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THE CULTURE OF REGIONAL SECURITY:

EU AND AU APPROACHES TO THE RESPONSIBILITY TO PROTECT (R2P)

Matthias Dembinski, Theresa Reinold

Draft
Please do not quote without permission by the authors

1. Introduction
Just as nation-states are imagined communities (Anderson 1983), so are regions. A hitherto
under-researched dimension of the process of imagining a region is the construction of
regional security cultures. These are dynamic artifacts of human practice that are constantly
evolving as the local, regional, and global normative contexts change. We shall argue in the
following that the culture of regional security is the result of a peculiar blend of factors from
various levels of analysis: World political culture, that is, global discourses about human
security, sovereign responsibilities, good governance, etc., regional political dynamics and
identities, domestic regime type, societal pressures, etc. The interplay of these variables has
given rise to markedly diverse security cultures in different regions of the world, ranging from
rather interventionist regimes, which have eagerly incorporated evolving global norms into
their regional security architecture to more inert arrangements, which continue to adhere to
the classical rules of the international game.
We seek to contribute to the comparative analysis of regional security cultures on both a
conceptual and empirical level, using the emerging security cultures of the European Union
(EU) as well as the African Union (AU) as case studies to illustrate the multiple feedback
loops between global norms and regional security architectures. It has been suggested in the
literature on norm diffusion that regional actors do not simply refute or accept new global
norms, but more often than not adapt them to local circumstances by „pruning“ them, i.e.
modifying them to make them more responsive to the local context (Acharya 2004). This
process of pruning could be observed, for instance, with regard to the responsibility to protect
(R2P), which has been received rather differently in the EU and AU. R2P continues to be a
highly controversial concept whose opaqueness has made it possible for regional actors to
attach markedly different meanings to it and thus make it congruent with their respective
political agendas. The discourse over R2P thus offers ample opportunity for contestation, re-
interpretation, and modification – in short, for norm localization.
This paper is roughly divided into two sections: In the first part, we seek to grasp the concept
of regional security culture theoretically, that is, we will explore a set of variables which we
believe contribute to the formation of regional security cultures independently from whether
these are in Europe, Africa, or elsewhere. The second part of the paper then applies these
insights to two empirical cases, namely the AU‟s and EU‟s respective interpretations of the
responsibility to protect. In the concluding section we will wrap up our findings and suggests
directions for future research.

2. The concept of regional security culture

Even a cursory look at the literature reveals that research on regional security cultures is still
in a fledgling state. The concept has not yet established itself as an analytical tool in
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mainstream IR scholarship, even though in recent years there has been a surge in publications
on the subject (see, for example, Haacke 2003; Haacke/Williams 2008; Jaye 2008; Williams
2007). More than a decade ago, Peter Katzenstein published his seminal volume on The
Culture of National Security, which argued - rather innovatively at the time - that the
definition of states‟ security interests is not determined by material factors alone, but also
cultural ones (Katzenstein 1996: 1). As regions are made up of nation-states, it seems logical
to export the concept of security culture to the regional context, even though the set of
variables shaping the culture of regional security will likely differ from factors influencing
national security cultures. In the following, we attempt a first theoretical approximation to the
concept of regional security culture by suggesting a set of variables which we assume to be
relevant in explaining what kind of security culture a region will adopt.
Katzenstein famously posited that national security cultures do not emerge in a vacuum, but
are products of the surrounding normative environment (Katzenstein 1996: 9). As states are
embedded in a wider material and ideational structure, so are regions, which respond to
normative influences at the sub-regional and global levels. (Regional) security cultures can be
defined as discourses in which actors collectively develop durable security preferences
regarding the role, legitimacy, and efficacy of particular approaches to protecting values
(Johnston 1995: 6). Now, what factors influence the formulation of these durable collective
security preferences of regional actors? We believe that the development of regional security
cultures is a complex process involving variables form different levels of analysis – global,
regional, national (state-level), and local (societal level).
To begin with, regions are embedded in what Katzenstein et al. have dubbed “world political
culture” (Katzenstein et al. 1996: 12), which includes the rules of the road of the international
system such as notions of legitimate statehood, sovereign equality, the non-use of force, etc.
For centuries, the global normative structure was rather thin. International law merely
provided a parsimoniously formulated set of rules of the road. In the course of the past
decades, however, the scope of international law expanded dramatically. It has permeated
many issue-areas of international relations and has begun to make substantive claims upon the
internal make-up of sovereign states. In constructing a particular ideal of good governance,
international law has pushed for a homogenization of existing states according to a liberal-
democratic blueprint offered by the West. As all nation-states were socialized into an
international system built on a set of (Western) notions of good governance, human rights,
legitimate sovereignty, etc. we should expect a certain mimetic dynamic to operate at the
regional level, that is, we should expect regional security cultures across the globe to reflect a
similar set of norms. Yet empirically, we find substantial cross-regional variation. This is due
to the coincidence of various factors.
First, we submit that a global norm‟s status as hard or soft law influences how it is received
regionally. Norms that have crystallized into customary international law or have been
codified in treaty law are more likely to be integrated into regional security cultures than ideas
and concepts to which we would refer as soft law – that is, political or moral values which
have not (yet) attained the status of law.
Second, regional norms, identities, and political dynamics must be taken into account.
Universal norms are usually not transferred across the board to the regional level but must
travel through different regional contexts, where they are “localized,” that is, reconstructed,
“to ensure the norms fit with the agents‟ cognitive priors and identities” (Acharya 2004: 239).
In these processes of norm localization, global norms that are compatible with indigenous
traditions stand a better chance of being incorporated into the security culture of regional
organizations than norms that lack congruence (Ibid.: 244). If a global norm is at odds with
regional norms and beliefs, it will either be rejected altogether or “pruned,” that is, made
compatible with regional values. This process of pruning means that regional actors accept
those elements of the norm in question that can be reconciled with regional values and
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interests, and jettison the rest (Ibid.: 251). These values and interests obviously vary from
region to region. In the Third World, for instance, the incentives for regionalization are
probably not the same as in the developed world. While regionalization may serve a variety of
purposes, a major rationale for pooling resources at the regional level is what has come to be
known as “soft balancing” in IR-theory: Soft balancing aims at preventing the powerful from
laying down the law to weaker states, from imposing their own worldviews and norms”
(Hurrell 2006: 16). In this perspective, regionalization in the Third World is (among other
things) a strategy to balance the power of the West. This we must take into account when
trying to understand how global norms (which are usually of Western provenance) are
received in the Third World. While regionalization is about balancing, it is also about creating
social cohesion. As nation-states are imagined communities, so are regions, which are not
exclusively defined by geographic or other material factors but constitute themselves as
“value communities” (Wertegemeinschaften), which are built on a set of shared norms and
narratives. Hence, regional political dynamics as well as regional identities impact upon the
extent to which global norms are integrated into a region‟s security culture. Another
explanatory variable from the regional level of analysis is the type of threats faced by a
region. Regions which are internally pacified and politically stable will most likely adopt a
different type of security doctrine and allocate resources for other purposes than regions
which face a multitude of internal challenges (such as state failure, intra- or inter-state wars,
etc.).
To sum up thus far, regional security cultures are thus shaped by universal norms, which are
made compatible with regional identities, threat perceptions, and political dynamics. In order
to understand these regional political dynamics, we must of course look to the preferences of
national governments, which in turn must respond to societal pressures. Factors from the
state-level as well as the societal level thus exert a significant influence on the development of
regional security cultures. We should expect to find substantial cross-regional variation
depending on the type of polity prevalent in a region, that is, depending on whether a region is
primarily made up of autocratic regimes and dysfunctional democracies or whether mature
democracies prevail. In the former case, variables from the sub-state level will probably be
less salient than in the latter case, as dictators are much less responsive do societal pressures
than democratic governments, whose publics exert a significant influence on the conduct of
their foreign and security policies. For example, we should expect that the extent to which
democracy has spread across a region determines whether the region‟s security culture
privileges human security over regime security, or vice versa. If a regional security culture is
premised on the primacy of human security, this is most likely partly due to the strength of
civil society actors in the region, who are crucial norm entrepreneurs and as such contribute to
the formation of the region‟s security culture. In regions with mostly authoritarian regimes, by
contrast, the relevant norm entrepreneurs are likely state officials rather than civil society
representatives. While civil society norm entrepreneurs are usually motivated by a firm belief
in the intrinsic qualities of the norm in question, state officials may be guided by a more
complex balancing of interests, which includes utilitarian calculations regarding the norm‟s
potential for consolidating the official‟s power at home or enhancing his or her international
prestige. Finally, apart from cost-benefit considerations, historical and cultural forces must
also be taken into account. Historical experiences of subjugation, wars, colonization, etc. play
a vital role in determining the threat perceptions of political elites and their societies, their
willingness to cooperate in regional security arrangements, as well as the norms on which
these arrangements are built.

