The African Union, Responsibility to Protect, and Sovereignty Debates in Contemporary African International Relations

The Responsibility to Protect (R2P) doctrine, adopted at the 2005 UN World Summit, has generated sustained normative debate about the relationship between state sovereignty, human protection obligations, and the legitimate authority of international institutions to authorize coercive intervention. Within Africa, the African Union's Constitutive Act, which enshrines the right of the union to intervene in member states under grave circumstances, represents a regional elaboration of R2P that operates in tension with the classical Westphalian conception of non-interference. This study analyzes how the African Union has applied and interpreted R2P principles in selected African conflict contexts, focusing on the theoretical debates generated within the University of Nigeria, Nsukka's international relations scholarly community. A qualitative literature synthesis methodology is employed, combining analysis of AU Peace and Security Council decisions with interviews of UNN faculty specializing in African governance, international law, and conflict studies. The constructivist approach to norm diffusion and African norm entrepreneurship theory provide the analytical framework. Findings reveal that the AU occupies a genuinely ambiguous normative position, affirming protection commitments in principle while deferring to sovereign state preferences in practice, particularly when interventions risk establishing precedents threatening member state governments. UNN scholars contribute nuanced critiques of R2P's Eurocentric architecture and advocate for a more explicitly African-led conceptualization of collective human protection that centers structural conflict prevention over reactive military intervention. Keywords: Responsibility to Protect, African Union, sovereignty, African international relations, University of Nigeria Nsukka