a living rejoinder within it; the word is shaped in dialogic interaction with an alien word that is already in the object (Dialogic Imagination 279). Echoes of previous voices and discursive contributions characterize even the most banal selections of novelistic vocabulary, and the indication of an implicit dialogue with these earlier artistic interjections certainly illuminates a critical movement toward multiple textual interpretations.On the other hand, despite the critical possibilities that these visions of intertextuality make apparent, Kristeva and Bakhtin's theories still do not resolve the inevitable feelings of textual rootlessness and uncertainty that accompany these approaches. While the point of contact between words first introduced by Kristeva is truly a useful notion, this idea of an intersection marks a specific point in textual space that seemingly begs to be located and evaluated. Immediately, the critic asks the question: Where exactly is this node of textual collisions to be found in a given novel? Does the concept of a firm discursive meeting point suggest an inevitable urgency to locate the source of this multi-intentional text as well? Furthermore, Bakhtin's revolutionary contribution of a constant two-sided (or more) conversation in the novelistic vocabulary also creates a theoretical situation inherently recommending a search for the other voice in this dialogue; a word is not really understood contextually without identifying its aesthetic influences. In the final analysis, then, these two foundational building blocks of the theory of intertextuality tend to direct a critic's eye toward certain nodes or binary entities that dramatize the variety of discursive contributors to a given novelistic text. …

History of the Asian Australasian Society of Neurological Surgeons from 1964 to 2012: A personal account

A steering committee of the Asian Australasian Society of Neurological Surgeons (AASNS) first met on 17 October, 1961, and between 29 and 31 October 1964, the First Congress was held in Canberra, Australia. A Constitution was accepted and Sir Ian (Douglas) Miller was elected as the first President. The Society was established “to facilitate personal association of neurosurgeons in the region” and to develop training programs and neurosurgical services. The progress of the Society meetings is best tracked through the four-yearly scientific meetings, of which 13 have now been held. The AASNS is now a continental body within the World Federation of Neurosurgical Societies (WFNS), established in Geneva, Switzerland. Two special milestones have included the establishment of the Journal of Clinical Neuroscience in 1993 and the launching of the Asian Australasian Travelling Fellowship in 1987. The current President of the AASNS is Professor Andrew H. Kaye from Melbourne, Australia, and the President-elect of the WFNS is Professor Yong-Kwang Tu from Taipei, Taiwan.

International Criminal Justice in Africa: Some Emerging Dynamics

The phenomenon of using international criminal justice to address war crimes and human rights violations in conflict and post-conflict situations of Africa has emerged. This consist of a platform which is anchored in universal norms, with a court which does not form part of the domestic criminal system, and which in some cases sits outside the geographical jurisdiction of where the offences took place. The adjudicators may also be non-nationals. This paper examines the experiences regarding the enforcement of international criminal justice in Africa as instituted in the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) and the Special Court for Sierra Leone as well as in the framework of the International Criminal Court (ICC). It emerged that international criminal justice is meshed in politics and hence lacks the unflinching cooperation and support from the continent. The evidence as to its appropriateness for peace-building in conflict and post-conflict situations is mixed. The package offered by internationalized justice alienates both the adjudicators and the adjudicating society from the process, thereby denying the process with the impetus required for it to be beneficial to the end users. The implication of this study then is that the prospect of international justice in Africa is currently uncertain and its success would require concerted efforts by African governments, the African Union as a unified continental body and civil society organizations in collaboration with the international community.

The Don River basin is a new stage of expansion of Potamopyrgus jenkinsi (Smith, 1889) (Gastropoda, Hydrobioidea) in Europe

The role of invasions has been repeatedly discussed and elucidated in Russian and foreign literature [1‐4]. Problems related to invading species are especially acute in water bodies of arid zones, manly closed water bodies, such as the Caspian Sea, the Sea of Azov, and formerly the Aral Sea. The Sea of Azov and its catchment area are among the most vulnerable ecosystems. This is mainly because the sea is relatively (incompletely) isolated (a continental body of water) and has an unstable hydrological and hydrochemical regimen, which allows invaders with a potentially wide capacity for osmoregulation to adapt. This is entirely true for the catchment areas of the above seas (including the Don, Kuban’, Volga, Ural, Kuma, Syr-Darya, and smaller rivers). These rivers serve as a reserve of the Pontocaspian relict fauna, which is very sensitive to all environmental changes, including invasions. The expansion of invading species may be strikingly rapid. One example is the finding of Potamopyrgus jenkinsi in the Don basin in June and July of 2007. Potamopyrgus Stimson, 1865 was first found in Europe in the late 19th century (the species Potamopyrgus jenkinsi (Smith, 1889) described from the Themes mouth). During the 20th century, Potamopyrgus was found in many regions of Europe. The species composition of the genus Potamopyrgus in the area of invasion is still a matter of discussion. It has been hypothesized that all European Potamopyrgus belong to the same New Zealand species P. antipodarum (Gray, 1843), that there are several species in Europe [5], and that two discrete lineages (clones) have invaded Europe in different periods from different local populations of New Zealand [6, 7]. The existence of a number of European species (probably, pure parthenogenetic strains) of Potamopyrgus differing in ecology and salinity preferences that have no analogues in the New Zealand fauna, as well as some paleontological data, allowed Anistratenko [5] to hypothesize that they are autochthonous in Europe. Anistratenko regards ecologically different strains of Potamopyrgus as separate species P. jenkinsi ; P. alexenkoae Anistratenko in Anistratenko et Stadnichenko, 1995; and P. polistchuki Anistratenko, 1991. Molecular genetic studies on Potamopyrgus from some Western European habitats demonstrated the existence of two strains both genetically and morphologically differing from each other [6, 7]. They are assumed to have invaded from isolated habitats on the North Island of New Zealand in different periods of time. Potamopyrgus may also form new pure strains or species in the area of invasion (saltatory speciation, which is possible for clonal invading species) [8].