The Arab Spring and the African Union’s Reaction to the Crisis

Abstract

This article refl ects on the AU and its responses to the Libyan crisis, UN intervention, regime change in Libya and Gaddafi ’s assassination. After providing a background to the Arab Spring that led to the crisis, the article will first revisit the AU’s objectives, principles and organisational structure. It will then critically assess the AU’s response to the Libyan crisis, to NATO’s intervention under UNSCRs 1970 and 1973, to regime change in Libya, and to Gaddafi ’s assassination. Finally, the article will conclude that African leaders collectively and individually did not act consistently. They failed the African people, bringing the AU further into disrepute by not complying with the relevant provisions of the AU Constitutive Act and other legal instruments and not honouring their undertakings in various AU policy statements or declarations.

AFRICA INSIGHT Vol 42 (1) – June 2012