ANALYSE : Making sense of Africa’s massive abstentions during the adoption of the UNGA resolution on the Aggression Against Ukraine

Sâ Benjamin TRAORÉ

The ongoing Ukrainian crisis has shown profound divisions among African countries. The UN General Assembly’s voting on 2 March perfectly captures such a division. Resolution A/RES/ES-11/1, titled “Aggression against Ukraine”, was adopted by a vote of 141 in favour and 5 against, with 35 abstentions. Of these 35 abstentions, 17 were African states including Algeria, Angola, Central African Republic, Congo, Equatorial, Mali, South Africa, Tanzania, and Zimbabwe. This figure represents almost half of the abstaining states. Eight African countries did not even submit their votes (including Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Ethiopia, Morocco, and Togo) and Eritrea voted against the resolution. All in all, almost half of the African states did not vote in favour of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) resolution. The split between African states in the voting also reflects the divide in public opinion about the Ukrainian crisis across African countries. 

OUVRAGE : S.B. Traoré, L'interprétation des résolutions du Conseil de sécurité des Nations Unies

Sâ Benjamin TRAORÉ

Cet ouvrage est consacré au problème de l’interprétation des résolutions du Conseil de sécurité de l’ONU. Partant de l’hypothèse selon laquelle cette interprétation ne peut être laissé à l’arbitraire des acteurs concernés par leur mise en œuvre, l’auteur s’emploie à démontrer l’existence d’un cadre juridique encadrant l’activité interprétative de ces textes internationaux.