Assembly/AU/6(XV) Page 1 REPORT OF THE PEACE AND SECURITY COUNCIL ON ITS ACTIVITIES AND THE STATE OF PEACE AND SECURITY IN AFRICA I. INTRODUCTION 1. Article 7(q) of the Protocol Relating to the Establishment of the Peace and Security Council (PSC) of the African Union (AU) states that the PSC shall “submit, through 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 January to July 2010, and provides an overview of the state of peace and security in the Continent during the period. 2. The specific aspects covered include the signing and ratification of the PSC Protocol, membership of the PSC, rotation of the chairmanship of this Organ, activities undertaken by the PSC, other issues falling within the mandate of the PSC and the state of peace and security in Africa. II. SIGNING AND RATIFICATION OF THE PSC PROTOCOL 3. Since the entry into force of the Protocol in December 2003, fifty (50) Member States have signed the PSC Protocol, while 44 have 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, 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, who are elected as follows: 10 members elected for a two (2) year term and five (5) members elected for a three (3) year term. 5. It should be recalled that the two-year term and the three-year term membership and mandate of the former members of the PSC both expired on 31 March 2010. Ahead of the expiry, the Executive Council, during its fourteenth Ordinary Session held in Addis Ababa, from 28 to 29 January 2010, conducted elections for all the fifteen seats of the Council, in line with decision Assembly/AU/Dec.106(VI) by which the Assembly delegated its power to the Executive Council for election of members of the Peace and Security Council under Article 5 (2) of the Protocol, to the Executive Council for the current and future elections. 6. The current list of newly elected Council members in the English alphabetical order is as follows: Benin, Burundi, Chad, Côte d’Ivoire, Djibouti, Equatorial Guinea, Kenya, Libya, Mali, Mauritania, Namibia, Nigeria, Rwanda, South Africa and Zimbabwe. The mandate of the newly elected members commenced on 1 April 2010, in line with the Conclusions of the July 2007 Dakar PSC Retreat on the working methods of the PSC.