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

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.