68 Anyangwe/Right to self-determination under the African Charter the external relations of a state and not as regards what happens within the state itself. The principle does not protect the state from internal convulsion leading perhaps to the disintegration or even the disappearance of the state (for example Yugoslavia, the USSR, and Czechoslovakia). Nor does it protect the state from subversion by a legitimate claim to external self-determination. The AU Constitutive Act envisages only two situations in which the AU may intervene in a member state. Under article 4(h), the Organisation may decide to intervene ‘in respect of grave circumstances, namely, war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity.’ Under article 4(j), it may, at the request of a member state, also intervene ‘in order to restore peace and security.’ The Constitutive Act does not permit the AU to intervene in a member state to ensure and to guarantee the integrity of its territory as such. The AU espouses the doctrine of sanctity of territorial borders inherited from colonisation, a doctrine stated as a principle in art 4(b) of the Constitutive Act which, in fact, is a codification of the 1964 resolution on border disputes. But a good many African states have never hesitated to lay territorial claim to contiguous territory outside their lawful state boundaries. Moreover, there is no legal or other basis on which the AU can compel a break-away entity to renounce its selfdetermination claim simply for the sake of preserving the territorial integrity of the oppressive state it is escaping from. It follows that in practice not all AU members in fact subscribe to the principle of territorial integrity and that the principle does not necessarily protect states which consider it as binding on them. The principle of territorial integrity in the African context is therefore probably not as sacrosanct as may at first appear.57 Already, in 1977, the then OAU Secretary General, Eteki Mboumoua, was able to declare that: Le respect des frontières héritées de la colonisation n’est pas un principe sacrosaint. C’est certes, une base de travail irremplaçable, mais devant être dépassée, ou révisée dans le cadre d’un consensus car il faut tenir compte à long terme du droit à l’autodétermination.58 4.3 Apparent primacy of territorial integrity over self-determination The principle of territorial integrity protects the territorial framework of independent states and is part of the overall concept of the sovereignty of states. The frontiers of decolonised states become frozen at the moment of independence. African boundaries on the date of independence may not be altered except by consent of the relevant parties. Territorial integrity and self-determination when used conjunctively in the decolonisation process serve to protect the territorial framework of the colonial period and to prevent a rule from arising that permits secession from independent states. Akweenda notes that the principle of territorial integrity was used in certain UN 57 58 Okeke (n 36) 260 Cited in SKN Blay ‘Changing African perspectives on the right of selfdetermination in the wake of the Banjul Charter on human and peoples’ rights’ (1985) 29 Journal of African Law 147 at 155.