Revisiting Democracy as a Right Protected by International Law: Challenges Brought by African Military Coups

In Africa, democracy is the meeting of two streams of traditions: one from Western countries, the other specifically African. Since the 1990s, all the States of this continent have established a pluralist electoral process with competition between candidates, with the exception of Eritrea. However, this era again witnessed multiple coups than before. The groups responsible for the coups quickly occupied the centres of command, decision-making and administration, replacing the previous chief executives and the most senior officials with people of their choice. They ended up controlling the entire state authority. Despite the size of the continent and the multiplicity of situations, the reality remains the same in Africa. Until today coups are still happening. The principal aim of international law is to sustain global peace between countries. However, this peace cannot be reached when international law is indifferent to the domestic peace of members of international community regardless of the origin of the threat. The aim of this research is to analyse whether there is an obligation under the international law to be democratic and whether military coups especially the recent African coups can establish an obligation under international law.