African Journal of Political Science

African Journal of Political Science ISSN 3461-2165 Vol. 6 (8), pp. 001-014, August, 2012. © International Scholars Journals

Full Length Research Paper

The space for Congolese self-determination between absences and presences of the African Union and the United Nations

Marta Iñiguez de Heredia

Department of International Relations, the London School of Economics and Political Science, Houghton Street, London WC2A 2AE, UK. E-mail: [email protected]. Tel: +44 (0) 7593218980.

Accepted 16 December, 2011

Abstract

The conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo demonstrates the many challenges that the inter-national community (symbolised in the UN and AU in this case) faces with its new self-proclaimed responsibility of reconstruction and state building. It is argued that both the UN and the AU would be more effective by guiding their strategies in light of the principle of self-determination. This approach would leave the necessary space for Congolese institutions to develop while the UN and AU could focus stopping external intervention and resource plundering as well as securing prosecution for war crimes and crimes against humanity. The article follows a time-sequencing method that assumes outcomes to be affected by the sequence of events at specific points in time.

Key words: Democratic Republic of Congo, self-determination, state building, conflict resolution, African Union and United Nations.