 African political thought, part 10. Last week we concluded by talking about African jurisprudence, and we related this to constitutional development inside individual African countries. The whole idea of a separation of powers so that one president, one senior member of the executive, would not monopolize power, that was a very, very important ingredient in terms of the protection of the rights of the African citizen, and above all the nature of the judiciary, the independence of the judges, the independence of the court system as embedded in constitutions is meant not just in Africa, but everywhere around the world to be the key essential hallmark of a provision for the citizen in which the citizen has recourse against government, even against the most powerful executive figure such as the president. How do we take this concept of constitutional and judicial provision forward from single nation states into the wider world of Africa as a continent of 55 different states? Where does constitutionalism, where does juridical thinking sit within the pan-Africanism which Kwame Nkrumah espoused at the very beginning of the independence process of sub-Saharan Africa? How do we try to grapple with this idea of a jurisprudentially guaranteed and facilitated pan-Africanism as we enter the second part of the 2010s? Where in particular do we look for this kind of provision if not in the African Union? The African Union succeeded the organization for African Unity which was born in 1963. In 2000 it became the African Union and it set certain points of departure from the years of the organization for African Unity. The idea of non-interference in the affairs of others was replaced by a new doctrine which has been tried and tested mildly but not deeply. The idea of non-indifference, in other words we cannot allow the suffering of other people to continue just because that suffering takes place in another country. Even if there is a sovereign government in that other country, the necessity to have a humane humanitarian and interventionist response becomes all important. Now this poses all kinds of difficulties for the African Union in the 2000s. These are difficulties on two fronts. The first is well how do you intervene? Underneath what conditions do you intervene? And if you are going to intervene with what means will you intervene? Africa is vast getting battle ready soldiers, getting their equipment across half a continent is beyond the logistical means of a very, very great part of Africa. So having standby intervention forces which are meant to be able to be deployed as we speak, the behind schedule in this project, that's meant to be almost a litmus test of what the African Union can do and that becomes a logistical litmus test. The political litmus test is against which presidents would such intervention be able to be launched? Can you just walk into any country who says you can do that? What is the judicial machinery within the African Union that allows you to make such a decision? And if you are going to, are you going to be able to get into those countries? A, faster than metropolitan forces, the French have been in many, many conflict zones intervening in different African countries, Mali, Central African Republic, the Ivory Coast and whether or not their interventions are justified and many people would say not very often they have saved the day for incumbent governments such as in Mali and very, very often they have been struggling to contain if not rollback Islamic insurgents. What does the African Union and its plans for a standby force have to be able to do to be able to take the place of metropolitan powers to battle Islamic insurgencies for instance within countries like Nigeria, within other places such as Somalia? What is going to happen in terms of what we call a right to protect? Can Africa through its pan-African apparatus in a militarized sense actually exercise the right to protect? Increasingly in today's volatile age this becomes the key test of what pan-African solidarity and mutual assistance can mean and reluctance to intervene because of the political power of one particular president who all the same might be highly oppressive to his or in the future her citizens or because the insurgencies of by Islamic extremists is so great that's a very great reluctance to intervene on the grounds of a lack of capacity to be able to intervene properly and forcefully. How to roll back those who are perhaps better armed, better equipped and better trained than African conventional forces themselves. Then what do you do after you have intervened and people need to be brought to justice? Not just war criminals in the normal sense that you would find for instance being taken to the international criminal court and the Hague from the Democratic Republic of Congo for instance but maybe against African presidents what do you do if they have been so atrocious to their citizens that they need themselves to be arraigned before some kind of judicial process? Is at this point that the African Union in terms of its summit meetings, in terms of its presidential composition has balked at the idea of a continuing relationship with the international criminal court or very well and good when criminals were being indicted by the court. President Moussev Vainy was very very happy at one point for the indictment of Joseph Coney in Uganda for instance. The minute it begins to touch actual presidents those at the height of the executive structure then there's a great problem. Now of course no one in any way wishes to justify an international criminal court that is hugely imperfect. It simply doesn't touch those who are not members for instance such as the United States. Its internal trial chambers what they call the third chamber is probably imperfect in terms of how it operates and the relationship between that chamber and the court's prosecutor is also not always spelt out. The relationship between the court and the United Nations Security Council is not always well spelt out but I think that it is incorrect to say that the international criminal court is an example of racism in the sense that all of those indicted by the court happen to be Africans and very often African leaders because when you take together not just the ICC but the entire global provision for international justice when you put together all of the different tribunals of which the international criminal court is only one adding in for instance the special tribunal for war crimes in former Yugoslavia as a key example then far more Europeans have been indicted before these international tribunals than Africans. One of the key things about judicial development in Africa is not just whether you have the perfect constitution either nationally or internationally but to what extent are you obliged to honor the provisions of international legal as well as national legal provision or to what extent does an Africa still claim exemption above all from responsibility. When that moment of responsibility is grasped that might be the moment when a true Pan-Africanism finally begins to germinate.