Regional Multilateralism: The Right to Protect, not the Responsibility to Protect, in Africa

The African Union (AU) has rejected R2P and opposed the UN Security Council-authorized military action in Libya for human rights protection, claiming primacy in decision-making on peace and security interventions on the continent. Yet, existing studies have assumed that the right to protect, as the AU established in article 4(h) of the Constitutive Act, is compatible with R2P. Drawing on the concept of regional multilateralism, this article argues that the right to protect involves a unique African logic and ambition, albeit with an extraordinary significance for global security governance. Particularly, the right to protect is a robust, bold, stable, and uncontested international security regime, which favourable Permanent Five members of the Security Council can turn to when facing the twin problems of legitimacy and veto-induced paralysis. However, such P5 members must embrace the AU’s novel principle: continental sovereignty, which underlines the AU’s primacy claims in decision-making in peace and security.


Introduction
The African Union (AU) has often resisted the UN Security Council's military and nonmilitary actions to enforce R2P and protect human rights, claiming primacy in decision-making on peace and security interventions on the continent. In Libya, the AU opposed the Security Council-authorized NATO's use of force, stressing diplomacy and mediation. 1 Likewise, the AU opposed the Security Council-mandated ICC investigation of the genocidal war in Sudan, describing the pursuit of justice as a threat to peace, security, and stability. 2 The AU primacy claim is a challenge to the UN Security Council's global authority and primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security.
Existing studies 3 have assumed that R2P is compatible with the AU's 'right to intervene' for human protection or what this article describes as the right to protect 4 under article 4(h) of the Constitutive Act of the AU. These studies have essentially subsumed the right to protect under R2P. The apparent reasoning is that since R2P and the right to protect share the same objectives, then it makes sense to place the regional principle under the global principle consistent with the concept of global multilateralism 5 in international security governance through the Security Council, which underscores the dominance of universal institutions. However, AU's primacy claim and opposition to the Security Council's military and nonmilitary measures problematize current presumptions of compatibility and multilateralism and raise the research question: what explains AU's resistance to the Security Council's robust and non-robust measures and primacy claim in peace and security?
This article argues the explanation of AU primacy claims and opposition to robust interventions entails understanding the rationale for creating the right to protect, which involves interpreting regional and global multilateral efforts to reconcile state sovereignty with military intervention for human rights protection. Although the right to protect and the R2P norms share a similar history and broader goals of preventing genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity, the right to protect principle followed different logic and ambition, which falls into three broad elements: 1) African leaders were more interested in establishing an unassailable legal foundation for the use of force to protect human rights; 2) African leaders were motivated to create a robust, incontestable norm on military intervention in 'grave circumstances' like genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity; and 3) more importantly, African leaders intended to claim primacy in decision-making on peace and security, particularly the use of force. In other words, the right to protect is concerned with the legitimacy of the use of military force, which the AU has defined as the primacy of African norms and institutions. The implication is that the AU, in conjunction with external powers, must authorize the use of force for human rights protection under article 4(h). Consequently, the AU has rejected R2P 6 and questioned the legality and the legitimacy of the UN Security Council to authorise military 5 Thakur, Ramesh, and Luk van Langenhove, 'Enhancing global governance through regional integration,' Global Governance: A Review of Multilateralism  interventions for human rights protection under Chapter VII of the UN Charter, specifically for implementing R2P, such as in Libya. 7 The significance of this article is to underscore that the right to protect is a unique and ambitious global security norm. By untying article 4(h) from R2P, this paper establishes that the right to protect is a more robust, bolder, stable, and uncontested security norm available to the Security Council when facing the twin problems of veto-induced paralysis and legitimacy.
First, if one of the Permanent Five (P5) members of the Security Council vetoes a Chapter VII resolution, then favourable members must consider alternative norms, and the right to protect is an option, not an appendage to R2P that becomes useless because of the lack of consensus.
Second, given the lack of inclusion in the P5, the AU questions the legitimacy of the Security Council, so the right to protect can legitimize the Council's actions. The implication is that the Security Council must recognize the AU novel norm: continental sovereignty, 8 which underpins AU primacy claim over decision-making. Continental sovereignty means that the AU has precedence in decision-making on peace and security. Thus, the Security Council needs to engage in strategy dialogues with the AU on the potential use of the right to protect in future interventions in Africa and globally.
