Assembly/AU/2 (XI) Page 1 I. INTRODUCTION 1. According to Article 7(q) of the Protocol Relating to the Establishment of the Peace and Security Council (PSC) of the African Union (AU), the PSC shall “submit, though its Chairperson, regular reports to the Assembly on its activities and the state of peace and security in Africa.” The present report, prepared in conformity with the said article, covers the activities undertaken by the Council during the period February 2008 to June 2008, and provides an overview of the state of peace and security on the continent during the period. .2 The specific aspects covered include the signature and ratification of the PSC Protocol, membership of the PSC, rotation of the chairmanship of the PSC, activities of the PSC and the status of peace and security in Africa. II. SIGNATURE AND RATIFICATION OF THE PSC PROTOCOL 3. At the time of finalizing this report, 51 member States had signed the PSC Protocol, while 43 had both signed and ratified it. Two member States are yet to sign and ratify the Protocol, namely, Cape Verde and Eritrea. The following member States have signed the Protocol but have not yet ratified it: Central African Republic (CAR), Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Guinea Bissau, Guinea, Liberia, Mauritania, Seychelles and Somalia. III. MEMBERSHIP OF THE PSC 4. As stipulated in Article 5 (1) of the Protocol, the PSC is composed of fifteen (15) members with equal rights and which are elected as follows: 10 members elected for a two (2) year term and five (5) members elected for a three (3) year term. The Assembly would recall that the current ten(10) members of the PSC for a two (2) year-term(2008- 2010), namely, Benin, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Chad, Mali, Rwanda, Swaziland, Tunisia, Uganda and Zambia were elected by the Executive Council in Addis Ababa, in January 2008. 5. The mandate of the newly elected PSC members began on 1 April 2008, in accordance with paragraph A-2(i) of the Conclusions of the PSC Retreat on the Working Methods of the PSC, held in Dakar, Senegal, in July 2007. The current alphabetical in the English alphabetical order list of the Council members is as follows: Algeria, Angola, Benin, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Chad, Ethiopia, Gabon, Mali, Nigeria, Rwanda, Swaziland, Tunisia, Uganda and Zambia. In this respect, it is worth indicating that the mandates of the current fifteen members of the Council will expire in 2010, thereby necessitating the conduct of simultaneous elections of members of Council for a two year term and those for a three-year term. IV. ROTATION OF THE CHAIRMANSHIP OF THE PSC 6. In conformity with Rule 23 of the Rules of Procedure of the PSC, the chairmanship of the PSC rotates among its members on a monthly basis and following the alphabetical order in English of the list of the PSC members. During the period under review, the chairmanship of the PSC rotated as follows: