Arapska liga i Organizacija afričkog jedinstva - komparativna studija
The Arab League and the O.U.A. - A Comparative Study

Summary/Abstract: The author compares the activities of the Arab League and the Organization of African Unity in three fields. He examines their role m the decolonization process, he deals with their part in the settling of international disputes and, finally, he studies their action in favor of economic co-operation. Both organizations are anticolonial and they are created to accelerate the decolonization of the Arab world and the African continent. Although this aim was explicitly mentioned only in the Addis Ababa Charter, and not in the instruments establishing the Arab League, both organizations have largely contributed to making decolonization a doctrine and a principle of international law. As concerns neo-colonialisam, the O.A.U. adds emphasis to it, while the Arab league seems much less preoccupied by this phenomenon. Boutros Ghali is of the opinion that the common Arab cultural heritage, as a defense against foreign cultural assimilation and linguistic domination, and the preoccupation of the Arabs with Zionist colonialism explains this attitude of the Arab league. Notwithstanding some differences in the development of the means of peaceful settlement of disputes among their member States, both organizations have reached the same result: the failure of judicial settlement of disputes and the use of diplomatic negotiations under the auspices of the League and the O.A.U. This similarity between them is caused by the non-existence of Arab or African organs and procedures for judicial settlement (which is lengthy and costly) and by a certain distrust for the existing international law. In practice the O.A.U. has been more successful in solving the conflicts that arise among its members. The members of the Arab league reject the competence of their organization because of the predominant role played by Egypt within the League. As concerns economic co-operation, Boutros Ghali comes to the conclusion that the O.A.U. has failed to promote economic co-operation within the African continent, but it has, on the contrary, succeeded in re-inforcing the position of Africa in the outside world by successfully promoting economic co-operation between Africa and the outside world. On the other hand, the Arab league has failed to promote economic co-operation both within the Arab world and between the Arab world and the outside world. The principal explanation for this difference between the two organizations Professor Boutros Ghali finds »in the attitude of the United Nations and the majority of its member States towards the Arab League and the OAU. While the first organization was never really admitted in the world community neither as such nor as the principal organ for Arab co-operation, the second organization was accepted both by the United Nations and its member States«.

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