This article adopts a two-pronged method of analysis. First, it implements the concept of regional multilateralism 9 to interpret the development of the right to protect norm and draw a distinction with global multilateralism and the emergence of R2P, underscoring that the right to protect is the most vivid illustration of regional multilateralism in contemporary international security governance, whose significance had been overshadowed by subsuming article 4(h) under R2P. Second, it utilizes the content analysis approach in international relations 10 to translate primary data, including legal and policy documents, and academic and policy literature showing first-hand accounts of the making of the right to protect and R2P. This article has two main sections. The first section reviews regional and global multilateral efforts to reconcile state sovereignty with military intervention for human rights protection to underline the different logics that inspired the emergence of the right to protect and R2P. The second section reviews the AU response to R2P, illustrating how the primacy claim in decision-making is underpinned by continental sovereignty.
The concluding component explains the importance of this article's argument for a separate approach to implementing R2P and the right to protect, instead of subordinating the latter to the former. In essence, this article favours normative pluralism over normative monism. 11 By normative monism, I imply the current focus on the similarities between R2P and the right to protect, which invariably subsumes the latter under the former. By normative pluralism, I mean the overriding importance of emphasizing the variations and stressing that the right to protect and R2P are independent global security norms, so that the international community, particularly the UN Security Council, can better understand the logic, objectives, and functions of the right to protect in maintaining international peace and security. This endeavour will require a study group, so I call for one to be formed. 10  The point is that both the regional and global efforts to reconcile state sovereignty with individual sovereignty succeeded, producing the right to protect and R2P, respectively. However, the logic for adopting each principle is fundamentally different, which, as we shall soon see, is the underlying factor in the dispute over primacy in decision-making in peace and security. The analysis runs in two parts. The first part focuses on the concept of regional multilateralism and the right to protect and the second part centres on the concept of global multilateralism and R2P. Regional multilateralism and global multilateralism are concepts of international security governance but operate distinct, if competing, logics.

Regional Multilateralism and the Right to Protect
This subsection evaluates the OAU-led reconciliation of state sovereignty with individual sovereignty, demonstrating that African leaders concentrated on developing a robust human rights protection principle, establishing a firm basis for the legitimacy of military intervention, and empowering the AU with an unassailable authority to protect individual sovereignty. Thus, the right to protect is the definitive reconciliation of state sovereignty with individual sovereignty, underscoring regional multilateralism in global security governance.
The concept of regional multilateralism is about the idea that regional organizations within the context of Chapter VIII of the UN Charter make rules for international peace and security governance, and so universal institutions, such as the UN Security Council can benefit regional conventions. 15 However, regional norms may contrast with global principles and so 15 Hettne and Söderbaum, 'The UN and regional organizations in global security'; Tardy, Thierry, 'The European Union and the United Nations: Global versus regional multilateralism,' Studia Diplomatica can become a problem. As Björn Hettne and Fredrik Söderbaum pointed out, regional and global approaches to international security governance may follow 'competing logics,' so one of the challenges is how to 'construct arrangements in which the two logics complement one another.' The most interesting feature of regional multilateralism is the assumption that in the future regional norms may replace universal principles because of the unrepresentative nature of global institutions. In other words, the legitimacy problem in the UN Security Council, for instance, will increasingly make regional institutions more appealing and deserving. Björn Hettne and Fredrik Söderbaum explained the concept in detail: States and global organizations are being progressively locked into a larger regional and interregional framework in which "regions" are becoming the most relevant actors in the global security architecture. The ultimate outcome may be a "regional multilateralism" built around regional bodies such as ECOWAS

[Economic Community of West African States], SADC [Southern African
Development Cooperation], and the EU, as opposed to an "orthodox multilateralism" centered on the UN, with nation-states as the basic units.
