La cooperazione fra l'Unione africana e l'ONU nel mantenimento della pace e della sicurezza: "A special relationship"?

Since its inception in 1963, the Organization for African Unity established cooperative rela-tions with the UN, which mainly dealt with the various aspects of economic development. Only with the end of the Cold War and the proliferation of conflicts in the continent did the two organizations begin to define cooperation relations also in the field of collective security. Today Africa plays an important role in UN peacekeeping activities. The African Union (the OAU successor organization, established in 2001) and the sub-regional organizations of the continent have so far been among the most active organizations in applying (and even questioning) Chapter VIII of the UN Charter, intervening in various conflicts in the continent and defining an ever closer relationship with the UN. In this evolving relationship, the major problems lie in the methods of financing the AU peacekeeping operations and in the tensions involving the legitimacy of the interventions in the African continent.