3. R2P – genesis of a concept

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The Responsibility to Protect (R2P) is a manifestation of a recent trend in international

politics which questioned the Cold War state-centric understanding of security, and placed the
security of individuals in the focus of analysis. In his 1992 Agenda for Peace report, then UN
Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali talked about “new dimensions of insecurity” which
included “intrusion into the lives and rights of individuals”. He held that the “time of absolute
and exclusive sovereignty […] has passed; its theory was never matched by reality.” Further
developing this view, the 1994 UN Development Report introduced the concept of Human
Security. “For too long, the concept of security has been equated with the threats to a
country‟s borders”, deplored the report.1
Against this background, and the ever-louder calls for humanitarian interventions in the face
of atrocities as committed in Rwanda, Bosnia-Herzegovina, or Kosovo, the government of
Canada in 2000 initiated the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty
(ICISS). While the ICISS‟s 2001 report is usually credited for kicking off the debate over
sovereignty as responsibility which cleared the way for the emergence of the R2P, it was in
fact Sudanese national Francis Deng who introduced a broader audience to this notion in
1996. Deng et al. had developed a framework to guide nation-states and the international
community in meeting their respective responsibilities (Deng et al. 1996). Their concept is
based on the idea of a dual social contract – between each government and its citizens, and
between nation-states and the international community as a whole: “The sovereign state's
responsibility and accountability to both domestic and external constituencies must be
affirmed as interconnected principles of the national and international order. Such a normative
code is anchored in the assumption that in order to be legitimate, sovereignty must
demonstrate responsibility” (Ibid.: xvii). Hence, sovereignty should not merely be regarded as
the right to be left alone, but as the responsibility to discharge governmental duties.
“Normatively, to claim otherwise would be to lose sight of its purpose in the original context
of the social contract, taking the means for the end” (Ibid.: xviii). The authors go on to argue
that if a government manifestly fails to fulfil its part of the social contract, its claim to
sovereign immunity becomes void. Consequently, discharging the responsibilities of
sovereignty is in effect the best guarantee for sovereignty (Ibid.: 1, 15).
The norm entrepreneurship of Deng – coupled with the effects of state practice in the 1990s –
bore fruit when in 2001 the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty
(ICISS) published its widely cited report The Responsibility to Protect (International
Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty 2001). The gist of the ICISS's argument is
that “state sovereignty implies responsibility, and the primary responsibility for the protection
of its people lies with the state itself” (Ibid: xi). However, if a state proves unwilling or unable
to live up to its responsibilities, i.e. if it violates basic human rights or does not prevent such
violations, the international community has a residual responsibility to act. The principle of
non-intervention thus yields to the international responsibility to protect (Ibid.: xi). This
argument is derived from the idea that both the prohibition of the use of force and respect for
basic human rights form part of international jus cogens. If a state violates the latter, it cannot
shield itself from intervention by invoking the former.
Borrowing from just war theory, the report listed a number of legitimacy criteria that should
guide intervention on behalf of endangered civilians: Just cause (gross violations of
fundamental human rights), right intention (putting an end to these violations), last resort
(military means as ultima ratio, after all non-military measures have been exhausted),
proportional means (minimal duration and intensity of military strikes), and, lastly, reasonable
prospects of success (Ibid.: xii). The ICISS also dealt with the issue of just authority. While
emphasizing the Security Council's primary responsibility for the maintenance of international
peace and security, it did not duck the problem of Security Council paralysis and tentatively

1
http://hdr.undp.org/en/media/hdr_1994_en_overview.pdf
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suggested possibilities for action outside the Security Council. The commissioners made the
following propositions: First, states must in all cases seek Security Council authorization prior
to carrying out any military action; second, in cases of massive human rights violations, the
Council's permanent members should agree not to use their veto power, unless vital national
interests are at stake; and third, should the P-5 exercise their veto nonetheless, recourse may
be made to the General Assembly under the Uniting for Peace procedure and to regional
arrangements, subject to their seeking subsequent authorization from the Security Council
(Ibid.: xiif). To its credit, the ICISS reminded the P-5 that in the case of failure to discharge its
primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security, states might
not rule out unilateral means to address “conscience-shocking situations”, which in turn
would adversely affect the credibility of the Security Council (Ibid.: xiif).
After the ICISS report was published, considerations of the protection of individuals gained
further leverage at the UN level. A 2003 Report by the Commission on Human Security,
entitled Human Security Now demanded a combination of protection and empowerment
measures to assure people‟s access to freedom from want, freedom from fear, and the freedom
to take action on one‟s own behalf. One year later, the Secretary General‟s High-Level Panel
on Threats, Challenges and Change, defined threats to international security as “any event or
process that leads to large-scale death or lessening of life chances and undermines States as
the basic unit of the international system”2. The report “endorses the emerging norm that there
is a collective international responsibility to protect” and argues that one cannot assume that
every state will always be “able, or willing, to meet its responsibility to protect its own
peoples”. The panel reaffirms the role of the Security Council in enforcing the R2P. Military
intervention should only be authorized as a last resort, and only if the above mentioned
legitimacy criteria are fulfilled. The credibility of this system, according to the report,
“depends on how well it promotes security for all its members, without regard to the nature of
would-be beneficiaries, their location, resources or relationship to great powers.” For such
robust peace-keeping missions, the panel identifies a shortage of UN personnel. Arguing that
the demand for rapid reaction is unlikely to be met through the UN alone, the panel welcomes
the “European Union decision to establish standby high readiness, self-sufficient battalions
that can reinforce United Nations missions”.
Subsequently, R2P was affirmed by the major UN bodies in a variety of resolutions including
the World Summit Outcome Document;3 still, it continues to be a moral aspiration more than
anything else. It has certainly not hardened into a norm of customary international law,
because what is currently lacking is an intersubjective consensus over what R2P actually
means, that is, which obligations exactly it imposes on the international community, and
which actors are the primary duty bearers. In the World Summit Outcome Document, states
insisted on treating each case on its own merits and hence rejected a generalized duty to
intervene to protect endangered civilians.4 While international law has long recognized that
nation-states have a duty to protect their own citizens, the novelty introduced by the concept
of R2P is the notion that the international community not only has a right, but a responsibility
to protect fundamental human rights, militarily, if necessary. Yet it is exactly the scope of this
responsibility borne by the international community at large which continues to be the subject
of major controversy. Currently unresolved issues include: Is there a qualitative difference
between the responsibility of the host state and the fallback responsibility of the international
community? Do states, acting through the Security Council, have an obligation to respond to
mass atrocities in areas outside of their jurisdiction, possibly against the will of the host state?
If the Security Council fails to act, may states or regional organizations enforce R2P in the