Regional multilateralism expresses the ambition of groups of states to control the global environment by pooling their sovereignties according to a post-Westphalian logic, rather than relying on the one state one vote procedure in the UN General Assembly or the undemocratic plurilateralism ("false multilateralism") of the UN Security Council. 16 Although regional multilateralism often refers to conventional regional organizations, such as the AU and the EU, the concept is gaining prominence in issue-specific security alliances like the Quad, involving the emerging and expanding military partnership between the United States, Australia, Japan, and India. The White House press statement following a bilateral meeting between the United States President, Joe Biden, and the President of the Republic of Korea President, Moon Jae-in, noted that: The United States and the ROK [Republic of Korea] also reaffirm support for enhanced cooperation with Pacific Island Countries and acknowledge the importance of open, transparent, and inclusive regional multilateralism including the Quad. 17 Such regional security alliances, including AUKUS (Australia, United Kingdom, and the United States nuclear submarine pact), implicating P5 members in geopolitics and strategic balancing can have an unintended consequence of undermining effective global multilateralism and promoting regional multilateralism. As Ramesh Thakur and Luk van Langenhove noted, 'The major threat is that the growth of regionalism could further weaken the multilateral system and the UN [if they] create a world order based on shifting alliances between regional blocs.' 18 Nevertheless, this article maintains that regional multilateralism is a vital credible alternative or complementary, not a rival, system of international security governance, so that the right to protect receives independent considerations, but requires understanding the African logic and ambition that spurred African leaders to create it.
As noted earlier, African leaders, through the OAU, acted to reconcile state sovereignty with individual sovereignty and adopted the right to protect for safeguarding human rights. The international community's failure to prevent the Rwandan genocide inspired the OAU initiative. With the perception that NATO acted in Kosovo but not in Rwanda, African leaders 17 The White House, 'U.S.-ROK leaders' joint statement,' Press Briefing, 21 May 2021. <https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/05/21/u-s-rok-leaders-joint-statement/> accessed 28 October 2021. The emphasis is mine. See also Kevin Rudd, 'Why the quad alarms China: The quad's success poses a major threat to Beijing's ambitions,' Foreign Affairs, [Snapshot], 6 August 2021, <https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/united-states/2021-08-06/why-quad-alarms-china> accessed 28 October 2021. 18 Thakur and Langenhove, 'Enhancing global governance through regional integration,' p. 237. focused on OAU reforms to create a robust principle that would enable effective interventions to prevent future occurrences. So, the logic of the OAU effort was primarily to ensure 1) a stronger response to grave situations and 2) the legality and legitimacy of military interventions. African leaders were more concerned with the legitimacy of the authorizing institution than state sovereignty. The reform and dialogue started with an OAU-authorized inquiry into the Rwandan genocide. Since Africa recognizes its own primary responsibility to protect the lives of its citizens, we call on: a) the OAU to establish appropriate structures to enable it to respond effectively to enforce the peace in conflict situations. 21 IPEP did not directly address the question of intervention and state sovereignty, but African leaders did during the Sirte summit on OAU reforms in September 1999, and they prioritized 1) creating a robust, indisputable legal basis for the use of force for preventing grave violations of human rights, and 2) establishing unquestionable legitimate authority for mandating military interventions for human protection. African leaders were driven by the notion of human security, the idea that the AU must centre its activities around meeting the needs of the African people. As Thomas Tieku's report on the negotiations noted, the South African President, Thabo Mbeki, proposed the concept of 'African Renaissance'that is, popular rule involving example in Kosovo suggests that the Security Council's mandate may not be necessary where the purpose is to protect human rights, especially on those occasions where the Council is paralyzed due to the use of the veto by any of the P5 members. The significant difference, however, is that the notion of continental sovereignty is a challenge to the Security Council's primary responsibility for international peace and security relating to decision-making. So, the current dispute over primacy should not surprise us. The right to protect involves the legitimacy of the authorizing institution, which the AU interprets as the primacy of African institutions and decision-making.
In sum, the right to protect is the definitive outcome of African regional multilateralism in reconciling state sovereignty with individual sovereignty, and the notion of continental sovereignty answered the question of legitimate authority by establishing the Assembly's right to protect populations from genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. To be clear, the concept of continental sovereignty African embedded in article 4(h) is about the Assembly's power to make decisions on interventions and not a dispute over the global primacy of the Security Council. While the original thinking about continental sovereignty was to formalize the Assembly's authority on military measures, recent developments show an expansion to underscore African priorities more broadly in decision-making (see next section for a detailed discussion). The emergence of the right to protect is the result of an exceptional regional multilateralism, independent of global multilateralism and the UN Security Council.
