Abstract

This thesis critically examines the Malabo Protocol as a Pan-Africanist legal initiative to reconceptualise international criminal justice through regional mechanisms and three interconnected objectives. It interrogates claims of neo-colonial bias within the International Criminal Court’s practices, analysing whether the latter’s prosecutorial patterns reflect structural asymmetries that justify the African strategic resistance. The thesis examines how such perceptions influence the African Union’s pursuit of legal sovereignty through the Malabo Protocol, which establishes the International Criminal Law Section within the structure of the African Court of Justice and Human Rights and assesses whether this represents a transformative legal innovation or a political assertion of regional sovereignty.

Furthermore, the thesis examines how the prospective African Criminal Court aligns with the African Union’s broader security governance framework, highlighting its institutional complexities, particularly the tensions surrounding complementarity dynamics, while critiquing Article 46ABis, arguing that these elements risk legal fragmentation and regressive accountability norms. The research examines the duality of the Malabo Protocol, both as an instrument of rhetorical regionalism and a normative innovation that expands international criminal law to incorporate socio-economic and transnational crimes rooted in African realities. It then evaluates how these perceptions shaped the African Union’s contemporary hybrid justice model, probing whether the Malabo Protocol’s expanded jurisdiction over socio-economic crimes reflects a context-sensitive approach or a politicised rejection of universal standards.

Ultimately, the research employs legal, theoretical, and institutional analysis to assess whether the ACC signifies a shift toward a context-sensitive, regional paradigm of justice that addresses impunity and systemic inequality. The thesis provides a comprehensive, critical, and theoretically grounded evaluation of the Malabo Protocol, advancing current scholarship by demonstrating how the AU’s quest for regionalisation of international criminal law, as outlined in the Malabo Protocol, exposes unresolved contradictions between sovereignty and accountability. Its findings challenge binary narratives of African resistance to the ICC, instead revealing the Malabo Protocol as a critique of global power asymmetries and a case study for institutionalising alternative justice models in the Global South.