2
http://www.un.org/secureworld/report2.pdf
3
A/RES/60/1, 24 October 2005; A/RES/63/308, 14 September 2009; S/RES/1674, 28 April 2006;
S/RES/1706, 31 August 2006; S/RES/1856, 22 December 2008; S/RES/1857, 22 December 2008.
4
A/RES/60/1, para. 139.
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absence of a Security Council mandate? Can Security Council authorization also be sought
post hoc?
These and related questions strongly suggest that R2P is an essentially contested concept,
which has emerged as a popular soft law category and a discursive frame, but which has
certainly not hardened into a norm of customary international law, because what is currently
lacking is both opinio juris and state practice. As we shall see in the following, the lack of
agreement over what R2P actually means has also affected the degree of its internalization as
parts of the regional security cultures of the European Union and the African Union.

4. The EU and R2P – more smoke than fire?

Introduction
Since the inception of the European Security and Defense Policy (ESDP) at the Helsinki
European Council summit in December 1999, Europe has developed a very distinct security
culture. Even if to some degree, the ESDP evolved path-dependently from previous European
attempts at security, it also reflects the changing constitutional security norms and practices at
the UN level. Indeed, it is striking to note how closely the European security culture
developed in parallel with the emerging UN security and peace-building culture. EU Member
States as well as the Presidency, the Commission and the EU Parliament have on several
occasions expressed support for R2P and have contributed to the further elaboration of the
UN human security/R2P agenda. Conversely, developments at the UN level influenced the
evolution of ESDP. Today, basic doctrines and practices in both institutions reflect a broader
and more comprehensive understanding of security which goes beyond the traditional
meaning of state security and territorial integrity and encompasses basic needs of societal
groups as well as individuals. The EU insists on due procedure in cases where sovereignty is
infringed in the name of human security, with official documents referring to the authority of
the UN Security Council to decide on the use of force in cases other than self-defence.
Moreover, the EU has committed itself to supporting the UN as it responds to threats of
international peace and security (European Security Strategy 2003). The two organizations
proceed on the assumption that organized violence is closely connected to political, economic
and social deprivation and injustice.. Both have developed strikingly similar instruments and
procedures to deal with such root causes and contain violence in situations where prevention
has failed.
However, a closer analysis of European security doctrines and practices also reveals a
peculiar reception of global norms by the EU. EU documents eschew the term “responsibility
to protect”, insist on the EU‟s autonomy to decide when not to intervene, focus on prevention
and emphasize the structural peace-building aspect of the human security/R2P agenda.
The concurrence of doctrinal developments in the area of security on both levels was neither
dictated by necessity nor was it without alternatives. In fact, at two important crossroads,
leaders of major European states had conceived European security rather differently. During
the negotiations of the Maastricht treaty (1991) - the actual onset of European security - EU
member-states still perceived security very much in classical terms. The major debate at
Maastricht did not concern modalities of peace-keeping or when and how to intervene during
a humanitarian crisis, but whether and when the EU should assume collective defense duties.
Again, at Helsinki, the major issue was not peace-building, but how the EU could field robust
intervention forces and conduct military operations like the one that NATO had waged in
Kosovo earlier that year.
These original conceptions of European security can easily be accounted for by applying the
analytical instruments from the toolbox of rational choice. The Maastricht aims of collective
defense and internal reassurance have traditionally been the main functions of security
organizations (Weitzman). The Helsinki rationale of closer defense cooperation and the
creation of robust intervention forces able to deal with common security challenges in the
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vicinity of the EU, is perfectly compatible with rational choice assumptions. Indeed, most
studies on the origins of ESDP have identified structural changes within the transatlantic
relationship and the search of major EU member states for autonomy from the United States
(Art 2005/06; Posen 2006; Peters 2010) or influence vis-à-vis the United States (Howorth
2007: 52-54) as the most important driving force that led to the Copernican turn at Helsinki.
In a nutshell, the original rationales of Maastricht and Helsinki appear rather familiar: a club
of states decided to produce security as a club good.
In contrast, the evolution of the ESDP after 1999 tells a completely different story; It set a
focus on civilian and civil-military instruments for conflict-prevention and peace-building, on
root causes of conflicts and on a close partnership with or even subordination to the UN. This
shift poses a major theoretical puzzle: Why would a club of democratic states produce
security as a public good?
In the following analysis, we argue that this puzzle can best be resolved by taking Regional
Security Arrangements as an independent variable seriously. The EU is a complex negotiating
system where various state and non-state actors with different institutional resources are able
to influence the decision process. In contrast to the assumptions of rational institutionalism,
we thus argue that outcomes cannot be attributed solely to the bargaining power of major
member states (Moravcsik). Given this fluid negotiating environment, we assume that global
norms may function as a guiding post or can be used by interested actors as resource to further
their views. We will provide some evidence supporting the assumption that the development
of ESDP was at least to some extent influenced by the evolving UN security culture.
However, the main objective of this paper is to show that relevant actors within the EU
negotiating system interpreted the human security/R2P agenda in different ways which
correspond to their interests, traditions and values. The process of pruning was driven by a
combination of state interests, extant security norms, institutional dynamics and demands of
Civil Society Organizations. Another question of interest for this paper concerns the extent to
which developments in the European security culture affect the external actions of EU
member states. After all, it goes without saying that doctrinal developments on the EU level
do not transmit necessarily, automatically or directly into foreign policy behavior of member
states. We will proceed as follows: We will a) reconstruct the doctrinal development of ESDP
and compare it with the evolution of security doctrines on the UN level, and b) identify causal
factors and pathways of norm diffusion which might explain why the EU interpreted the
human security/R2P agenda in a very distinct way. However, to safe space, we will not
formally distinguish between the empirical and the analytical dimension. Lastly, we will c)
make an attempt to measure how far the European security culture affects the policy choices
of member states.