The Assembly intended not to subordinate the right to protect to a principle (R2P) that was not yet in existence.

Global Multilateralism and R2P
This section reviews the global multilateral effort to reconcile state sovereignty with individual sovereignty. R2P is the compromise that emerged from the effort. A major highlight is that the R2P logic was about expunging the notion of 'a right to intervene' that involves the use of force, with or without the UN Security Council authorization, for humanitarian interventions in the global consciousness, unlike regional multilateralism and the right to protect. In substance, however, R2P remains closely tied to military force, despite a broad range of tools, including mediation, available to the Security Council. 29 Crucially, the Security Council is the legitimate authority for mandating military interventions under R2P. Overall, R2P is an important international security governance principle on human rights protection, underpinning successful global multilateralism.
Global multilateralism in security governance through the UN system involves cultivating a common understanding of the nature of threats to peace and order in the international system and encouraging collective action in developing and establishing ideas, norms, institutions, and practices for responding and managing such threats. Global multilateralism privileges universal rules and institutions. The hallmark is that regional organizations under Chapter VIII of the UN Charter, like the AU, merely contribute to the success of international norms and rules. As Ramesh Thakur and Luk van Langenhove put it, 'the promise is that regional organizations become a primary locus for effective action to realize the ideals of multilateralism,' because 'regional governance cannot substitute for the UN, particularly in promoting security and development in the world.' 30 By 'the ideals of multilateralism,' the authors mean norms and rules developed through the UN institutions, 29 On mediation, see Ifediora, Obinna F., 'A regional responsibility to protect? Towards 'enhancing regional action' in Africa,' Global Responsibility to  of continental sovereignty resolved in African regional multilateralism and the right to protect, is about reforming the Security Council to be more representative, an idea some scholars have called an 'illusion' or 'myths.' 37 Kofi Annan's legitimate authority riddles presaged the spirited policy dialogue across UN institutions, involving debates in the Security Council and the General Assembly sessions on reconciling state sovereignty with individual sovereignty. 38 As it turned out, the Canadian response through sponsoring the ICISS was the most notable outcome of Annan's presentation of the conundrum. The ICISS mandate involved finding 'new ways of reconciling the seemingly irreconcilable notions of intervention and state sovereignty' and developing 'a global political consensus on how to move from polemicsand often paralysistowards action within the international system, particularly through the United Nations,' but the core directive centred on the use of force for human rights protection, thus: The kind of intervention with which we are concerned in this report is action taken against a state or its leaders, without its or their consent, for the purposes which are claimed to be humanitarian or protective. By far the most controversial form of such intervention is military, and a great part of our report necessarily focuses on that. 39 The Commission reported on some concerns about language becoming an obstacle to focusing on substantive issues, such as the legitimate authority question. terminology underpinned a crucial logic for abandoning the notion of a 'right to protect' and embracing a 'responsibility to protect' framing. The Commission suggested that the 'continuing fears about a "right to intervene" being formally acknowledged' was the reason for adopting a 'responsibility to protect' expression. Remarkably, the Commission stated that 'the "responsibility to protect" is more of a linking concept that bridges the divide between intervention and sovereignty; the language of the "right or duty to intervene" is intrinsically more confrontational,' and that 'a "right to intervene" by one state on the territory of another state is outdated and unhelpful.' 40 The Commission's rationale is inconsistent with the logic of the right to protect ('the right of the [African] Union to intervene') established in article 4(h) of the Constitutive Act. Instead, African leaders worried and still worry (see next section for detail) about the legitimacy of the UN Security Council, which the AU perceived as a relic of colonialism because of the P5's lack of inclusion and diversity, not about a language the Commission thought was 'outdated and unhelpful.' On the contrary, the AU embraced 'the confrontational' expression and established 'the right to intervene.' On substance, for the ICISS, there was no adequate alternative to the Security Council as the legitimate authority.
However, that the Council could lose credibility if it failed to act, and regional agencies may act in the Council's absence. 41 Lastly, the UN General Assembly endorsed the non-confrontational term, the 'responsibility to protect,' at the 2005 World Summit. Strangely, the General Assembly placed R2P under the broad theme on 'human rights and the rule law' instead of 'peace and collective security,' 42 which the debate on state sovereignty and intervention had been largely conducted.
