tj ~emoire on proposed Seminar on African Security Concepts and New Practice(provisional title!)

Background

This note sets out the preliminary views of African Security Dialogue and Research(IDYW.,a:frigm,s~.QJJ:itY-..Q1:g ASDR) on the proposed seminar scheduled for the end ofJanuary 2002 in Abuja, Nigeria, to be organized jointly by ASDR and the Liu Centre forthe Study of Global Issues. In broad outline, the idea of the seminar is to stage aknowledge-based, information -sharing and action oriented seminar to coincide with animportant ECOW AS meeting; to help disseminate the report of the InternationalCommission on Intervention and State Sovereignty(hJjp.:lLW.~R,g£:...gill!y-,~.gJJiigi.s.SI.~S.~gh!) which is expected to have been presented bythen; and to help in the process of developing an Africa-centric perspective on thebroadening parameters of security in the present world condition, for instance,importantly, in the idea of Human Security. This is a working brieffor our own internalconsultations continue and we are also consulting with related, third parties. The purposeis to provide a rough basis for intellectual and other negotiation of this exciting prospect

It would be recalled that the idea of the Abuja seminar was an important result of themeeting in Vancouver on Thursday, October, 4, 2001. I had proposed, under the researchproject The New Regionalism and Security in West Africa: A Comparative Perspective,one of three lines of collaborative research proposed, that:

"The niche that we intend to develop is to connect the peacemaking apparatus andprocesses ofECOW AS to the outcomes of the International Commission on Interventionand State Sovereignty and to deploy a comparative posture on ECOW AS in relation toother African and extra-continental intergovernmental integration organizations."

The most important collaborative effort we presented to the Liu Centre was for aconference in Accra on African Concepts of Security. The idea was to work up ideas ofthe parameters of security, especially in non traditional contexts, which may be implicitin existing African official and other stances and also to present extant perspectives onthe changing meaning of security in scholarship and statecraft to the consultation. Wehave had advanced discussions with other partners, the most important being the NordicAfrican Institute (http://www.naiuu.se/indexeng.html). on this Africa-centric conference.The proposed Abuja meeting can be seen, from the point of view of ASDR's originalproposal, as a cross between the two ideas sketched above. There are many importantaspects of the new proposal for Abuja, It is obvious that the seminar would now be at amuch higher profile, in respect of official participation especially. This implies that wehave to carefully craft the "multi track" aspect, especially as it concerns participationbeyond state officials, of the consultation. The report ofICISS is likely to becontroversial, most especially in Africa. While we accept the great importance of makingthe report as widely known as possible, we also appreciate the need to be careful about

the sensibilities it may arouse and to avoid unnecessary aggro. To tamper the happymoral language of the Human Security family of nations, we must balance theunderstandings of "coalitions of the willing" with old negotiation of diplomaticagreement Finally, we see the conference as part of a process. An important key in ourentire collaboration with the Liu Centre in particular and the development of ourknowledge and action programmes in Human Security in general.

Strategic Stance

In order to achieve the practical purposes sketched above, and also to provide a grid forpossible themes at the Abuja seminar, we need a careful strategic stance. This wouldshape the public presentation and negotiation of the seminar process as well. Thefollowing elements may be considered in the development of such a stance.

The first element maybe to "dilute" the impact of the expected, understandable ICISSpush for rolling back state sovereignty and fuming up the bases for intervention. Ourstratagem can b e to posit that the erosion of state sovereignty has been going on for along time and that in certain respects recognition of this given can offer Africa someadvantages. We may start from a simple presentation of Stephen Krasner's arrestingargument that the historical reality of state sovereignty has been greatly exaggerated.Even imp erial, western countries have suffered significant erosion of sovereignty. iWemay assure that the structures of African politics ensures that in significant ways statesare often resilient and are able to press sovereignty against their citizens, subjects andcaptives even in conditions of general adversity. ii

At a practical policy level we may say that there have been important examples ofmilitary intervention in the recent African experience. We may gloss theECOWAS/ECOMOG experience as a good example of homemade intervention. We mayinvoke the important, fast-developing New Partnership for Africa's Development(NEP AD, formerly the New African Initiative) and the founding documents of theAfrican Union as very clearly establishing the norm of intervention in pursuit of humanrights across borders as a cardinal African norm.