Localization of a global norm: R2P and the evolution of European security

Enforcement of peace? ESDP and the elusive attraction of state-centric approaches
The launch of ESDP at the European summit in Helsinki has been triggered by a crisis of
existing European security arrangements. Contrary to ambitious early rhetoric, the European
Union and its member states had proven unable to deal with the violent conflicts in the former
Yugoslavia. And although the United States eventually did step in, the British government
began to question the reliability of the US in cases of local conflicts at the European vicinity
(Menon/Sedelmeier 2010: 82). In contrast to a long standing principle of British foreign
policy, London came to perceive a more unified Europe which would be able to induce its
member states to spend more money more efficiently on common military intervention forces
no longer as a menace to NATO. Instead, it was seen as a life-saver of the Atlantic Alliance
(Howorth 2007: 53). France, for its part, has traditionally perceived autonomous European
defense capabilities both as a hedge against the volatility of American foreign policy (Art
2004), and as a way for Europe to reassert itself. In short, despite their different motivations
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and ultimate goals, the two main proponents of the “Helsinki revolution” agreed that ESDP
should serve as a mechanism to create autonomous European intervention forces
(Howorth/Menon 2009). However, it would be misleading to interpret Britain‟s and France‟s
visions for ESDP purely in terms of alliance politics. Since the 1990s, the notion of military
intervention for humanitarian purposes has figured prominently in political discussions in
both states (Hasenclever2000: 323-344; Williams 2005: 164-177). Building on their national
traditions and aspirations, France and the Labour government in the UK portrayed ESDP as
an instrument to strengthen Europe‟s capability for humanitarian interventions. In this sense,
it is not surprising that both states endorsed the R2P agenda and emphasized the
interventionist aspects of human security. During the Sarkozy Presidency, France included a
reference on R2P in its White Papers on Defense and Foreign Policy. Conversely, Paris and
London referred to the evolving global security norms to further an interventionist notion of
ESDP at the EU level. France in particular, where Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner has
been promoting an rather extensive understanding of R2P, would like the Union to adopt a
more interventionist policy.
Thus, the early decisions aimed almost exclusively at force generation. The Helsinki
European Council defined as Helsinki Headline Goal (HHG) the ability to field 60.000 troops,
100 ships and 400 aircraft, deployable within 60 days and sustainable for a period of one year.
To close the gap between the Headline Goal and actually available forces, the EU embarked
on a complex force generating process. The EU Military Staff drew up a “Requirements
Catalogue” and member states pledged troops and equipment at Capability Commitment
Conferences. Shortfalls were listed in a Progress Catalogue and a European Capability Action
Plan was devised to close the gaps between required and actually available capabilities
(Schmitt 2004:110f).
Most observers note that the Kosovo crisis had a shaping impact on early military planning
assumptions (Howorth 2007: 104f; Giegerich 2008: 17). France and the UK had indeed set
their eyes almost exclusively on the ability to conduct missions at the upper tiers of the
Petersberg-Tasks, a list of hypothetical scenarios ranging from humanitarian assistance
missions all the way up to demanding peace enforcement operations. The declaration of an
Anglo-French summit in 1999 made no reference at all to conflict prevention and civilian
instruments but stressed “our conviction that the European nations need to increase their
defense capabilities.”5 The Food for Thought paper, devised by the British Minister of
Defense and presented to his European colleagues, developed guidelines for ESDP “on the
assumption that the most demanding mission will be a complex peace enforcement task…”.
The deployment of troops will occur rapidly; forces will have to operate over long distances
and in difficult environments. Moreover, “EU forces will have to face adversaries – some of
them armed with sophisticated, commercially available military technology or even access to
weapons of mass destruction – to employ asymmetrical approaches to warfare” (Rutten 2001:
104).
From war-fighting to peace building
In the following years, it became increasingly manifest that Europe would not be able to
deliver on its promise. Although in 2004 the EU adopted an ambitious sounding successor
document, dubbed Helsinki Headline Goal 2010, for all practical terms the Europeans had set
their eyes on more modest aims. Battlegroups became the new symbol of European military
prowess. The Battlegroup concept, developed by France and the UK in 2004, envisages the
ability to deploy two battalion-sized units of approximately 1500 troops within very short
notice (Lindstrom). It is indicative of the shrinking European ambitions that the French
Presidency in 2008 had to admit that the HHG remained a distant aim.

5
Anglo-French Summit, London, 25 November 1999 (Rutten 2001, 77-79)
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In contrast to the shrinking ambitions in the military field, civilian and civil-military
capabilities were raised to new prominence within ESDP. Initially, they had only played a
minor role within ESDP. The Cologne summit dealt with civilian instruments merely in
passing. However, already the Helsinki summit took a broader view and introduced the
concept of civilian crisis management in more detail.6 The next Council Presidencies
elaborated on this concept and identified four priority areas: policing, strengthening the rule
of law, civilian administration and civil protection7. They also developed civilian goals and
action plans at the Feira (June 2000) and Gothenburg (June 2001) Councils ((Nowak 2006:
20-23). A Civilian Committee, answerable to the Political and Security Committee, was
tasked with coordinating between member states and the Union to facilitate rapid reaction.
Moreover, operational planning and command facilities were established first within DG V of
the Council Secretariat and since 2007 in a separate Civilian Planning and Conduct Capability
(CPCC).
Pledges of civilian capabilities by member states easily fulfilled the self-defined goals. Even
if some qualitative deficits remained, the EU declared itself ready in November 2002 to
conduct civilian crisis management operations. Taking into account lessons learned from the
EU Police Mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina (EUPM) member states kept developing the
civilian toolbox of crisis management further. The Council continued to conceptually develop
the four priority areas, and in 2004 approved a new and more ambitious Action Plan and a
new Civilian Headline Goal (CHG 2008). Moreover, member states added new activities and
instruments to the existing four priority realms. New growth areas developed within ESDP,
namely reform of the security sector (SSR) in endangered partner countries, disarmament,
demobilization and reintegration (DDR) of former combatants, fight against the proliferation
of small and light weapons (SALW), border assistance missions and human rights missions.
To manage this increasingly long list of tasks and to strengthen its capability for rapid
reaction, the EU adopted new doctrines, introduced Civilian Crisis Response Teams, and
established an EU-Gendarmerie force.
The growth of civilian instruments went hand-in-hand with a redefinition of the European
security culture. European security documents increasingly stressed the root causes of
violence, the relationship between development and peace and emphasized the structural
peace-building aspects of conflict management.

Relationship with the UN

Working with and for the UN figures prominently in EU security documents. Starting with the
Helsinki summit, the EU has frequently stressed the multilateral approach and carefully
anchored ESDP within the UN-centered system of peace-keeping. “The Union will contribute
to peace and security in accordance with the principles of the United Nations charter. The
Union recognizes the primary responsibility of the UN Security Council for the maintenance
of international peace and security.”8 This formulation has been reiterated in countless
documents, but consciously leaves room for ambivalence, as is apparent in when examining
Kosovo conflict. So far the most clear-cut statement can be found in the contribution of the
EU to the High-Level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change where the EU states that “it
should remain for the Security Council, in accordance with its primary responsibility for the
maintenance of international peace and security, to decide on the appropriate
response…”(Biscop 2005: 65).

