Dr Wafula Okumu, Executive Director, The Borders Institute

The recent military escalation in the Middle East, initiated by a joint US-Israeli strike on Iran and followed by Tehran’s regional retaliation, has presented the international community with a profound crisis. For the African Union (AU), however, this is more than a distant geopolitical tremor. First, as an instance of what the Solemn Declaration on the Common African and Defence Security Policy (CADSP) calls ‘international conflicts and crises with adverse effects on African regional security’, this constitutes what the Policy calls common external threats. Second, it is a direct and uncomfortable test of AU’s identity as a principled actor committed to speaking in defence of the UN Charter on the world stage. The AU’s bifurcated response through the statement from the Chairperson of the AU Commission—a vaguely worded initial statement on the invasion followed by a sharp condemnation of Iran’s reaction—has ignited a difficult but necessary debate: is the Union a consistent defender of international law, or is it succumbing to the very practice of ‘selective Charterism’ it has long criticized in others?

At stake is the AU’s most significant asset: its normative power. The Union’s mandate, enshrined in its Constitutive Act, is not merely to observe global events but to actively ‘promote peace, security, and stability on the continent’, ‘defend African common positions on issues of interest,’ and ‘establish necessary conditions which enable the continent to play its rightful role’ in global affairs. Global instability, whether in Eastern Europe or the Middle East, directly impacts African economies, maritime security, and food systems. These are conditions explicitly identified as ‘external threats’ by the CADSP. Silence is not a viable option. The question, therefore, is not whether the AU should speak, but whether it speaks with the disciplined legal consistency that its own history, recent experience, and principles demand.

An unsettling silence on the primary breach

The joint US-Israeli invasion of Iran, which reportedly included the assassination of its Supreme Leader, represents a grave challenge to the post-1945 international order. The foundational pillar of this order is Article 2(4) of the United Nations Charter, which unequivocally prohibits the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state. This prohibition is the bedrock of peaceful coexistence.

The only clear exception to this rule, absent a UN Security Council authorisation, is the inherent right to self-defence under Article 51. However, this right is not a license for discretionary warfare. The threshold for its invocation, particularly in an anticipatory sense, is exceptionally high, requiring a demonstrably imminent armed attack. As Professor Marc Weller, Director of Chatham House’s International Law Programme, has affirmed, the doctrine of self-defence does not permit a ‘preventative war’ launched to neutralise a potential, long-term threat. It is a measure of last resort, constrained by the principles of necessity and proportionality.

The justifications offered for the invasion have yet to meet this stringent legal standard. Vague assertions of an ‘existential threat’ or a desire to ‘obliterate’ Iran’s military potential fall short of the evidence required to legitimise such a profound breach of another state’s sovereignty. This is the critical context in which the AU’s first statement, issued on February 28, 2026, must be judged. The statement expressed ‘deep concern,’ called for ‘restraint and urgent de-escalation,’ and urged all parties to act ‘in accordance with international law and the United Nations Charter.’

While well-intentioned, this language was critically deficient. It failed to name the initial act as a violation of Article 2(4). It failed to question whether the high bar of Article 51 had been met. By adopting a posture of neutrality between an aggressor and a victim of that aggression, the AU’s statement inadvertently weakened the very legal norms it purported to uphold. It created a false equivalence, treating the violation of sovereignty and the subsequent reaction as morally and legally indistinct parts of an ‘escalation.’

A tale of two statements: The glaring inconsistency

The AU’s reticence was thrown into stark relief by its second statement, issued shortly after Iran launched retaliatory missile and drone attacks against the territories of several Gulf states. Here, the language was anything but vague. The statement held that the AU Commission Chairperson, Mahmoud Ali Youssouf, ‘strongly condemns’ Iran’s actions, defining them as a ‘clear violation of sovereignty and territorial integrity’ and expressing ‘full solidarity with the governments and peoples of the affected states.’

This is where the charge of unjustifiable legal inconsistency becomes undeniable. The AU correctly identified Iran’s retaliation as a violation of sovereignty. Yet it failed to apply the same legal standard to the precedent-setting invasion that provoked it. This selective application of principle is precisely what Africa has long decried when powerful global actors have used international law as an à la carte menu to justify their interests.

The contradiction is made more acute when contrasted with the AU’s own robust defence of sovereignty within Africa. Just weeks prior, at its annual summit, the AU fiercely condemned Israel’s recognition of Somaliland, reaffirming its ‘unwavering support for the Federal Republic of Somalia’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.’ This principled stand was a powerful reaffirmation of the AU’s core tenets. How, then, can the Union so resolutely defend Somalia’s sovereignty from a diplomatic action while remaining circumspect about the violation of Iran’s sovereignty through military force?

