PARAGON INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITY

LAW 302 – International Laws of International Organization

Research Paper:

“Can African Union Become the

Supranational Institution”

Lecturer by:
Dr. Sun Suon

Group Members:
Leanghai Phalla
Penraksa Kong
Vanndasambath Chhuon

Academic Year: 2019 - 2020

Content
 I. Introduction

II. The Overview of the Pan-African Parliament

III. African Union: Supranational Institution?

A. Normative Supranationalism

B. Decisional Supranationalism

IV. The Challenges of African Union

A.

B. Starting Point

C. Economic Gap

D. Financial Contribution

V. The Path Ways to the Supranational Institution

VI. Conclusion

Bibliography

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 I. Introduction
The African Union (AU) was established on 9 July 2002, in the city of Durban of South
Africa under the Sirte Declaration on 9 September 1999. The inspiration for the creation of
the AU was the Organization of African Union (OAU) that signed by 32 heads of African
independence states on 25 May 1963 (African Union Handbook, 2019). The vision of the AU
was viewed as accelerating the process of integration of the Africa continent to expand their
role into the global economy; whilst to further addressing the social, economic, and political
issues in the region (Vanheukelom, 2017). Currently, the AU composed of 55-member states.
And has it headquarter in the capital city, Addis Ababa of Ethiopia.

II. The Overview of the Pan-African Parliament

The Pan African-Parliament (PAP) is one of the nine organs of the African Union. The PAP
was established in 1991 under the proposed in the Abuja Treaty (African Union Handbook,
2019). The purpose of the parliament was stated in the AU Constitutive Act in article 17 “to
ensure the full participation of African peoples in the development and economic integration
of the continent (Constitution Act of the African Union, 2000). Besides, the PAP is intended
as the platform for the AU member state to the discussion and making decisions on the issue
and challenges of the continent. The PAP members are defined by the domestic legislature,
rather than directly elected by the people. The PAP has power on consultative, advisory, and
budgetary oversight in the AU (African Union Handbook, 2019).

III. African Union: Supranational Institution?

“Supranationalism” is the term that describes as “the development of authoritative institutions
of government and network of policy-making activity above the nation-state” by Ben
Rosamond (Rosamond, 2000). To evolve into the institution of supranational, it a need that
the international governmental organization satisfies the criteria on the component of
sovereignty associated, and the characteristic of the normative and decisional
supranationalism (Fagbayibo, 2008).

A. Normative Supranationalism
In normative supranationalism, the legal inquiry of this organization was based on
the respect of the common interest and competence (Weiler, 1981). The
organization's laws are superior to the domestic laws of each member state (Paul
Craig, Grainne de Burca, 1999).

In reflection to the AU, even though each that is not fulfilling in sharing their
sovereignty, but the intended as mentioned in the AU is intended to create a
supranational institution.
“We, the heads of states and government of the member states of the
Organization of Africa Union (OAU)… Further determined to take all
necessary measure to strengthen our common institutions and provided them
with the necessary power and resources to enable them discharge their
respective mandates effectively;” [ CITATION Con00 \l 1033 ]

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 With the AU, the common value institution has already appeared in the form of
some organs such as the Assembly, the Executive Council, Pan-African
Parliament, Commission and the African Court of Justice to address on at the
supranational level on the security, socio-economic, human rights and political
governance (Fagbayibo, 2008). To be clear, as mentioned in the Constitutive Act
to their intended supranationalism:

 The Assembly with the function in rights to determined, monitor and

compliance on the common policies;
 The Executive Council with function to make decisions and coordinate on
the regard of common policies on trade, immigration, health, and
transportation.
 The Pan African-Parliament with function to exercise, consultative, and
advisory of the common power and union’ rules.
 The African Court of Justice with function to make jurisdiction over the
matter of the Constitutive Acts, inter-stare conflict, but not able to
intervene to the conflict case on the non-ratified state to the protocol.
Unless, it is war crimes, genocide, and humanitarian crime that they would
have rights to intervene. (Fagbayibo, 2008)

B. Decisional Supranationalism
In the decisional supranationalism, is focus on the autonomy of the union in policy
reformation and decision-making [CITATION Wei81 \l 1033 ], process by the majority
system [CITATION Annss \l 1033 ]. When decisional supranationalism is appearing
when there is lack of the normative supranationalism. Simply as the AU Constitutive
Act in the article 7 stated that “consensus or failing which, by a two thirds majority of
member states of the Union, apart from procedure matters which require a simple
majority” [ CITATION Con00 \l 1033 ].

In spite of the facts that African Union seems to be far behind from the Supranational
Institutions, it still has the positive view that African Union can become a Supranational
institution as long as they have more mechanisms to dissolve their currents problem below
and ways forward.