6
Cf. Annex 2 to Annex IV: Presidency Report on Non-Military Crisis Management of the European Union, in
Rutten 2001: 89-91.
7
Appendix 3: Study on Concrete Targets on Civilian Aspects of Crisis Management, European Council Santa
Maria da Feira, 19-20 June 2000, in Rutten 2001: 133-135.
8
Concluding Remarks of the Presidency, European Council (Helsinki) 1999, para. 26.
 10

Furthermore, the EU has committed itself to “cooperate with the UN (…) in a mutually
reinforcing manner in stability promotion, early warning, conflict prevention, crisis
management and post-conflict reconstruction.”9 In this regard, the European Council at Feira
stipulated that civilian crisis capabilities like police forces “could be used both in response to
the request of a lead agency like the UN (…) or in autonomous EU actions".10 Moreover, the
EU proposed to develop in close cooperation with the UN and its Department of
Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO) standards for international police operations.11 The
commitment to subcontract EU capabilities to the UN pertains to military instruments as well.
For example, the EU noted that Battlegroups would be deployed “principally in response to
requests from the UN” (Lindstrom2007: 11).
At the Gothenburg summit, the European Council adopted principles for EU-UN cooperation
on conflict prevention and crisis management that stressed the importance of a wide-ranging
exchange of information with the UN but also underlined the principle of decision-making
autonomy of the EU.12 Since then, both organizations have held regular meetings. With the
adoption of a Joint Declaration on cooperation in Crisis Management in 2003 and a follow-up
statement in June 2007, contacts intensified further. Since 2004, a so-called Steering
Committee of Council and DPKO staff meets twice a year. Further venues for cooperation
like exchanges between UN and EU Situation Centers as well as joint lessons learned
exercises have been arranged.13 In addition, both organizations cooperate on the level of
Military Staffs and, on a case-by-case basis, on the level of operational headquarters.
Commonly developed peacekeeping scenarios envisage the support of EU forces for UN
operations according to a bridging or a stand-by model (Gothenburg Council, Annex V;
European Council 2004; Thierry 2005).
The Commission, too, deepened its working relationship with the UN. Following the adoption
of the Joint Declaration, the Commission has conducted Desk-to-Desk talks with the UN
Department of Political Affairs. These talks concern mainly an exchange of assessments
based on the Commission‟s Country Strategy Papers and the UN Common Country
Assessments. In addition, the Commission increased its financial contributions to UN
activities in the area of conflict prevention and development as well as to the UN
Peacebuilding Commission (European Commission 2003: 14).
Striking the balance: the European Security Strategy
As the first comprehensive attempt to delineate the emerging European security culture, the
ESS reflects both the interventionist and the more civilian and preventive interpretations of
ESDP. It understands security in a comprehensive sense and links it to the concept of human
security. It also borrows from the concept of global public goods which emerged out of
debates within the UN (Biscop 2005). The ESS lists key threats – proliferation, regional
conflicts, state failure and organized crime – but eschews the notion of narrow European or
club interests. Instead, it portrays European efforts to contain those threats as part of a global
endeavor. Multilateralism is a guiding principle, contributing to the UN system a European
priority. According the ESS, the strength of the EU is its ability to contribute with civilian and
military instruments to long-term peacebuilding. Military means are thus portrayed as an
integral part of the package.
The 2008 Report on the Implementation of the ESS links European security more explicitly
with the human security/R2P agenda. It states that the EU has “worked to build human
security, by reducing poverty and inequality, promoting good governance and human rights,

9
Ibid, Annex IV.
10
Appendix III
11
Ibid
12
Annex V oft he Annex on the ESDP
13
Council of the European Union, Joint Statement on UN-EU cooperation in Crisis Management, Brussels, 7
June 2007.
 11

assisting development, and addressing the root causes of conflict.” In contrast to most other
EU documents, this report also contains a clear reference to R2P. “Sovereign governments
must take responsibility for the consequences of their actions and hold a shared responsibility
to protect populations from genocide, war, crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against
humanity” (Council 2008:2). However, the report also underscores the comprehensive
approach, reflects the enlarged agenda of ESDP and again emphasizes the leading role of the
UN. “Everything the EU has done in the field of security has been linked to UN objectives”.
Mechanisms of pruning
In the following part, we show that institutional dynamics and the impact of smaller states as
well as non-state actors contributed to this drift of European security culture. Referring to
extant European security norms and using institutional resources, these actors emphasized
different notions of the human security/R2P agenda to further their views on ESDP.
Institutional resources
Before Lisbon, the crucial task of agenda-setting within the second pillar (the Council) rested
with the rotating Presidency. Sweden, supported by a group of neutral and smaller member
states as well as states with a less interventionist tradition, used its EU-Presidency in the first
semester of 2001 to advance a rather different meaning of European security. The Gothenburg
Summit in June 2001 adopted the seminal “EU Programme for the Prevention of Violent
Conflicts”. This program defined four EU priorities: a) a priority for preventive actions, b) an
improvement of early warning and policy coherence, c) the parallel enhancement of
instruments for long-term and short-term prevention. Lastly the program demanded d) the
creation of effective partnerships for prevention especially with the United Nations.14
Sweden and successor Presidencies with a similar outlook referred to the extant security
norms and doctrines that describe the EU as a civilian and multilaterally oriented power.
However, the institution of the Presidency was also used by states with a more interventionist
outlook to further their views. During its Presidency in the second semester of 2008, France
employed the agenda-setting powers to advance a more robust interpretation of ESDP. It is no
coincidence that the 2008 Report on the Implementation of the ESS has so far been the EU
document with the most explicit reference to R2P.
Policy coherence or the Commission’s contribution to European security
The repeated calls for more coherence proved to be rather consequential. Issues of coherence
between the policies of the first and the second pillar, that is between the Commission and
community and the Council and intergovernmental procedures, put a strain on the EU foreign
policy but are of special relevance in the area of conflict prevention. In fact, conflict
prevention has originally be a domain of the Commission, whose conflict prevention
activities date back to the early 1990s. Initially, the Commission, under the leadership of DG
Development defined conflict prevention as one of the EU‟s goals in its relations with African
countries.15 The Commission pursued a comprehensive or structural approach to conflict
prevention which emphasizes the close relationship between peace and development, human
rights, good governance and the rule of law. Hence, the Commission focused on the root
causes of conflicts and long-term assistance programs to address them. Not incidentally, this
approach corresponded very much with those instruments available to the Commission. In
fact, first pillar conflict prevention policy consisted very much in mainstreaming conflict
prevention goals into existing community programs.
ESDP and the call for more coherence between both pillars were perceived by the
Commission both as a challenge and as an opportunity. It might allow the Council to infringe
upon community activities, but in return the Commission might get a handle on second pillar

14
European Council 2001: EU Programme for the Prevention of Violent Conflicts.
15
Kommission der Europäischen Gemeinschaften, Die Europäische Union und das Problem der Konflikte in
Afrika: Friedensschaffende Maßnahmen, Konfliktvermeidung und darüber hinausgehende Maßnahmen,
SEK(96) 332, 1996.
 12

affairs. In 2001, the Commission published a Communication on conflict prevention to