This dissonance strikes at the heart of the AU Constitutive Act. Article 4 is unambiguous in its commitment to principles such as ‘sovereign equality,’ ‘respect of borders,’ the ‘prohibition of the use of force or threat to use force among Member States,’ and ‘non-interference by any Member State in the internal affairs of another.’ While these principles apply to intra-African relations, the AU’s moral and political authority depends on championing them universally. When the Union fails to do so, it not only undermines its credibility abroad but also risks eroding the normative consensus that underpins peace and security in Africa.

Reclaiming normative authority

This critique is not a call for the AU to take sides in a complex geopolitical conflict. It is a call for the Union to side with the law. During the recent AU summit, the AU Assembly agreed to a proposal on the elaboration of a common foreign policy to help the continent manage with principled consistency the challenges from the changing global context (see here). The only way the AU can stand a chance of becoming an effective foreign policy actor on the global stage is if its actions are firmly grounded in the rules of international law and in a consistent defence of the UN Charter. A more credible and influential AU position would not have been pro-Iran or anti-West; it would have been unequivocally pro-rule-of-law. Such a stance would involve three clear steps:

1. Explicitly reaffirm Article 2(4): The starting point for any statement must be the clear and unambiguous reaffirmation of the prohibition on the use of force as the cornerstone of international law.
2. Scrutinise claims of self-defence: The AU should publicly and consistently insist that any claim to self-defence under Article 51 be rigorously scrutinised against the high standards of necessity, proportionality, and imminence.
3. Condemn all violations consistently: The AU must apply the same legal and moral standard to all breaches of sovereignty, regardless of the actor. Condemning Iran’s retaliation is legitimate, but it is legally and morally incoherent without a prior, and equally strong, condemnation of the initial invasion.

Africa’s voice on the global stage matters now more than ever. As the world fragments and great power competition intensifies, the principles of sovereignty, territorial integrity, and the non-use of force are the primary shields for less powerful states. The AU has a historic opportunity and a profound responsibility to be the world’s leading champion of these norms. To do so, it must avoid the trap of political expediency and embrace the disciplined legal consistency that is the true source of its authority. The choice is not whether to speak, but whether to speak with a clear, principled, and unwavering voice.

In terms of timing, today’s discussions are both propitious and challenging! We have a United Nations Security Council (UNSC) that must save itself from paralysis in the face of complex conflicts. Hence, the compelling need to expedite action in ongoing negotiations to reform it.

In this, the role of ‘We the Peoples of the United Nations’, that is Non-State Actors and citizens of the world, would be crucial. I would therefore like to commend Amani Africa for creating this platform which enables us to cross-fertilize ideas as practitioners in government and non-governmental spaces.

As the UN Secretary-General has repeatedly warned, including during the 80^th Session of the General Assembly, the reform of the Security Council is no longer optional; it is urgent. The global order is changing faster than our institutions are adapting. Africa has been at the forefront of this reform movement.

Africa remains the only region that has articulated a unified institutional framework for the Security Council reform. For decades, our continent has insisted on a more representative Council, as articulated in the African Common Position, The Ezulwini Consensus and the Sirte Declaration which unveiled Africa’s demand for fair representation which is at least two permanent seats and five non-permanent seats for African States in a reformed Security Council. Africa’s position has not changed. This is not a mere aspiration but a prescription for justice.

On the Continent our ongoing focus is driven by the following approaches:

1. Right to development;
2. Building of strong and capable States;
3. Peace and reconciliation as basis for viable African society;
4. Primacy of politics, including a greater role for Women and Youth in governance;
5. Peace enforcement not mere peacekeeping; and
6. SMART partnerships (Inclusive of African Regional Actors).

Against this background, we seek in our common African position to be a strong united, resilient and influential global player and partner. On the global scene we hope to work with partners to:

1. Promote global identity and representation in rich diversity;
2. Global shared values;
3. Global platforms for experience and good practice sharing; and
4. Global peace and development as shared public goods.

It is important to recall that at the UN Summit of the Future, African leaders campaigned successfully to include Africa’s issues as a top priority (See here). The resulting Pact explicitly frames reforming the Council as a task of justice.

This support must translate into text-based negotiations. Text must translate into amendment, and amendment must translate into ratification. The intergovernmental negotiations process cannot remain an annual ritual of repetition.

These are not yet breakthroughs but they are not stagnation either. The momentum must be seized and turned into progress.

How do we sustain the momentum when global politics are so polarized?

We must be honest about the nature of this process. The Security Council Reform is not stalled because the arguments are weak. It is stalled because power is entrenched. The Charter amendment requires ratification by the Permanent Members, giving each of them decisive influence over the outcome. Support for the reform would seem to exist in principle while remaining limited in practice. Intermediate proposals that exclude veto equality or permanent status, continue to circulate in diplomatic discussions. Such proposals risk institutionalizing a hierarchy in which Africa is permanently represented but never equal. This is incompatible with the Common African Position.

