Trading Blocs Performance Final
African Union
Trading Bloc
Motto
How Many States /Nations are included?
Headquarters?
P.O. Box 3243
Roosvelt Street
(Old Airport Area)
W21K19
Addis Ababa
Ethiopia
The Objectives of the AU
- To achieve greater unity and solidarity between the African countries and the peoples of Africa;
- To defend the sovereignty, territorial integrity and independence of its Member States;
- To ac
- To establish the necessary conditions which enable the continent to play its rightful role in the global economy and in international negotiations;
- To promote sustainable development at the economic, social and cultural levels as well as the integration of African economies;
- To promote co-operation in all fields of human activity to raise the living standards of African peoples;
- To coordinate and harmonize the policies between the existing and future Regional Economic Communities for the gradual attainment of the objectives of the Union;
- To advance the development of the continent by promoting research in all fields, in particular in science and technology;
- To work with relevant international partners in the eradication of preventable diseases and the promotion of good health on the continent.
- celerate the political and socio-economic integration of the continent;
- To promote and defend African common positions on issues of interest to the continent and its peoples;
- To encourage international cooperation, taking due account of the Charter of the United Nations and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights;
- To promote peace, security, and stability on the continent;
- To promote democratic principles and institutions, popular participation and good governance;
- To promote and protect human and peoples' rights in accordance with the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights and other relevant human rights instruments;
Recent GDP
History of the Trading Bloc
Current event:
A Pan-African Trial, at last
One of Africa’s most bloodstained former leaders, Hissène Habré, is likely to be formally charged in the next few days by a special African court with having committed a string of atrocities when he was president of Chad from 1982-1990. The judges of the so-called Extraordinary African Chambers, set up in 2012 in Senegal, will decide what charges he must face. Mr Habré, now aged 72, has been living in Senegal since fleeing from Chad at the end of his reign. He is alleged to have committed crimes against humanity, war crimes and torture. Around 40,000 people are reckoned to have been killed and many more tortured during his rule, according to Chad’s truth commission. His trial is likely to start in May or June. It has been a labyrinthine process. “The case has bounced around for the past 15 years,” says Reed Brody of Human Rights Watch, a New York-based monitoring group, which has been working with victims of Mr Habré to bring him to justice. They filed a case against him in 2000, whereupon he was indicted by a Senegalese court and arrested. But Mr Habré had powerful friends in Senegal. Its government interminably dragged its feet. But in 2012 Belgium, where the victims had sought justice But in 2012 Belgium, where the victims had sought justice invoking an unusual law that enables it to prosecute anyone for human-rights abuses wherever committed, won a case against Senegal at the International Court of Justice, the UN’s main judicial organ for adjudicating disputes between states. The court ordered Senegal to prosecute Mr Habré or extradite him. A new Senegalese president, Macky Sall, gave the case a fresh lease of life, with the eager backing of Aminata Touré, an anti-corruption campaigner who served as his prime minister until last summer. With the endorsement of the African Union (AU), they oversaw the innovative creation of the Extraordinary African Chambers. By contrast, the AU has been increasingly hostile to the International Criminal Court in The Hague, which has sought to bring human-rights abusers to book since its creation in 2002, on the ground that it has unfairly targeted Africans; all its indictees have so far been African. Mr Habré could not, in any case, be be tried before it, since his alleged crimes were committed before the ICC was set up.
Is his trial likely to herald a new trend, with African leaders brought before pan-African courts? Do not bet on it. Last year the AU said it would promote its own continental human-rights court—but incumbent leaders and their senior officials, it added, must be exempt. The court in Senegal may well be a one-off, but it sets the right sort of precedent for the continent’s abusive presidents.
- Feb 14th 2015