underline its aspirations in this policy field (Commission 2001). It introduced the concept of
short term prevention and proposed a new and more flexible financial instrument, the Rapid
Reaction Mechanism. Rapidity, however, remained an elusive promise. In practice, the
Commission stuck to its structural approach to peacebuilding. The Commission even
extended its activities and launched programs on security sector reform and DDR, supported
the Kimberley Process and programs to eradicate land mines and stop the proliferation of
SALWs etc. As the Commission‟s activities increasingly pertained to core security issues, the
issue of coherence became even more virulent and even led to a legal dispute before the
European Court of Justice.
Contrary to the concerns of the Commission, the call for coherence created opportunities for
the Commission to influence the further development on ESDP. Personnel of the Commission
were seconded to ESDP institutions, the Commission supplied input into ESDP planning
documents, Commission delegations in third countries and ESDP Missions worked together
and the Commissioners, together with High Representative, developed a couple of common
policy papers on ESDP issues. Outstanding in this regard has been the commonly drafted
2005 European Consensus on Development.
On several occasions, the Commission has referred to UN norms and practices in order to
legitimize its own policy. For instance the 2001 Communication on conflict prevention states
clearly that: “The Commission is closely following the implementation of the Brahimi Report
and fully subscribes to the peace-building approach set out in the Report. In proposing the
Rapid Reaction Mechanism, the Commission drew inspiration from the UNSG‟s proposals on
establishing quick impact projects for countries emerging from crisis” (Commission 2001:
26).
However, the Commission portrayed the human security/R2P agenda in a way that fits its own
approaches and bureaucratic interests. Representatives of the Commission have expressed the
view that the greatest potential for operationalising R2P at the EU level is in terms of
prevention. For example, after the release of the High Level Panel‟s report, External Relations
Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner stated that the panel‟s “holistic approach echoes the
EU‟s own commitment to a comprehensive conception of security” (Biscop 2005: 75).
According to the Commission, the EU should support the UN‟s “narrow but deep” approach.
The EU does not need to invent new instruments, having already at its disposal a range of
conflict prevention instruments such as development cooperation. (Vincent/Wouters 2008: 9).
Parliament:
Among the EU institutions, the European Parliament (EP) has been the most outspoken
advocate of R2P and supported most fervently that ESDP should stress the notion of human
security. However, even in the EP consensus on R2P remains fragile. Reservations are
expressed by parts of the European Peoples Party and the Confederal Group of the European
United Left who fear that the R2P agenda might be used to justify military interventions
(Vincent/Wouters 2008: 8). The EP‟s support for the R2P agenda must be put in perspective,
however, because Parliament‟s influence on decision-making in the second pillar remains
limited.
High Representative:
Despite the rather limited competences that the Amsterdam treaty (1997) assigned to the
newly created position of the High Representative, Javier Solana made some impact on the
development of ESDP. Among other things, he was charged by the member states to draft the
ESS. Although the ESS, written during the Greek Presidency, reflects the different
interpretations of European security and strikes a balance between the more interventionist
and the more preventive approach, it also mirrors Solana‟s convictions, which one can assume
are of a rather interventionist nature. His first draft contained a phrase referring to states that
“persistently violate international norms of domestic governance or of international behavior”
 13

but this phrase was deleted in the final version (Biscop 2005: 65). Moreover, Solana
encouraged a study group of independent experts to draft European security is a way that
follows more strongly the interventionist reading of the R2P. Headed by Mary Kaldor, this
Barcelona Group proposed that the EU should adopt an interventionist interpretation of the
human security/R2P agenda and among other things proposed the creation of a human
intervention force.
Civil Society Organizations:
Research has noted a significant impact of Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) on EU
decision-making in areas like Development and Foreign Policy. Both policy fields are
characterized by institutionalized working relationships between CSOs and the Council,
Commission and Parliament. Most developmental and peacebuilding NGOs supported the
general gist of the human security/R2P agenda and advocated its adoption by the EU.
However, in contrast to the Barcelona group, a large majority of these NGOs emphasized the
structural approach to peace-building.
From words to deeds? EU contributions to human security/R2P agenda
So far, we have limited ourselves to an analysis of EU documents. Having found a close fit
between the human security/R2P agenda and the evolving European security culture, we will
now raise the more fundamental question: Can the EU move beyond declaratory policy to
action, and will these rhetorical commitments induce its less enthusiastic member states to
move forward? This is especially relevant in cases where military interventions seem to be
warranted. The UN dictum that the credibility of the human security/R2P agenda calls for
uniform reactions to humanitarian crisis has the potential to pose a problem for the less
interventionist EU member states. 16. If the moral authority that the UN enjoys in Europe and
that European norms bestow on the UN would be supplemented by an essential EU norm that
demands military assistance in humanitarian crisis, member states could come under the
double pressure from their more interventionist peers and from interventionist sections of
their civil society.
To avoid these kinds of rhetorical traps (Schimmelfennig 200x), the EU has shied away from
using the language of responsibility to protect. The above mentioned Report of the
Implementation of the European Security Strategy is an exemption to this rule. Concerning
the motivational power of rhetorical commitments, the record is at best mixed. One could
argue that the moral authority of the UN as well as peer pressure induced Germany to take
part in the EUFOR RD Congo operation (Dembinski/Förster 2007: 27; Gowan 2009: 120).
However, at other instances, this mechanism proved to be less effective. For example,
Germany refused to participate in the EUFOR Tchad mission. Furthermore, in October 2008
EU member states refused to respond to a request coming from the UN and CSOs to help the
UN face an imminent humanitarian crisis in the Eastern Congolese province of Kivu
(Pirozzi/Sandawi 2009:14).
Summary:
We have shown that the meaning of European security has evolved from a rather narrow,
military-based and interventionist sense to a more comprehensive, preventive and civilian-
based sense. As the European security culture evolved, it incorporated concepts and notions
from the UN level, e.g. the nexus between development and peace, the concept of global
public goods, and the comprehensive peace-building approach that combines various elements
ranging from development to military stabilization, SSR and DDR. The EU even developed
some operational guidelines jointly with the UN or used UN guidelines as a model. However,
the European security culture differs also in important respects from the UN security culture.

16
The UN is clearly aware of the moral authority it enjoys in Europe. For instance, when Kofi Annan presented
the report of the High Level Panel to the European Council in December 2004, he declared that “As we move
ahead, full European engagement will be essential. (…) the world now looks to you to support a global
multilateral framework.” Biscop 75
 14

The EU adopted the notion of comprehensive security and the peace-building philosophy of
the human security/R2P agenda but EU documents avoided references to a responsibility to
protect. We have shown that this distinct interpretation and adaptation of the human
security/R2P agenda cannot be explained by referring to interests of major states alone but are
the result of a complex interplay of state interests, institutional rules and roles as well as input
by CSOs.

5. The AU and R2P – from non-intervention to non-indifference?

In March 2001 the Assembly of Heads of State and Government of the Organization of
African Unity (OAU) at their meeting in Sirte, Libya, declared the establishment of the
African Union (AU), which marked a turning point in African perspectives on sovereignty
and (non-)intervention: Unlike its predecessor organization, which exalted traditional
sovereignty norms such as the principles of non-interference and uti possidetis juris, the AU
Constitutive Act mandates the organization to deal with human rights issues in member states
which are no longer regarded as matters essentially within the domestic jurisdiction of
states.17 The AU‟s founding fathers equipped their organization with a significantly broader
mandate and a more interventionist posture than its predecessor organization could have ever
dreamed of. Yet as we shall see in the following, the transition from a security culture
characterized by the overarching principle of non-intervention to one founded upon the
doctrine of “non-indifference” (Mwanasali 2008; Williams 2007) remains incomplete. Even
though the AU has increased its election monitoring and mediation activities, even though it
has launched a number of prodemocratic interventions as well as peacekeeping operations
with civilian protection components, its commitment to implementing the responsibility to
protect in practice remains rather fickle. The AU‟s wavering commitment to R2P is due to a
variety of factors, including resource contraints, a widespread attachment to traditional
sovereignty norms, African leaders‟ rather ambivalent attitude towards democracy and human
rights, as well as turf fights between AU and the continent‟s Regional Economic
Communities (RECs). Before analyzing these issues in more detail, however, let us have a
look at the norms and institutions on which the AU‟s security policy rests.
The continental security architecture is built on two main pillars: The Common African
Defense and Security Policy (CADSP), adopted in 2002,18 and the Peace and Security Council
(PSC), which was launched in 2004 as a standing decision-making body for the prevention,
management, and resolution of conflicts on the African continent.19 Even though the AU
Assembly is nominally the supreme organ of the African Union, the PSC, which is composed
of 15 representatives of member-states, is arguably the most important continental body in the
maintenance of peace and security. It is authorized, for instance, to recommend to the
Assembly interventions in the internal affairs of member-states. The other elements of the
continental security architecture are the Continental Early Warning System CEWS), the Panel
of the Wise, the Military Staff Committee as well the African Standby Force (ASF), whose
establishment is currently lagging behind, however (Kinzel 2008: 23-29).
These newly minted institutions operate on the basis of set of principles enshrined in the AU
Constitutive Act, which can be said to reflect the core tenets of the AU‟s emerging security
culture: The principles of sovereign equality (Art. 4a), non-intervention by member-states
(Art. 4g), uti possidetis (Art. 4b), non-use of force (Art. 4e, 4f, 4i), rejection of

