Enlargement of the African Union

Membership

Article 29 of the Constitutive Act of the African Union (ratified July 11, 2000), states:

1. Any African State may, at any time after the entry into force of this Act, notify the Chairman of the Commission of its intention to accede to this Act and to be admitted as a member of the Union.
2. The Chairman of the Commission shall, upon receipt of such notification, transmit copies thereof to all Member States. Admission shall be decided by a simple majority of the Member States. The decision of each Member State shall be transmitted to the Chairman of the Commission who shall, upon receipt of the required number of votes, communicate the decision to the State concerned.

The following two articles discuss the suspension and cessation of membership:

Governments which shall come to power through unconstitutional means shall not be allowed to participate in the activities of the Union.

and

1. Any State which desires to renounce its membership shall forward a written notification to the Chairman of the Commission, who shall inform Member States thereof. At the end of one year from the date of such notification, if not withdrawn, the Act shall cease to apply with respect to the renouncing State, which shall thereby cease to belong to the Union.
2. During the period of one year referred to in paragraph 1 of this Article, any Member State wishing to withdraw from the Union shall comply with the provisions of this Act and shall be bound to discharge its obligations under this Act up to the date of its withdrawal.

The former of these two clauses has only applied to Mauritania after its 2005 coup d'état and Togo. Madagascar was suspended during the dissolution of the OAU and formation of the AU (2001–2003). The only state to leave the OAU/AU was Morocco, who withdrew in 1984, following the admission of Western Sahara's Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic in 1982. It is the only African state not currently an AU member.

Current members

The current AU covers almost the entirety of Africa

Currently, the AU has 54 member states.^[1] As the successor to the colonial independence; as decolonization ended, the borders of the OAU had overlapped almost all of Africa. When the AU was founded in 2002, it represented almost the entire African continent.

Possible growth

African Union (AU) History Pan-Africanism Casablanca Group Abuja Treaty Sirte Declaration Lome Summit Organisation of African Unity Chairperson Secretary General Geography Borders Extreme points Member states Regions Organs Executive Council Permanent Representatives' Committee Specialized Technical Committees Assembly Chairperson Pan-African Parliament Bureau Secretariat Gallagher Estate African Court of Justice African Court on Human and Peoples' Rights Commission Chairperson Deputy Chairperson AUCC ECOSOCC Committees Peace and Security Political Affairs Infrastructure and Energy Social Affairs and Health HR, Sciences and Technology Trade and Industry Rural Economy and Agriculture Economic Affairs Women and Gender Cross-Cutting Programs Financial Institutions African Central Bank African Monetary Fund African Investment Bank Peace and Security Council ACIRC African Standby Force Panel of the Wise UNAMID AMIB AMIS AMISOM MISCA Politics APRM Foreign relations African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights Enlargement Symbols Anthem Emblem Flag Economy Currencies Development Bank African Economic Community NEPAD African Free Trade Zone Culture Africa Day Languages Theory Afro United States of Africa United States of Latin Africa Category

• The official AU site

External links

References

• Foreign relations of the African Union
• List of African Union member states by political system

See also

After Azawad's unilateral declaration of independence from Mali in 2012, the AU issued a statement calling the pronouncement "null and of no value whatsoever".^[11]

Although the AU includes one Somalia, favouring the Transitional Federal Government's claim that Somaliland is an autonomous region over the Somaliland government's assertion of full sovereignty.^[10] Nonetheless, Somaliland applied for AU membership in 2005, a request that has hereto gone unanswered.^[10]

In February 2012, the Caribbean state of Haiti signaled that it would seek to upgrade its observer status to associate member status.^[8] The AU plans at its next summit in June 2013 to upgrade Haiti's status from observer to associate.^[9]