Constitutive Act of the African Union enters into force

More than two thousand participants gathered in Kampala for the Seventh Pan-African Congress, connecting activists and intellectuals from Africa and the diaspora. Its debates addressed new political...

Millions vote in South Africa’s first national election open to all races, ending formal apartheid rule. The achievement reflected mass resistance and international solidarity, while persistent...

OAU member states adopted a protocol to create a regional court for human-rights cases. It extended the institutional architecture built around the African Charter, while access to the court and...

OAU leaders adopted the Sirte Declaration, calling for an accelerated move toward a union and stronger continental institutions. The declaration revived integration ambitions, but debate continued...

African leaders sign the Constitutive Act in Lomé, creating the legal basis for the African Union. The Act renewed a Pan-African institutional project and expanded cooperation, while the tension...

The UN conference brings governments and civil society together to address racism, colonialism, slavery and contemporary discrimination. Disputes over reparations and the Middle East revealed sharp...

The AU is launched in Durban, succeeding the OAU. It carries forward a Pan-African ambition for integration and collective action, but its effectiveness remains shaped by member-state politics,...

An AU extraordinary summit approved an amendment explicitly inviting and encouraging full participation by Africans in the diaspora in building the Union. It gave institutional form to a long-standing...

The African Union adopted the Protocol on the Rights of Women in Africa. Women’s movements and advocates had pressed for protections on equality, health, political participation and freedom from...

The Pan-African Parliament opened in Addis Ababa, giving national legislators a continental forum. Its original advisory role limited popular legislative power, but its creation embodied a claim...