Critical Questions we must answer:

• Is the current and apparent consensus that reforms are necessary real?
• Are reforms a matter of justice/global peace enhancement or mere procedure in a political chess game.
• Are the reforms a matter of when, how and to what effect, or a ritual of inconsequential efforts.
• Are we moving on the track of negotiated reform in the context of sober peace time or drifting towards reform on the back of devastating war like happened after WW2?
• Are We the People’s taken along, differently from 1945?

Recommendations:

To keep the Security Council Reform at the top of the global agenda, we must pursue at least four lines of efforts:

• Reinvigorate the Intergovernmental Negotiations (IGN) process with the AU Model:

The IGN process has produced areas of convergence that can serve as a foundation for text-based negotiations. The African Model on the UNSC Reform, our unified proposal of 2 permanent (with equal rights) and 5 non-permanent seats for Africa, has been endorsed by all 55 AU Member States. It was formally tabled in the UNGA’s negotiations. The Pact itself calls for such a consolidated model to guide talks. As negotiations continue, let us reiterate the moral logic that without Africa’s inclusion, there can be no truly legitimate Council. Africa’s unity under C10 negotiating leadership, remains key in maintaining coherence, and this leadership must continue. Our think tanks and other non-state actors would need to align and support.

• Expand the coalition of support:

Africa cannot do this alone. We must sustain outreach to key partners and regional groups. Africa’s position is one among several competing reform frameworks including the G4 proposal, the Uniting for Consensus model, incremental expansion models, and intermediate membership proposals. These competing visions divide support among UN Member States and slow convergence. Africa must therefore focus not only on defending principles but on building a winning coalition. This should include intra and intercontinental platforms for advocacy and sharing ideas like the one AMANI provides.

Leadership of the African Union Committee of Ten (C-10) Heads of State and Government in negotiations must be supported based on the African common position which necessarily includes no discussion at this time of who the two Members would be. We will cross the bridge when we get there.

• Leverage UN informal mechanisms.

While negotiations continue, we need to also keep an eye on low hanging fruits especially addressing Security Council Working Methods through membership of the Accountability, Coherence and Transparency (ACT) Group of Friends. This should contribute to the nature and quality of anticipated and substantive reform.

• Emphasize urgency and fairness.

In all our messages, we must highlight that reform is not a luxury but a necessity. We will remind colleagues that peace operations now often rely on African troops and that sustainable security solutions increasingly come from African initiatives. If the Council fails to evolve, it risks losing credibility in Africa and beyond. As the UN’s High-Level Advisory Panel warned, without meaningful reform, the Security Council risks irrelevance. Consequentially, the very survival of multilateralism and global peace would be unpredictably and dangerously compromised.

Geopolitical volatility makes reform harder, but also more compelling. If the multilateral system does not evolve, fragmentation will be deepened. Parallel coalitions and alternative governance structures will proliferate. Reform, therefore, is not only about justice for Africa. It is about preserving the relevance of the United Nations itself and global peace.  Inclusive and constructive dialogue with a sense of urgency, is the way to go.

El-Ghassim Wane

Africa today faces not simply a difficult moment, but a structural turning point. The issue is not whether the world is becoming more unstable and messy — it clearly is. The real question is: What does a disorderly world mean for African security?

My core argument is straightforward: The erosion of the global order is transforming Pan-Africanism from a political aspiration into a security imperative.

Let me start with few remarks on the changing global environment and why this matters specifically for Africa.

Many of the trends now worrying the world are not new to Africans and to the Global South more broadly. For decades, stakeholders in the Global South warned about selective application of international law, unilateral action, and power politics.

For Africa, this carries a host of consequences.

First, frequent violations of international law and the increasing use of coercion, including force, in pursuit of national interests affect all states, but weaker states are affected more severely. African countries depend disproportionately on rules because they lack comparable hard power. When rules weaken, their vulnerability increases.

Second, while the current multilateral system is imperfect and unbalanced — and was designed with very little African input — it has nonetheless provided some clear advantages: coalition-building, forums to address global challenges, mediation frameworks, peacekeeping operations. As multilateralism weakens, Africa loses diplomatic leverage to advance its interests and conflict-management tools simultaneously.

Third, declining external support is not just a development issue. It is a security issue. Peace operations, DDR programmes, elections support, humanitarian assistance and even state administration in some fragile states have depended heavily on external financing.

Fourth, with heightened geopolitical competition inside Africa, the continent’s conflicts are becoming increasingly internationalized (see also here). External actors increasingly shape battlefield dynamics, while African institutions struggle to influence outcomes.

Clearly, Africa is entering a period in which it is more exposed to instability while simultaneously losing the external mechanisms that had so far contributed to manage instability. In other words, the trends described earlier do not merely create a more dangerous world — they remove the external pillars that helped African mechanisms function.

