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Since 2003 the EU has launched 16 peacekeeping missions in Africa in most cases in cooperation with the UN. Therefore, this article takes an inter-organizational perspective on the EU's peacekeeping activities in Africa. Theoretically the article makes a contribution to the growing literature on inter-organizational approaches by applying niche selection and resource exchange theory to the field of security studies. The paper finds that EU missions in the past followed a targeted and niche approach in which it has played a facilitating but not dominating role in UN peacekeeping operations. However, in order to make effective use of this targeted approach the EU and UN are currently engaging in a substantial reconstruction of their relationship by building an interlocking peacekeeping architecture in which elements of resource pooling are central. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Abyei was one of the most contested areas of Sudan's Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) of January 2005. Drawing on direct experience, the article examines the agreement and the experience of trying to support its implementation. It analyses the relationship between this and the overall problems of the CPA, and of peacekeeping in the newly independent South Sudan. Drawing on relevant literature, it examines the wider issues for the negotiation of peace agreements; for UN mandates, including the protection of civilians; for the limitations of peacekeeping; and for the importance of continuing political engagement. It argues that in some situations smaller missions without a heavy military component might in fact achieve more. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The official French justifications for the 2011 intervention in Côte d'Ivoire fall into three categories: existence of a Security Council mandate; protection of French nationals and others; and France's respect for democracy. The respect for democracy justification was dropped when ex-president Gbagbo was arrested. The French role in the arrest itself was categorically denied by French officials, while Operation Licorne's strict respect for Security Council mandates and the imminent need for protection of various categories of persons were underlined. Democracy and human rights remerged in the President Sarkozy's concluding policy-oriented speech in order to justify France's honourable role in reinforcing these principles in Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]