The Peace and Security Council (PSC) is the organ of the African Union in charge of enforcing union decisions. It is patterned somewhat after the United Nations Security Council. The PSC is also the main pillar of the African Peace and Security Architecture (APSA), and works with other pillars of the APSA in order to promote "peace, security and stability in Africa". The specific goal of the Peace and Security Council (PSC) is the "prevention, management and resolution of conflicts". To achieve these goals, it involves subsidiary organizations such as the Military Staff Committee and the Committee of Experts.
Members are elected by the African Union Executive Council and endorsed by the Assembly of the African Union so as to reflect regional balance within Africa, as well as a variety of other criteria, including capacity to contribute militarily and financially to the union, political will to do so, and effective diplomatic presence at Addis Ababa.
The council is composed of fifteen countries, of which five are elected to three-year terms, and ten to two-year terms. Countries are immediately re-eligible upon the expiration of their terms.
History
Background
In the early 1990s, members of the Organization of African Unity (OAU), the predecessor to the African Union (AU), decided to abstain from active peacekeeping operations and focus instead on "preventive diplomacy". However, they reevaluated their stances after conflicts in Rwanda and Burundi.
In 1995, members of the OAU started to support the use of peacekeeping operations after a summit in Addis Ababa. However, the OAU still prioritized preventive diplomacy and believed that the United Nations should shoulder most of the responsibility for organizing peacekeeping operations.
Later conflicts in Africa were largely mediated by African institutions rather than the UN. For example, conflicts in Liberia and Sierra Leone were addressed by the Economic Community of West African States. Similarly, conflicts in Lesotho and the Democratic Republic of Congo were addressed by the Southern African Development Community.
These sub-regional organizations' large role in addressing regional conflicts led to a debate about the effectiveness of the OAU. Members specifically wished to reform the OAU's focus on consensus-based meetings rather than on-the-ground action, since some conflicts' actors were part of the meetings and could interfere with their judgement. Similarly, the large size of the OAU, its consensus decision-making and its lack of clear procedures both obstructed constructive debate. However, on-the-ground interventions were also limited by the OAU's non-interventionist principles, which only allowed domestic military intervention with the state's consent.
Thus, in 2001, an OAU Assembly session moved to reform the OAU's mechanisms in a new institution: the African Union. The new African Union was designed to center around a central decision-making organ with concrete rules, a smaller membership of 15 states to facilitate decision-making, majority rather than consensus-based decision-making, and viable options to recommend military intervention to the African Union Assembly. After some debate, this decision-making organ was coined the Peace and Security Council, and its rules were outlined in the Protocol Relating to the Establishment of the Peace and Security Council.
Protocol Relating to the Establishment of the Peace and Security Council
Adopted in July 2002, the Protocol was later ratified by a majority of AU members in December 2003. Within the Protocol's text, the institutional design, subsidiary committees, powers and goals of the PSC were outlined.
Specifically, its Objectives were stated in Article 3, and its Principles were stated in Article 4. When outlining its Principles, the Protocol cites three inspirations: "the [AU's] Constitutive Act, the Charter of the United Nations and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights".
In Article 5, the Protocol details the PSC's membership structure and membership criteria.
Article 8 outlines the PSC's procedural rules, including rules for voting, organizing meetings and creating subsidiary bodies.
Specific subcommittees that support the PSC, such as the Panel of the Wise, the Continental Early Warning System, and the African Standby Force are detailed in Articles 11, 12 and 13, respectively.
Finally, the Protocol outlines the PSC's relationship with regional bodies in Article 16, and relationship with international organizations, especially the UN, in Article 17.