Enlargement of the African Union

Politics of the African Union
Institutions Casablanca Group Union of African States Organisation of African Unity African Economic Community African Unification Front
Executive Assembly Chairperson Commission Chairperson Executive Council Rep. Committee
Legislature Pan-African Parliament Bureau Secretariat List of members Permanent Committees Rural Econ., Agri., Resources, Environ. Monetary & Financial Trade, Customs, & Immigration Cooperation, IR, & Conflict Transport, Industry, Communications, Energy, Science, & Tech. Health, Labour, & Social Educ., Culture, Tourism, & HR Gender, Family, Youth, Disabilities Justice & Rights Rules, Privileges, & Discipline
Judiciary Sirte Declaration Constitutive Act of the AU Law Charter on Rights Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights Justice and Human Rights Court of Justice Court on Human and Peoples' Rights List of judges
Advisory bodies Peace and Security Council Economic, Social and Cultural Council Specialised Technical Committees
Financial bodies AEC Pillars (Abuja Treaty) CEN-SAD COMESA EAC ECCAS/CEEAC CEMAC ECOWAS/CEDEAO UEMOA WAMZ IGAD SADC SACU AMU/UMA African Central Bank African Monetary Union African Investment Bank New Partnership for Africa's Development African Peer Review Mechanism New Partnership for Africa's Development E-School Program
Decentralised bodies Africa CDC
Related topics Enlargement Foreign relations TerrAfrica partnership
Other countries
v t

When the African Union (AU) was founded in 2002, it represented almost the entire African continent. As the successor to the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), founded in 1963, its membership was inherited from that body. Currently, the AU has 55 member states.^[1] Growth in the OAU typically came from post-colonial independence; as decolonization ended, the borders of the OAU had overlapped almost all of Africa.

Membership[]

Article 29 of the Constitutive Act of the African Union (ratified July 11, 2000), states:

1. Any African State may, at any time after the entry into force of this Act, notify the Chairman of the Commission of its intention to accede to this Act and to be admitted as a member of the Union.
2. The Chairman of the Commission shall, upon receipt of such notification, transmit copies thereof to all Member States. Admission shall be decided by a simple majority of the Member States. The decision of each Member State shall be transmitted to the Chairman of the Commission who shall, upon receipt of the required number of votes, communicate the decision to the State concerned.

The following two articles discuss the suspension and cessation of membership:

Governments which shall come to power through unconstitutional means shall not be allowed to participate in the activities of the Union.

and

1. Any State which desires to renounce its membership shall forward a written notification to the Chairman of the Commission, who shall inform Member States thereof. At the end of one year from the date of such notification, if not withdrawn, the Act shall cease to apply with respect to the renouncing State, which shall thereby cease to belong to the Union.
2. During the period of one year referred to in paragraph 1 of this Article, any Member State wishing to withdraw from the Union shall comply with the provisions of this Act and shall be bound to discharge its obligations under this Act up to the date of its withdrawal.

The former of these two clauses has been used to suspend the participation of states in the AU a number of times. The only state to leave the OAU was Morocco, which withdrew in 1984, following the admission of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic in 1982. It joined the AU in 2017.

Current members[]

Between 1984 and 2017, Morocco was the only UN Member state in Africa which was not a member of the AU, following its withdrawal from the OAU in 1984.^[2][3] Many leaders of African nations supported the reintegration of Morocco to the AU.^[4][5] In July 2016, Morocco announced that it wished to rejoin the organization.^[6] Morocco's membership was approved by the AU on 30 January 2017.^[7]

Possible growth[]

In February 2012, the Caribbean Republic of Haiti signalled that it would seek to upgrade its observer status to associate member status.^[9] The AU had planned at its summit in June 2013 to upgrade Haiti's status from observer to associate.^[10] In a press release issued May 2016, the African Union Commission announced that, "[a]ccording to Article 29.1 of the AU’s Constitutive Act, only African States can join the African Union." Therefore, "Haiti will not be admitted as a Member State of the African Union".^[11]

Although the AU includes one largely unrecognised state, the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic, the prospects of the unrecognised African state of Somaliland being admitted to the organisation are slim. The AU continues to recognise the territorial integrity of Somalia, favouring the Transitional Federal Government's claim that Somaliland is an autonomous region over the Somaliland government's assertion of full sovereignty.^[12] Nonetheless, Somaliland applied for AU membership in 2005, a request that has hereto gone unanswered.^[12]

After Azawad's unilateral declaration of independence from Mali in 2012, the AU issued a statement calling the pronouncement "null and of no value whatsoever".^[13]

The only parts of continental Africa or outlying islands not represented by the AU are dependencies and other small territories of France (Mayotte, Réunion, and the Scattered Islands in the Indian Ocean), Italy (Pantelleria and the Pelagie Islands), Portugal (Madeira Islands), Spain (Canary Islands, Ceuta, Melilla, and the plazas de soberanía), the United Kingdom (Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha, Chagos Archipelago), and Yemen (Socotra). Spain's Ceuta and Melilla are the only territories on continental Africa not represented by an AU member state.

Israel's PM Benjamin Netanyahu has requested to join the African Union as an observer, with the bid supported by Ghana.^[14][15]

See also[]

• Foreign relations of the African Union
• List of African Union member states by political system

References[]

External links[]

• The official AU site