Sovereignty and Humanitarian Intervention: A legal challenge of Art. 4(H) of the African Union Constitutive Act

Abstract

The emergence of the new norm of military intervention based on humanitarian grounds, also dubbed as ‘Responsibility to Protect (R2P)’, after the end of the Cold War, has been described as ‘highly controversial’ and that its application could connote humanitarianism or imperialism (Zimmermann, 2014). In that, its application would eclipse the principle of sovereignty, considered the very foundation of the international system. This article is an attempt to assess the legality of Art. 4(h) of the African Union Constitutive Act of 2002, particularly, its incompatibility with the principle of sovereignty. This legal challenge can only be understood by giving a brief sketch of both sovereignty and the legitimacy of the transnational norm of military intervention that has been institutionalized by the African Union Constitutive Act