Power, conflict settlement and collective security in the era of the African

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A deep change in the vision, and the practice of peacekeeping and the maintenance of collective security is currently taking place with the creation of the Peace and Security Council, by the African Union. Indeed, the birth of this new framework for promoting collective security and peace on the scale of the African continent seals an important evolution : the use of military force in conflict settlement is now considered; this amounts to institutionalizing power in African international relations. This legitimization, and institutionalization of force, suggests that new practices in the field of peace and security be developed : concretely, the African Union Peace and Security Council will have to practice an actual power policy, in its hardcore shape, which may express itself in diverse ways : positive partiality, a coercive imposition of enforcing peace agreements… As for the African Union, which has taken care of including its new security dialectics in this perspective, in accordance with the broadened character of the concept of security, it will have to develop new practices so that peace-building by non military means be efficient. – Summary AFRI-2005