17
Art. 4(h) of the African Union Constitutive Act, 2158 UNTS 3 (entered into force 26 Mai 2001).
18
Solemn Declaration on a Common African Defence and Security Policy, http://www.africa-
union.org/News_Events/2ND%20EX%20ASSEMBLY/Declaration%20on%20a%20Comm.Af%20Def%20Sec.pdf
19
Protocol Relating to the Establishment of the Peace and Security Council of the African Union,
http://www.africa-union.org/rule_prot/PROTOCOL-
%20PEACE%20AND%20SECURITY%20COUNCIL%20OF%20THE%20AFRICAN%20UNION.pdf
 15

unconstitutional changes of government (4p), and the AU‟s right to intervene in the internal
affairs of member-states in the event of gross human rights abuses (Art. 4h). The most
revolutionary feature of the AU‟s security culture is certainly Art. 4(h), which indicates a
rethinking of traditional concepts of sovereignty: “The establishment of the African Union as
a supranational legal entity with significant powers of intervention in domestic crisis
situations challenges traditional notions of the Westphalian state system and in fact offers us
an insight into how a post-Westphalian – or post-nation-state – system might be constituted.
In fact, the constitution of the African Union offers an alternative framework for organizing a
political community” (Murithi 2009: 103f).
After the adoption of the AU Constitutive Act, African governments reaffirmed their
(rhetorical) commitment to R2P in a report known as the “Ezulwini Consensus,” which
reiterated states‟ obligations to protect their own citizens, affirmed the UN Security Council‟s
primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security, but also noted
that in certain cases regional organizations might intervene on behalf of human rights without
prior Security Council approval.20
Art. 4(h) of the AU Act as well as the Ezulwini Consensus testify to Africa‟s vocal support
for R2P, yet as previously noted, words have for the most part not been followed by deeds.
Despite all the high-sounding rhetoric R2P has clearly not yet become internalized in the
AU‟s security culture, as indicated by the AU‟s lackadasical response to the crisis in Darfur,
for instance, where it failed to equip its peacekeepers with sufficient resources and an
appropriate mandate for effectively protecting endangered civilians, or its decision not to
cooperate with the International Criminal Court (ICC) in the arrest and surrender of Sudanese
President Omar Al-Bashir. Old habits of non-intervention and impunity obviously die hard.
When the ICC issued its first arrest warrant for Bashir on charges of war crimes and crimes
against humanity, the AU asked that the warrant be suspended, effectively privileging
political haggling with the recalcitrant Sudanese regime over promoting the international rule
of law. When the Security Council failed to act on the AU‟s request for deferral, the AU
decided not to cooperate with the ICC, even though the many African states are parties to the
Rome Statute and as such obligated to cooperate: “The AU, in a political evasion of its own
legal mandate, is seeking to ultimately avoid respecting the ICC's indictment because of its
implications for the culture of impunity and non-interference which has dominated the
approach of its member states to peace and security on the continent” (Murithi 2009: 104). In
the following, we will try to account for this gap between aspiration and reality by analyzing
the AU‟s security culture against the backdrop of the variables put forward in the first part of
this paper.
The AU‟s security architecture came into being at a time when the constitutional norms and
institutions of the global polity - such as the notion of sovereignty, for example - were up for
grabs. Put differently, the norms making up what Katzenstein et al. have called “world
political culture” are currently being renegotiated. In this process of renegotiation, the concept
of R2P plays a central role: It has become a popular referent in discourses about legitimate
statehood, it has sparked a burgeoning academic literature, and also influences the work of the
UN Security Council, which increasingly incorporates civilian protection components in its
peacekeeping mandates. Yet as noted earlier, despite the R2P‟s rhetorical popularity, it
continues to be highly contested and is far from crystallizing into a norm of customary
international law. While the “softness” of a concept may facilitate pruning, lack of precision
also means that norm internalization cannot occur, because if there is no intersubjective
consensus regarding the standard of appropriate behavior dictated by a concept, how are states
going to develop a consistent practice which would contribute to the concept‟s hardening into
a norm of customary international law? Currently, R2P is simply too opaque to prevent
20
The Common African Position on the Proposed Reform of the United Nations: “The Ezulwini Consensus,”
www.africa-union.org/.../Ext%20EXCL2%20VII%20Report.doc
 16

different actors from invoking the concept to legitimize the pursuit of particularistic agendas
in the name of allegedly “universal” interests. The African approach to R2P, for instance,
continues to reflect an agenda which is partly anti-colonial and emancipatory, but at times
also repressive and backward-looking.
At the regional level, we find a continental organization which is constantly torn between
emulating Western standards of legitimate statehood and good governance on the one hand,21
and trying to emancipate itself from the West by devising African solutions to African
problems on the other hand. A major impetus for the founding of the OAU and its successor,
the AU, was the idea that Africa should be able to come up with African solutions to African
problems in order to prevent foreign powers from exploiting Africa‟s internal weaknesses:
“We need an organization which will facilitate acceptable solutions to disputes among
Africans,” Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie urged at the founding of the OAU (Selassie
1963: 285). “Let us … create a single institution to which we all belong, based on principles
to which we all subscribe, … secure in the knowledge that the decisions there will be dictated
by Africans and only by Africans and that they will take full account of all vital African
considerations (Ibid.: 285). This notion of African emancipation from Western tutelage is a
core part of the AU‟s emerging security culture. The AU‟s nascent regional identity is
constructed around the ideology of Pan-Africanism, which in turn is premised on the
assumption that “all Africans have a spiritual affinity with each other and that, having
suffered together in the past, they must march together into a new and brighter future. In its
fullest realization this would involve the creation of „an African leviathan in the form of a
political organisation or an association of states‟” (Emerson 1962: 280). Central to the
ideology of Pan-Africanism are the concepts of Negritude and the idea of the African
personality (Ibid.: 281), which define Africanness among other things via that which it is not,
thus invoking difference in order to create in-group cohesion. This technique is called
“Othering,” which is a central concept in postcolonial thinking, where it is employed as a
discursive frame “in order to resist the Eurocentric, condescending assumptions of
international law that were utilized to foster the colonial subjugation in Africa” (Gathi
1998/1999: 72). A sense of Third World identity and agency is thus asserted which was
denied by the colonial powers and which is used as a rallying device to put up a united
African front against Western domination.
In this perspective, the creation of an African continental security architecture is, among other
things, an attempt to balance the hegemony of the West and has significant implications for
the African approach to the responsibility to protect. The general African tendency towards
rejecting hegemonic interference explains for instance why various African governments tend
to support the ICISS‟s suggestion for establishing a code of conduct for the P-5 members of
the UN Security Council in situations involving mass atrocities.22 The veto power wielded by
the P-5 is anathema to many African states, who view the Security Council as a hegemonic
body where Africans have no voice. Africa‟s mistrust of the UN Security Council also
explains the AU‟s understanding of the relationship between R2P and the principle of non-
intervention: While Art. 4(h) of the AU Constitutive Act provides for a right to humanitarian
intervention and hence at first glance seems to reject the principle of non-interference, it is
important to note that the right to intervene belongs to the African Union, and only to the
African Union. In relations between Africa and the outside world, the non-intervention
principle continues to reign supreme. Thus, Africa has developed a very peculiar
interpretation of the responsibility to protect which includes a pruning of the non-intervention
norm in favor of a right to intervention which is borne by the AU, but not the international
community at large, as suggested by the ICISS. According to the African understanding of
R2P, the primary duty-bearers are nation-states themselves; but if the former fail to live up to
21
See, for example, Art. 3(g), 3(h), 4(h), 4(m), 4(o), and 4(p) of the African Union Constitutive Act.
22
http://www.responsibilitytoprotect.org/GA%20Debate%20MS%20Positions--Africa.pdf
 17

