Paper short abstract:

The paper discusses how the AU Commission and the AU state members, during the conflictual process of defining protection for the African context, may experience unforeseen challenges to other dearly held values such as self-determination.

Paper long abstract:

There is a tendency to analyse the evolving and increasingly professionalised and codified approach to protection of civilians in the African Union (AU) as a normative step forward, and a way of making credible and legitimate some of the Union's peace and security objectives among them the commitment to African ownership.

However, and something aptly illustrated in the case of the various claims to how best protect the people of Libya in Africa and by Western powers/NATO, the protection discourse is inherently political and evokes a mix of security and civilian components. The paper discusses how the AU Commission and the AU state members, during the conflictual process of defining protection for the African context, may experience unforeseen challenges to other dearly held values such as self-determination. It will thus give examples of negotiation and tensions produced by the AU's double agenda of peace and security and democratization.