One explanation being advanced by this article is that a 'responsibility to protect' framing did 40  In sum, and fundamentally, this section has demonstrated that the regional and global multilateralisms in reconciling state sovereignty with intervention to protect human rights succeeded in producing two distinct international security regimes, although sharing similar history and goals. The right to protect and R2P emerged from separate, if competing, logics of other, but for practical purposes, one must have primacy in interventions, and that is a major cause of the problem in the Security Council-AU relations. The AU primacy claims reflect the logic of regional multilateralism and the right to protect, despite not contesting the Security Council's primary responsibility for international peace and security. Table I illustrates the key differences between the right to protect and R2P. Protection responsibility is regional, consistent with the AUled regional multilateralism Protection responsibility is global, consistent with the UN-led multilateralism The point is that the right to protect and R2P contribute in distinct ways to strengthening and enriching international security regimes on human rights protection, underpinning this article's emphasis on normative pluralismby which I mean the perspective that highlights the importance of embracing different ideas with similar goals and creating alternatives that promote the Security Council's flexibility and effectiveness, as Figure I show. The right to protect moves toward the globe and R2P moves toward the regions and both must boost a pluralist international security framework. As this article argues, the right to protect can address the twin problems of legitimacy and veto-induced paralysis in the Security Council, and not just in Africa but globally, but it entails that the Security Council must embrace the Assembly's primacy and continental sovereignty claimsthe idea is a hard sell indeed, although not impossible. The reality is that both security regimes tend to clash, creating the practical problem between the AU and the Security Council over primacy. and underlines the importance of thinking about the Security Council's role in implementing the regional human rights protection regime.
The official AU response to R2P is contained in the Common African Position on the The AU policy as outlined in the above text is that article 4(h) is the only legal provision on which decisions relating to the use of force for protecting human rights must be based, so this is an invitation by the AU to the UN Security Council to consider its role under the right to rejecting R2P and asserting the right to protect, the address should not be overly surprising.
Particularly, the Chairperson reasoned that if the case of Kenya represented an R2P event, as most scholars, analysts, advocates, and policymakers, including Kofi Annan, 55 already determined, then there are no limits to labelling violent situations as R2P that would then necessitate the use of force. The relevance of Jean Ping's observation is that the R2P bar on military intervention was too low compared to the right to protect. Jean Ping contrasted the regional multilateralism that produced the right to protect with global multilateralism that created R2P to stress the higher African standard in the context of global security governance, thus: It should nevertheless be pointed out that the approach at the level of the continent provided safeguards, in that intervention could only be authorized by the Assembly of the Union or the Peace and Security Council and, secondly, only in grave circumstances, such as genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. 56 There are two salient components of the Chairperson's discussion. The first component implies the checks and balances that African leaders weaved into the right to protect and the AU system, reinforcing the notion of continental sovereignty in the sense that the power for mandating a legally grounded military intervention resides with the Assembly whose legitimacy is anchored in the collective ownership of AU institutions by African states and the on the continent. Accordingly, the Ezulwini Consensus is about promoting dialogue and consensus in the Security Council, especially on decisions relating to military intervention for human protection. The Ezulwini Consensus responds primarily to the use of force for human rights protection, otherwise known as 'Pillar three' of R2P. 60 The significance is that despite the failure to influence the outcome of the World Summit in 2005, the Assembly has continued endorsing the Ezulwini Consensus, underscoring the persistence of the influence campaign. In other words, the AU is not averse to the UN Security Council using military force in Africa but stresses continental sovereigntythat the Assembly is the only legitimate authority, and that the applicable regime is the right to protect with adequate 'safeguards.' The AU influence project focusing on promoting dialogue and consensus in the UN Security Council through the Assembly's continuing validation of the Ezulwini Consensus illustrates the Assembly's principled opposition to the veto power, which often causes paralysis. The policy is that the veto power should be abolished but, if it remained, then Africa should be accorded the full privileges and responsibilities. 61 From this perspective, the policy is consistent with the views of former President of France, François Hollande, who proposed for a collective renunciation of the use of veto: The UN has a responsibility to take action. And whenever our organization proves to be powerless, it's peace that pays the price. That's why I am proposing that a code of good conduct be defined by the permanent members of the Security Council, and that in the event of a mass crime they can decide to collectively renounce their veto powers. 62 The idea is that decisions on authorizing the use of force for human protection should be by consensus, either by two-thirds or by a simple majority of the fifteen-member Security Council.
