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The AU Kampala Convention aims to ensure that the states that have signed the treaty protect and assist internally displaced persons (IDPs) in their regions to establish geopolitical security, which is threatened by the inevitability, volume, and heterogeneity of forced displacement. This article interrogates the link between the Kampala Convention and the minimisation of interstate conflict through a political will to tackle the challenge of forced displacement amongst member states, the cooperation and integration of which would contribute to geopolitical security. Thus, using secondary data, the author determines how addressing large-scale forced displacement in the region can improve geopolitical security. Thus, based on an extensive review of relevant IDP issues in Africa, attention is paid to displacement trends on the continent, factors precipitating displacement and the flow of IDPs across the region, a current analysis of the AU Kampala Convention framework, the challenges to African geopolitical security, and responsibility sharing amongst African states. The authors concludes that there should be synergy between host and displaced communities for integration and the provision of opportunities for IDPs to regain their livelihoods. Therefore, African states need to adapt and implement, as a matter of urgency, national, regional, and international policies to solve the challenges of internal displacement in Africa and ensure geopolitical security. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The silhouette of International Criminal Justice (ICJ) is fast changing across the globe. The change and transformation are connected to the criminalization of war, which has complicated the attraction of and engagement in the war for war-mongers. At least, the last few years had seen remarkable prosecution of war criminals in Africa. This is related to a relatively new thinking that informed the establishment of International Criminal Court (ICC) and global re-enforcement of war crime-related charges. Since the genocide in Rwanda, the establishment of the ICC has led to the prosecution of warlords. Also, the ICC has issued thirteen public warrants of arrest on war charges to actors and perpetrators in more than four African states. The case of President of Sudan, whose warrant of arrest had been issued regarding the crisis in Darfur, demonstrated that African leaders and war-mongers would be held responsible for their actions and atrocities they have committed. The lesson from the ICC is clear, war-mongers would be made to pay for their criminality. This article intends to examine the actions of the ICC on intra-state civil war crimes in Africa and assess whether ICC can act as deterrence on for intrastate war mongers in Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ever since African Union (AU) was established in 1963, the organisation has been charged with the responsibility of preventing, managing and resolving violent conflicts ranging from political violence, terrorism, insurgency and so on. In the African region, AU's interventions in African states have generated academic debates especially in the Mali and Nigerian crisis. While some scholars consider AU's intervention as being effective, others consider it ineffective. Either claim, however, is only valid in part and obscures a holistic understanding of the AU as a conflict prevention mechanism in Africa. Using the crisis in Mali and Nigeria as case studies, this article engages with the body of works drawn from each of the aforementioned paradigms, and highlights the inadequacies in exclusively focusing on either side of the debate. In turn, it suggests that, only in the synergy of both paradigms can a broader and more eclectic understanding of all the factors responsible for non-performance of AU be achieved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]