IV. The Challenges of African Union

A. The Legal and Institutional Status
The establish of the common market with the free movement of goods, people,
labor and services have process in the very slow pace. Due to the obstacle of some
legal factor by the lack of clarity on the regional laws by each member state. And
some of the members are still faced to the obstacle of free movement due to non-

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 tariff barrier different from the EU that have achieving the basic economic and
achieve the customs union and common market [ CITATION Sal12 \l 1033 ].

B. The Starting Point

Another challenge is that about their starting point, meaning that if we look at
their starting point, the African Union started with the larger groups, statistically
53 states which consist of different economic status. The European Supranational
Institution has only 6 founding fathers who have already advanced their economy.
With this matter, the African Unions have an inequality gap among its founding
fathers since the beginning of the days which provides the major effects on their
operating structure and their functional systems.

C. Financial Contribution
Finding funds to survive on its own is one of the other reform projects proposed
by President Rwanda. In order for the African Union to be influential and
effective, unless the institution has financial autonomy, this means that it does not
rely on foreign aid. Currently, more than 80 per cent of African Union funds are
provided by foreign powers’ donors (African Union Self-reliance process, 2017).
In addition to relying on foreign assistance, the budget of the African Union also
comes from the annual contributions of each member state. However, the problem
is that some member states have been slow to pay their share or are unlikely to
meet their obligations. These are the reasons why the African Union process has
stagnated and many reform projects have been postponed to this day. In this
situation, Rwanda had proposed a 0.2 per cent tariff on each member's imports in
a series of reforms aimed at reducing foreign dependence. This will allow the
African Union to have a sustainable, clear and reliable source of revenue (the
implementation of the African Union’s levy progress and challenges, 2017).

Reliance on foreign aid of more than 80 per cent is indicative of the inability of
African Union members to help one another. In this sense, it refers to the highly
developed African Union or regional powers which do not support their own
members until external powers have intervened. This situation varies from the
European Union in which wealthy EU nations, such as France and Germany,
financially support or subside some of the members that have been hit by the
economic recession, such as Greece and some Eastern European countries (Greece
debt crisis, 2015).

D. Economic Gap
The economic gap between the members of the African Union is an obstacle to the
transformation of the African Union into a supranational institution. Most African
countries are considered to be less developed countries, and many other reforms
aimed at narrowing the economic gap with developed countries such as Egypt,
Algeria, South Africa, Tunisia and Morocco will also take decades to achieve.
Moreover, major issues remain to be addressed in most Central African countries,

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 such as the civil war, the war on terror, corruption and law enforcement.
Apparently, the five countries in the Sahel region, including Burkina Faso, Chad,
Mali, Mauritania and Niger, have been harassed by various terrorist groups
(Essoungou, 2013). In Europe, although the economic gap between Eastern and
Western Europe is not equal, this gap does not seem to be far between the two.
Even though economic development of Eastern European countries is lower than
Western European countries, Eastern European countries are mainly upper
middle-income economies. (Strupczewski & Guarascio, 2018)

V. The Path Ways to the Supranational Institution

Regardless of many challenges in becoming a supranational institution like the
EU, African Union still has a possibility to become the supranational institutions as its
ambitions at the beginning when they can actually have the mechanism to solve its root
cause.  It is a major fact their root causes are described above are economic inequalities,
gap of contributions which undermine their ways of becoming supranational shortly. It is
undeniable that removing the economic gap among its members is not easy, but it can be
removed slowly with great self-determination of its members. It is important to know
when they can remove their economic gaps, they can possibly contribute fairly to the
operating structure of the African Union, specifically, they will have their own autonomy
in any decisions making among only its members. In other words, they can actually
remove the external influence from the regions or countries African Union like what is
happening now. Again, even it is hard for them to have their autonomous decisions
making, but improving the economic gaps among its members, and building more
prosperity in its region can actually make the African Union become a supranational
institution like the EU.  

VI. Conclusion
In conclusion, the supranational body is still a long way for the African Union.
The platform of the regional integration and cooperative would be some part of the
construct to the institution of supranational bring the goal closely through its vision. Plus,
with the sharing of common norms and values that could push the process is successful in
forward. However, the AU still needs to work hard to improve on many challenges that
barrier them on the pathway to supranational. The AU should count on the position of the
membership on their willingness by strengthening their mechanism, strong accountability
of the member to bring sustainably, and deepen integration and cooperation regional as
the ultimate to bring the African supranational institution.

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Bibliography

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2. Anne Marie, Walter Mattli. (1993). European Before the Court: A Political Theory of
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3. Constitution Act of the African Union. (2000). Retrieved from African Union:
https://au.int/sites/default/files/pages/34873-file-constitutiveact_en.pdf

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