Constitution Building in the African Union: Law, Policy and Practice

Abstract

A continental consensus has emerged in Africa about the importance of democratic constitutional governance for peace and development. This consensus is increasingly translated into normative, institutional and procedural frameworks that offer a growing number of opportunities for the African Union (AU) to intervene in constitution building processes of its member states. This thesis explains why and how the AU resorts to international legal engineering to promote and protect constitutional rule in African states. It investigates the most salient contextual factors that shape the nature and the authority of the legal instruments and institutions associated with the AU’s constitutional agenda. Through a detailed analysis of a range of AU interventions, including in presidential term limits debates, the human rights field and the province of democratic governance monitoring and enforcement, the thesis unravels a shifting continental rhetoric on constitutionalism.