LESSON 33 - THE EXECUTIVE COUNCIL

Hello, thank you for joining me on my YouTube channel. My name is Christiana Sagie. On this channel, I will be teaching about international law and these teachings will be in the form of short weekly lecture series. Over time, I will be surfacing varied concepts of international law. When and where applicable, these concepts will be analyzed and brought to you as it relates to current trends in international law as they arise. At the end of this lecture, you will find the transcript of the lecture in the link below. Also, for current trend and analysis in international law, you can subscribe to my blog. All the details you will find in the comment section below. For the 33rd lecture in this lecture series, we will be speaking to another organ of the African Union, the Executive Council. In this lesson, we will address its composition, its functions and powers, and its mode of operation. Essentially, Article 10 to 13 of the Constitutive Act of the AU addresses the composition, functions, powers, and sources of procedural rules of the Executive Council. In a little while, we will unpack all of these things. The Executive Council, which we would refer to as EC going forward, derives its legitimacy from Article 10 of the Constitutive Act of the AU. Paragraph 1 of Article 10 of the Constitutive Act and Rule 3 of the Rule of Procedure of the EC speaks to its composition. The ministers of foreign affairs of each of the 55 member states or any other minister designated by the member state. The primary role of the EC is to support the work of the Assembly. To this extent, the EC is responsible for the coordination and decision-making on policy issues of common concern to member states. Furthermore, Article 13 of the Constitutive Act of the AU provides a non-exhaustive list of policy issues that come under the EC's purview. In addition to these functions, the EC has a vital role in fostering Africa's development agenda. One way which the EC fosters this agenda is in the promotion of cooperation and coordination with the regional economic communities, the UN Economic Commission for Africa and the African Development Bank. We did mention in our previous video that the Assembly has a chairperson. In the same vein, the EC has a chairperson who forms part of what is called the EC Bureau. The Bureau consists of the chairperson, three vice presidents and rapporteur who hold this position for one year. The chairperson of the Bureau is always the member state that chairs the Assembly. The structure of the meetings of the EC are as detailed in Article 10.1 of the Constitutive Act of the AU. At least twice a year in ordinary session and at extraordinary sessions at the request of a member of the AU and the subsequent approval by two-thirds of all minister states. In terms of its rules of procedures, Article 12 of the Constitutive Act of the AU empowers the EC to formulate and adopt its own rules of procedure. To carry out its mandate, the EC functions through subcommittees that offer specialized expat and thematic assistance to the EC. Examples of these subcommittees include the Ministerial Committee on Candidatures, the Ministerial Committee on the Challenges of Ratification or Ascension and Implementation of the OAU-AU Treaties, the Ministerial Committee on the Scale of Assessment, and the Ministerial Committee on Agenda 2063. The EC is also at liberty to delegate its powers and functions. According to Article 13.3 of the Constitutive Act of the AU, the EC can delegate any of its powers and functions mentioned in Article 13.1 to another organ of the AU named the Specialized Technical Committee. In a subsequent video, we will address this organ of the AU. In this lesson, we have captured Article 10 to 13 of the Constitutive Act of the AU and addressed the composition, functions, powers, and the powers given to the EC to create its own procedural rules. In our next lesson, we will be exploring another organ of the AU, the Pan-African Parliament. So I want to say thank you so very much for joining in. Remember to like, share, subscribe, leave your comments in the comment section below, and hit the notification bell so that you're notified when there's a new video. We would also like to connect with you on Facebook and Twitter. Let us know the content you'd like to see. Thank you.