United Nations Security Council Resolutions in Africa : the conundrum of state and human insecurity in Libya.

Thesis (M.A.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2013.Both interventionist and anti-interventionist scholars have advanced the view that the 2011 Libyan conflict probes the need to establish an international organisation to settle disputes between nations with a view to maintaining international peace and security. Ironically, 67 years after the founding of the United Nations, post-colonial African states remain deeply troubled and affected by conflicts that are often exacerbated by United Nations Security Council (UNSC) Resolutions. The 2011 Libyan conflict was not a war for democracy; rather, it represented and demonstrated clearly the asymmetrical relations between Africa and Europe. This study therefore, is anchored on the thesis that the Western Countries—especially Britain and France—within the UNSC ignore the values that are embodied in the Treaty of Westphalia which established state sovereignty. Some Permanent five (P5) members of the UN were typically insensitive to Libya’s sovereignty and to the creed of democracy and this inevitably undermined the national security of the state in favour of the ‘Responsibility to Protect’ clause. The outsourcing of the UNSC’s mission, among other things, in Libya to ensure ‘international peace and security’ to the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) was a critical reason for the loss of human lives and values in the 2011 Libyan pogrom. The introduction of a no-fly zone over Libya and the use of Responsibility to Protect (R2P) contained in UNSC Resolution 1973 clearly stoked the conflict in Libya in order to further the political and pecuniary interests of some of the P5 members. The involvement of NATO and the attendant bombing campaign in Libya served to undermine the militarily weak continent of Africa in its effort to broker peace under the umbrella of the African Union (AU). In order to secure these political and economic interests, the NATO jet bombers declared war against a sovereign UN member state and openly participated in the eventual overthrow and death of the Libyan leader, Muammar Gaddafi. In essence, this study underscores that the use of Responsibility to Protect in Libya was orchestrated at the highest level of international politics to justify external interference and ultimately, to secure regime change in Libya. The net effect of the outcome of the 2011 Libyan conflict is the post-war imperial control of Libya’s natural resources facilitated by the National Transition Committee established by these imperial forces. The extent of the damage caused by the UN-backed NATO intervention in Libya is also the result of the collective failure of the African Union to assert itself in the Libyan situation

The nexus between the United Nations Security Council reform and peacebuilding in Africa.

Doctor of Philosophy in Conflict Resolution and Peace Studies. University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg 2015.The nexus between the United Nations Security Council reform and peacebuilding in Africa is underpinned by the recognition that the Security Council is the supreme organ of the UN; and its reform saga is a conundrum to Africa’s peacebuilding and security praxis. In assortment of ways, this study observes that the Council is created in atmospheres of major realpolitik and has unrepentantly deprived the African continent for 70 seventy years, of meaningful contribution. As the harbinger for global peace and security, the Council lacks geographic representativity and is bias towards Africa’s real peace which has fanned insecurity paradigm in the continent. The study recognises that African inclusion into the permanent chambers of the Council will entrench Africa’s role for global security and armistice. The African exclusion matrix is a clearly-thought-out strategy of the imperial forces in the Permanent Five (P5) which has processed economic deprivation - making the continent perpetually dependent on imperial powers, and politically marginalised - keeping the same at the periphery of the pot of global politics since 1945. In the current global community, peace in Africa is a call of worldwide significance due largely to the observation that, conflicts in Africa accounts for over calculated 70% of world conflicts. Conflicts destroy the pillars for peace and terminate Africa’s interest to succeed in containing insecurity regime in the region and elsewhere. Conversely, lack of Council’s restructuring has reinforced insecurity regime, and exacerbated the dependency syndrome in the thinking-faculty of African leaders. Actually, some African nations are with necessary capabilities to become permanent members of the Security Council, but US and allies are against African inclusion on the altar of maintaining the status quo and retaining the exclusive core for a realist outlook that, the League of Nations and United Nations are children of World Wars I and II respectively. However, the study among other things learnt that dependency on external actors and marginalisation of Africa may continue until Africa speaks one word with one voice. That is, to demand permanent seat with veto or simultaneously withdraws membership from the UN through the AU’s common front. The study, essentially, extended the frontiers of existing knowledge and expanded the horizons of facts on the Security Council reform, and peacebuilding in Africa

(In)Secutiry Regime among African Youth: The Age and Law Curfew Aumenta dimensioni testoDiminuisci dimensioni testo

this paper purports to present the account of twin phenomena of age and constitution that anointed the relegation of African youth to the wastebasket of oppression. African youth have been studied by various scholars; and social, economic, and political statistical analyses of the youth were habitually deduced from [un]employment quotient. According to National Treasury discussion paper[1] this instrument may not be a reliable tool in either understanding insecurity regimes threatening the youth in Africa and may not suffice in championing policy course for a secured African youth. [Un]employment are only symptoms of asymmetrical laws governing many African states. The principal problems are the constitution, and age limitations respectively (Ombagi 2012). In this guide, the instrument valid for testing and indeed, observing the true condition of young Africans are: the roles of state’s constitution; and the Age Grade limitation factors. These, are critical in the development and security of the youth. George McGovern cited in Jeanette Rankin (2012) noted that he [was] fed up to the ears with old men dreaming up wars for young people to die. Two salient factors, rudimentary to youth insecurity in the region in McGovern’s assertions are the law which authorises war and the age grade legally targeted in the war. In assortment of ways, constitutions provide the basis for definition, qualification and categorisation of the youth, who in turn are the direct sufferers of numerous human and state insecurity conditions forced on them by law. Constitution, therefore, plays exclusivist roles and enables the central authority to enforce rules on, and dictate norms for the youth. Despite the need for the state to adjust its behavior to reflect the actual or anticipated preferences of all citizens through a process of policy coordination, laws deprive the youth