International solidarity is once again the currency of purchase in both academic and policy circles accentuated by a variety of global challenges requiring collective response. Solidarity has been a foundational principle of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) and its successor African Union (AU) for a long time. However, the normative understandings, its contours, appropriation, and deployment have shifted over time as the AU interacted with international legal norms and multiple external actors manifesting in a two-dimensional internal-external solidarity in AU theory and praxis. In this sense, international solidarity in AU legal and normative frameworks can be conceptualised at two levels having both an internal and external dimension. In its internal dimension, the AU seeks to institutionalise and consolidate solidarity as a regional organising principle cross-cutting different aspects of AU affairs with its member states. In its external characterisation, the AU invokes the principle upon which certain claims are made to demand (i) redress for economic inequalities amongst states; (ii) to formulate justifications for demanding opportunity for equal participation and an international legal reform for a fair and just international legal order; (iii) a normative mobilisation for redress for colonial crimes and other forms of injustices of particular concern to Africa (iv) the normative call for international support in the mitigation of humanitarian disasters; (v) a normative basis for support in key domestic policy areas such as human rights, democratisation and the rule of law.
However, the search for international cooperation which underpins the solidarity claim seems to assume a consensus on certain universal values that are valid candidates for international solidarity in different regimes. But this is seldom so. Indeed, many of those values are sometimes contested if not in principle then in application. Using the internal-external dimension frame set out above, the paper identifies the challenge to be two folds and consequently asks two key questions, at least as I see it: (i) international solidarity for what? (ii) international solidarity for whom? To answer these questions, the paper evaluates the alleged lack of solidarity by Africa on key contemporary issues by situating it in the historical context of the experiences of African peoples more specifically and the Third World more broadly, in two areas of international law—international criminal justice and the law of international peace and security.
The paper argues that the failure of international law to deal with colonial crimes and atrocities as an imperative of international criminal justice; the complicity of international law and the complicity of international law in the peace and security conditions of Africa demonstrates that international solidarity cannot ignore the real problem of an unjust legal order. If any articulation of international solidarity will, by default, be constituted within the parameters and existing organising principles and institutions of international law, it will be difficult to mobilise Africa for that purpose except on a case-by-case basis. Does that mean the movement for international solidarity from Africa will fail? Certainly not! Through contemporary AU practices, we can still see the potential and possibilities of international solidarity to serve both as a catalyst and vehicle for the transformation of international law. I conclude that if international solidarity is to make any progress towards its objectives of mobilising humanity (especially outside the Global North) around common values, it must avoid approaches that seek to preserve the status quo and its articulations must go beyond merely including the marginalised voices of peoples of the so-called periphery—it must also be emancipatory and should result in an authentic transformation of the international legal order.
About the speaker:
John-Mark Iyi is Associate Professor of International Law at the University of the Western Cape and Director of the African Centre for Transnational Criminal Justice. His research spans many areas of Public International Law, with a particular focus on Africa and contemporary international legal problems. He has published widely on themes in peace and conflict, terrorism, human rights and democratisation, international criminal law and transitional justice, international legal theory, ECOWAS, African Union, and the United Nations.