This would bring the required votes for Chapter VII resolutions in line with the AU voting method, effectively ensuring the Assembly's full participation in the Security Council decisionmaking as well as advancing the legitimacy of the Council. Pertinently, AU's insistence that Chapter VII decisions must be reached through consensus underlines effort to change how the Security Council does the business of peace and security and reflects a demand to respect continental sovereignty in making decisions on interventions. In sum, the Ezulwini Consensus on AU's response to R2P is not an endorsement 63 but a rejoinder outlining further necessary development, without which the Assembly will keep the present distance with the global regime. As Jean Ping, put it, 'the concerns that were expressed by many states during the official continental sovereignty claim. 65 So, the concept of continental sovereignty is now the AU policy underpinning the primacy assertation.
The Security Council, acting under Chapter VII of the UN Charter, determined 'that the situation in Sudan continues to constitute a threat to international peace and security' and referred the genocidal conflict in Darfur to the ICC. Given that violence and atrocities were still occurring at the time of the referral and that the measure was taken under Chapter VII, the ICC involvement amounted primarily to a measure short of force to protect human rights, and yet the AU opposed the action and asserted continental sovereignty. Notably, the Security Council considered a regional approach to ensuring justice and invited: the Court and the African Union to discuss practical arrangements that will facilitate the work of the Prosecutor and of the Court, including the possibility of conducting proceedings in the region, which would contribute to regional efforts in the fight against impunity. 66 However, following the ICC Prosecutor's application for an arrest warrant against President al-Bashir on 14 July 2008, the AU responded a week later, demanding the priority of mediation to ensure peace and stability and expressed the commitment to fight impunity. In the initial request to the UN Security Council to defer the proceedings under article 16 of the Rome Statute, the AU Peace and Security, with subsequent endorsements by the Assembly, stressed 'the need to ensure that the ongoing peace efforts are not jeopardized' 67 by the Prosecutor's action. The UN Security Council replied on 31 July 2008 and reiterated 'that the situation continues to constitute a threat to international peace and security' and noted the Council's 'intention to consider these matters further.' 68 However, the dispute over primacy was never resolved, resulting in the Assembly's formal continental sovereignty claim and the right to defend it by any decisions and measures necessary. In the pivotal decision in 2014, the Assembly underlined: the need for the UN Security Council to reserve a timely and appropriate response to requests made by the AU on deferral in accordance with Article 16 of the Rome Statute under Chapter VII of the UN Charter so as to avoid the sense of lack of consideration of a whole continent.
Otherwise, the Assembly: DECIDES that the African Union and its Member States, in particular the African States Parties to the Rome Statute, reserve the right to take any further decisions or measures that may be necessary in order to preserve and safeguard peace, security and stability, as well as the dignity, sovereignty and integrity of the continent. 69 The Assembly's declaration of the right to 'preserve and safeguard' continental sovereignty refers to decision-making on peace, security, and stability, implying that the Security Council was already violating the sovereignty of the continent, and so the Assembly retains the right to prevent further infringements. Notably, the idea of continental sovereignty is an unprecedented claim by a non-state actor in the international system with significant theoretical and practical questions, albeit outside the current article's focus. It suffices to say that some scholars have been anticipating that the EU would be the first non-state actor to declare sovereignty. 70 The Security Council did not comply with the Assembly's demands to defer the referral of the Darfur situation to the ICC, triggering a chain of decisions and measures by the Assembly to defend continental sovereignty. In June 2014, the Assembly adopted the Protocol on the Amendment to the Statute of the African Court of Justice and Human Rights (the new court would be the African Court on Human and People's Rights) including a provision in article 46 that grants immunity to the sitting Heads of State and Government and other senior officials from prosecutionin the previous decision of January 2014 quoted above, the Assembly had requested the AU Commission 'to speed up' the amendment process. 71  The Open-ended Ministerial Committee developed the Withdrawal Strategy Document, which the Assembly adopted in January 2017. In substance, the Withdrawal Strategy Document was an influence campaign, just like the Ezulwini Consensus. It noted that the objective of the AU policies on the ICC includes 1) ensuring that international justice is conducted in a fair and transparent manner devoid of any perception of double standards, 2) instituting legal and administrative reforms of the ICC, 3) enhancing the regionalization of international criminal law, and 4) preserving the sovereignty of Member States. The idea of regionalizing international criminal law in Africa is in line with regional multilateralism leading to the adoption of the Malabo Protocol in 2014, albeit with the backward-looking immunity for serving Heads of State and Government and other senior officials.