In line with the populist streak of our times, we can suggest that in the post September 11world condition and the war against individuals, the connections between individual,state and international security appear very strong.

Finally, a stick argument It can be argued that the potential erosion of state sovereigntyis simply the price that has to be paid for international development assistance today.NEP AD clearly implies this, generally in its framework of a norm-based compact andspecifically in the idea of African countries' peer review of development strategies. The •related, enlarged conceptions of security can be shown to carry the potential of providingthe bases for firm Southern international development assistance claims, even to theextent of firming up rights-based approaches to development on the policy agenda.Human Security, for example, has been exploited as a basis for a firm claim for Human

Development." The fact that Austria, the next chair of the Human Security Network, hasiI1Cticatedthat it would concentrate on the links between Human Rights and HumanSecurity, can be worked to good advantage here.

Themes

Informed by the orientations detailed above, I propose seven themes for the Abujaseminar. These themes also capture the areas of competence and interests pointed up bythe discussions with Liu researchers in Vancouver. In what follows I simply outline thebroad analytic charges. After firm lines of action have been negotiated we can presentdetailed organizational profiles of presenters, budgets, etc. In terms of generalmethodology, in keeping with the knowledge intensive demands of the broadening ofsecurity concerns, the key, overarching principle would be to maintain a sharp knowledgefocus. Secondly, we can adopt the ICISS method of making the main organizationsinvolved - in this case ECOW AS, ASDR, Liu and perhaps a representative oflCISS -lead off with general presentations on background and expectation. Different discussionformats must be adopted for the themes in order, in particular, to maximize the impact ofthe different categories ofparticipants.

The seven themes proposed are:• Deepening Multilateral Security Cooperation: ECOWAS and Traditional

Security - Recognize ECOW AS' long engagement with traditional securitycooperation issues. Interpretation in terms of standards of intervention - is SerraLeone qualitatively different from Liberia? Costs and Benefits of near powersintervening in backyard.

• Broadening Multilateral Security: ECOWAS and Non Traditional Security-Point up ECOW AS' increasing involvement in non traditional issues. Interestingissue of border crossing herdsmen and food security. Human trafficking. Goodcorporate citizenship.

• ECOW AS Security Fundamentals in Comparative Perspective. Are therediscernible norms emerging from prescribed norms and practice?

• The United Nations, the new Collective Security and Sovereignty. Strategically,the UN secretariat must be made to carry the individual sovereignty argument,especially if, as I suspect would be the case, ICISS does not go well beyond KofiAnnan's bold statement.

• Security and Vulnerability: Focus on Children, War and Crime. Begin extendingHuman Security concerns beyond vulnerability caused by violence and directthreat of violence. Connect to UN General Assembly Summit on children andrelated processes.

• Security and Vulnerability: Focus on Development and Environmental Stress.Continue connecting Human Security with Human Development. Link toforthcoming UN Summit on Sustainable Development.

• Youth and Information Empowerment - youth forum and press training sessionto be organized alongside and/or before seminar. Substance would reflect themesof main conference. New media to be deployed as far as possible - Abuja may bea challenge! Media training and general communication functions to beundertaken by MFW A.

Amos Anyimadu

i Stephen Krasner, Sovereignty: Organized Hypocrisy, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1999.Tbe argument is summarized and frames a symposium in Stephen D Krasner, "Sovereignty", ForeignPolicy, 122, 200 I.ii As I have argued in Governing without Politics: A Study of State Sovereignty and Economic Decline inGhana, Ph.D. Thesis, flinders University, 1990.iu Usefully captured in Nicole Ball, Human Security & Human Development Linkages andTheOpportunities Report of a conference organized by the Programme for Strategic and International Studies,Graduate Institute of International Studies, Geneva March 8-9,200 I,http://www .humansecuritynetwork.org/report _ may200 1_3-e.asp

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