In response to the civil war in Darfur, the African Mission in Sudan (AMIS) force was established in May 2004, and by June its first contingents were on the ground. For the first time since the founding of the African Union, a resolution about direct intervention in a conflict that involved wide-ranging abuse of human rights was accepted on a pan-continental level. Here, Irit Back looks at the changes in attitudes towards the ever-problematic tension between the concepts of humanitarian intervention and state sovereignty, using the example of the African Union's intervention in Darfur to illustrate this unique pan-continental approach to conflict resolution and peace-keeping. Additionally, Back analyses the challenges which international task forces, including AMIS and its successor the United Nations-African Union Mission in Darfur (UNAMID), have faced ever since. Including an examination of the situation in the wake of the declaration of independence of South Sudan in 2011, this book offers a unique perspective on the problem of internationally organised intervention in local conflicts.

Irit Back is Research Fellow at The Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies at Tel Aviv University. She is the author of Islam and Post-Colonial Identity in West Africa (2005).