Crucial for underscoring the influence project tenor of the Withdrawal Strategy Document, the Open-ended Ministerial Committee, drawing on Lawrence Helfer's work on exiting and terminating treaties, indicated that the Assembly's thinking about the so-called 'collective withdrawal' was to 'challenge and objurgate' the ICC and 'propose different legal alternatives' to the Rome Statute in the sense of normative pluralism. Of course, the Malabo Protocol is one option to the Rome Statute, just like the right to protect is an alternative to R2P.
So, at the heart of the collective withdrawal strategy was 'increasing [the Assembly's] leverage to reshape the treaty [the Rome Statute and Rules of Procedure] to more accurately reflect its interests or [establish] a rival legal norm,' 74 in the sense of the Malabo Protocol. Like the Ezulwini Consensus, the Withdrawal Strategy Document as an influence campaign also failed, as the Security Council ignored the deferral request. However, the significance of the withdrawal strategy is underpinning the Assembly's defence of continental sovereignty, which is currently about primacy in decision-making on peace and securitya defence of an extraordinary concept of sovereignty not yet backed by real power.

Conclusion
The UN Security Council-AU relations in peace and security, especially in the implementation of the R2P principle, has been problematic and will likely remain so in the foreseeable future.
Despite existing assumptions about the compatibility of the R2P and the right to protect regimes, resulting in subsuming the latter in the former, the dispute over primacy is real, and is having a substantial practical impact on the effectiveness of joint interventionsfrom the Security Council-authorized military intervention in Libya to the referral of the genocidal conflict in Sudan to the ICC, the AU opposed these measures and mounted vigorous political, diplomatic, and legal challenges to the Council's authority. 75 These concrete difficulties conjure the perception that the window of cooperation may be closing instead of opening, forcing us to accept that it was time we rethought current presumptions and understandings, and abandon the current normative monist approach to the problem. This article has done exactly that, thereby initiating a different channel of inquiring into solutions to the dispute.
This study establishes the dynamic perspective for fresh thinking about the cold AU-Security Council relations in peace and security by taking a normative pluralist view and introducing the concept of regional multilateralism, whose influence in contemporary security policy and practice is only rapidly growing, to the conversation. This new approach responds to the current international security landscape that is witnessing the presence of diverse actors with real potential to strengthen or disrupt global peace, security, and stability. The diversity of players underscores the multipolar security environment facing us today and will still confront us tomorrow and demands we look harder to understand the truer character of each actor's resources to appreciate better how to adapt such powers to effectively maintain global peace and security.
The AU presently lacks tangible power and resources but possesses the most robust human rights protection regime than any other actor in the international system. The right to protect is the most sophisticated human protection principle currently existing in the repertoire 75 The AU Assembly submitted a request asking the UN General Assembly to seek an advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice on the matter, see United Nations, 'Request for an advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice on the consequences of legal obligations of States under different sources of international law with respect to immunities of Heads of State and Government and other senior officials,' General Assembly, A/73/144, 18 July 2018. of global human rights protection regimes. The right to protect is a legal right endowed with an unimpeachable legitimacy and authority for implementation. While the logic of the right to protect is fundamentally different, it need not contradict R2P and other international principles.
The most significant question now, which I do not have any answer to, is how the UN Security Council or any other favourable powerful actors can implement the right to protect. How can interested international actors maximize the potential of the right to protect, the strongest and most compelling human protection regime in the current international security system? I call for a focus group to study the right to protect as a global security principle available to the UN Security Council in moments of crisis of legitimacy and paralysis.