The Interface between the African Union Right of Intervention and Human Rights Protection: Case Study of Somalia

A Thesis Submitted to the School of Humanities and Social Sciences in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements of the Degree of Masters in International Relations (MIR)This study looks at the establishment of the AU as a supranational legal entity with significant powers of intervention in domestic crisis situations and how, the constitution of the AU offers an alternative framework for organizing apolitical community. For over two decades Somalia has been in constant turmoil, and in turn caused the displacement of her people, loss of lives and also affected her stability as a nation. The instability in Somalia led to the breeding of terror cells. The AU intervened in 2005 through African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM), to bring peace in the nation. The intervention was under the auspices of article 4 (h) of the Constitutive Act of the African Union. This research aims to determine that the exercise of the AU’s right of intervention, will eventually lead to Human Rights protection. The AU intervention in Somalia is looked at against the backdrop of the principle of Responsibility to Protect (R2P). This R2P principle mainly determined sovereignty as a responsibility as well as guide states during exercising intervention. This principle also asserts that states are also responsible to assist where other states cannot solve their crises alone. The R2P principle was the conceptual framework for this study. The information was gathered through desktop research, from reading various articles on AU intervention and the Somali crisis. As a result the study established that the AU has the chief responsibility for establishing and initiating the continent’s peace and security architecture. The AU Constitutive Act enshrines the right to intervene. The AU has adopted the interventionist stance and has embraced the policy of non-indifference towards war crimes and crimes against humanity in Africa