It is important here to keep in mind that Africa’s conflict management system was designed as part of a cooperative international security framework — one only needs to look at the provisions of the Peace and Security Council Protocol, especially those concerning its relationship with the United Nations and other international partners. That framework is now less predictable, less available and, in some cases, internally divided.

This raises an important question: Can African institutions maintain stability if external stabilisers become inconsistent or absent? That is the crossroads Africa is now approaching — not a philosophical choice about Pan-Africanism, but a practical challenge of collective security.

Pan-Africanism has often been treated as history, memory, or political sentiment. Today it is becoming a functional necessity. In many ways, this vindicates Kwame Nkrumah. In the early 1960s, he argued that unity was not primarily ideological — it was a condition for sovereignty in an unequal international system.

Howard French, the author of the book Born in Blackness: Africa, Africans, and the Making of the Modern World, 1471 to the Second World War and of the more recent book The Second Emancipation: Nkrumah, Pan-Africanism, and Global Blackness at High Tide, captures this well. He writes: ‘With no one in the world serving up favors to the continent, Nkrumah’s insight about the gains to be had through federation is as salient as ever. What is lacking is sufficient action. The time has come for a continent cut loose in the world to take the next step.’

And this is precisely the issue. At the very moment when the international environment is becoming more hostile, African states are not acting with the level of collective cohesion that the situation requires. And more broadly, we see a weakening reflex of continental solidarity.

The result is predictable: fragmented bargaining power, unequal deals, and diminished leverage (see also here). In peace and security, this situation also complicates the search for lasting solutions that require engagement within a coherent continental framework.

Against this backdrop, what collective security actually requires in practice?

The starting point is simple: unity is no longer an emotional or rhetorical ideal. It is strategic necessity. It determines the continent’s negotiating power, its ability to manage conflicts, and ultimately its political survival in a more competitive international environment.

So what does that mean concretely for African countries?

First, it entails deepening our collective investment in the institutions we have created. Our leaders cannot be more present at summits with external partners than at AU meetings. That sends a message — to others and to ourselves. As Désiré Assogbavi recently remarked, ‘As the world order shifts, summits in foreign capitals make the continent look like a guest at its own table.’

Second, it means cooperating fully with African conflict-management institutions. Africa already has one of the most elaborate peace and security architectures in the world: norms, institutions and expertise exist. The PSC Protocol is explicit — Member States are expected to support and cooperate with African efforts to resolve conflicts. This does not mean excluding external partners. Our crises are connected to global dynamics. But external support must reinforce African leadership, not replace it.

Third, it means honoring a commitment our leaders themselves made at the launch of the Peace and Security Council in May 2004: No African conflict should be ‘out of bounds’ for the AU, and when grave abuses occur ‘Africa should be the first to speak and the first to act.’ If we do not act when crises unfold on the continent, we should not be surprised when others step in.

Fourth, collective security does not mean isolation. It requires close partnership with the United Nations and other international stakeholders. Already in 1990, Salim Ahmed Salim, then OAU Secretary-General, argued that while Africa must strengthen its ‘inner strength’, it should continue to prioritize the UN as the principal multilateral forum through which it defends its interests internationally. That remains true today. Africa should be at the forefront of efforts to reinforce the UN and make it more fit for purpose.

Finally, collective security is also a question of responsibility. Everyone in the AU ecosystem — governments, institutions, and officials — must recognize the seriousness of the moment. Africa is entering a more demanding international environment. Routine approaches will not suffice (see here). This period requires commitment, discipline and steadfastness.

How, then, do we operationalize this ambition? What role should the AU Commission play in moving it forward ?

Stronger political commitment will clearly be required. At present, the level of collective resolve does not fully match the demands of the moment. This is a reality we must acknowledge.

But paradoxically, this makes the role of the AU Commission — which is not only an administrative body (the Constitutive Act, the PSC Protocol and several other instruments are clear in this respect) — more important, not less. Political will does not simply appear. It has to be generated, encouraged, nurtured.

In periods of geopolitical transition, tensions among Member States and inward-looking approaches as countries focus primarily on their domestic challenges, institutions matter more than ever. The Commission must act as the engine of collective action. It must engage proactively, build coalitions around sensitive issues, and create the conditions in which states feel both empowered and compelled to act.

To conclude, the world is becoming more dangerous and less structured. For Africa, the consequence is clear: external stabilizers are weakening at a time of rising internal vulnerabilities. Therefore, the question before us is not ideological. It is whether African states will face insecurity individually or manage it collectively.

Pan-Africanism, in this context, is about survival and agency. Africa can either become an arena where global competition plays out or an organized actor capable of shaping its own security environment. The decisions taken in the period ahead will determine which of the two it becomes.