ABSTRACT
Recently, a bundle of phenomena parsimoniously known as ‘globalization’, ‘transnationalism’, ‘failure of states’, ‘ethnic cleansing and genocide’, ‘migration’, ‘global pandemic of diseases’, ‘global environmental degradation’, and, more recently, the Arab Spring have brought into focus the practices of sovereignty. A number of problems associated with these phenomena have occurred in Africa and question the very idea of postcolonial sovereignty while fostering the notion of collective security and human solidarity through humanitarian intervention. This view is supported not only by military and security strategists but also among human rights activists and other humanitarians that promote democratic governance. For instance, the military and the humanitarian views came together in the settlement of the political dispute in Sudan to create a new state, Southern Sudan; as in other cases, the solution was to reinforce national unity, as in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. This is to say that there is not only a gap between the idea and concept of sovereignty and its practices but also variations in the conditions under which sovereignty or statehood is granted.