their responsibility, responsibility devolves to the African Union. Prior authorization by the
UN Security Council is seen as desirable, it is not, however, considered as a conditio sine qua
non for the AU to launch a humanitarian intervention (Ladnier 2003: 53). The African version
of R2P is obviously at odds with Art. 2(4) of the UN Charter, which posits that al member
states “shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the
territorial integrity or political independence of any state.” Art. 103 of the Charter in turn
establishes the primacy of the Charter over other international treaties (including the AU
Constitutive Act). The African R2P doctrine hence cannot be reconciled with the norms of the
UN Charter.
A final variable from the regional level of analysis is the type of security challenges faced by
a regional organization. As Africa continues to be a continent plagued by state failure, civil
war, and the risk of mass atrocities, it seemed logical for the AU to adopt an interventionist
posture. The urgent need for effective responses to these challenges also explains why
Africans have adopted a rather pragmatic stance regarding the necessity of seeking a UN
mandate for interventions led by regional and subregional organizations and refuse to be
bothered with legal niceties such as the tension between Art. 4(h) of the AU Act and Art. 2(4)
of the UN Charter. The genocide in Rwanda made it painfully clear to Africans that the
United Nations cannot be relied upon to protect African civilians: “One clear and lasting
lesson has been that the international community‟s interest in Africa is fickle in nature, and
the costs of being dependent on others for action can be unacceptably high” (Ibid.: 30). It was
partially this realization which prompted the AU to adopt a security doctrine which is more
interventionist than any other regional security culture in the world.
Third, we must look to the sub-regional level of analysis in order to understand the role R2P
plays in the AU‟s security culture. At the state level, the fear of neo-colonialism under the
guise of humanitarian concerns continues to influence African leaders‟ attitude towards R2P.
African governments continue to uphold traditional sovereignty norms which has frequently
led to a privileging of regime security over human security: “For the newly independent
states, sovereignty is the hard won prize of their long struggle for emancipation. It is the legal
epitome of the fact that they are masters in their own house … Once they have achieved
independence and reacquired sovereignty, they are very reluctant to accept any limitation of
it” (Abi-Saab 1962: 103f). Unsurprisingly then, the AU frequently continues to act as a
mutual preservation club of autocratic leaders, who still maintain a strong sense of loyalty
towards one another – witness the AU‟s reaction to the Bashir indictment. The arrest warrants
issued against an incumbent head of state obviously made many authoritarian African leaders
fear for their political survival, who viewed the indictment as a the “beginning of a trend
against which they must unite” (Abdulai 2010). Consequently, the atrocities occurring in
Darfur were “swept under the carpet, and rationalized according to the outdated doctrine of
territorial integrity and sovereignty concerns” (Ibid.). The AU‟s response is indicative of the
continuing salience of a political culture which has been characterized as neopatrimonial, that
is, based on clientelism and nepotism which operate “behind a façade of ostensibly rational
state bureaucracy” (Taylor/Williams 2008: 137). Hence, a genuine commitment to R2P as
part and parcel of the African security culture is “doomed to be theoretical rather than
practical as long as its members are primarily interested in preserving regime security and
their exclusive access to the state‟s resources” (Ibid.: 145).
The prevalence of neopatrimonial regimes in turn means that variables from the societal level
of analysis are less salient in Africa than in regions which are primarily composed of mature
democracies. With regard to the role of R2P in the AU‟s security culture, the implications of
this assumption are twofold: On the one hand, a casualty-averse African public will not
necessarily stymie intervention on behalf of human rights, as is frequently the case in Western
democracies. Yet on the other hand, in cases where the magnitude of human suffering
outweighs the reluctance of a society to sacrifice its own soldiers, public pressure in favor of
 18

humanitarian intervention will probably not suffice to prompt African governments to

intervene in the internal affairs of a neighboring state, because many African leaders will
frequently privilege their loyalties to fellow autocrats over the preferences of their own
constituencies.
Overall, the present case study offers an interesting example of the role of norm localization
processes in the emergence of regional security cultures. Our aim was to show that the AU‟s
interpretation of R2P is conditioned by various and at times conflicting factors such as the
influence of world political culture, the soft law character of R2P, the experience of
colonialism, the desire to balance Western influence, the types of security challenges facing
the AU, the prevalence of neopatrimonial regimes and a corresponding privileging of regime
security over human security, etc. The interplay of these variables led the AU to prune R2P to
fit its needs, keeping the elements of R2P that were compatible with its own norms and
preferences, and jettisoning the rest.

6. Conclusion
As global norm diffuse to the level of states, they have to travel through Regional Security
Arrangements. RSA‟s constitute an intermediate sphere that filters global norms and adapts
their meaning to regional customs, traditions and interests. We have identified different
mechanisms of this process of pruning. In the case of the AU, we have identified extant
regional norms and the interplay between regional norms and the emerging global norm of
R2P as the major mechanism that decides on the regional acceptance and meaning of R2P. In
the case of the EU, the interplay between extant regional norms and the emerging global norm
of R2P has also been relevant in shaping the European security culture. In addition, we have
found ample indications that the interests and outlooks of different actors influences the way
how they perceive global norms. Which actors prevail and whose interpretations of global
norms become accepted on the European level, however, is very much influenced by the
institutional roles, rules and practices of the EU.
As regional security arrangements prune global norms, that is accept them, adapt them to
local circumstances or reject them altogether, they might function as bridges or barriers of
global governance. RSAs might thus further the normative fragmentation or might lead to
normative homogenization. In our case, RSAs seem to further the chances of global
governance. Despite the African charge of a Western bias of R2P, we find that both
organizations perceive and treat the human security/RsP agenda rather similar. Both regional
organizations emphasize prevention, peace-building measures, regional resilience, a priority
for regional solutions to regional problems. They differ to some extend with regrd to the
authority of the UN Security Council. This picture could change, however, if we take other
RSA‟s like ASEAN or the SCO into account.

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