This paper makes the case for Africa to play a role in remaking global order. This is based on the need to address geopolitical insecurity as well as the continent’s need to redress its historical exclusion from the design of the international system. The paper will develop ideas drawn from an intersection of fields of study including African studies, peace studies, international relations and transitional justice. The paper begins by proposing an understanding of global order predicated on the notions of the maintenance of peace and security, with an emphasis on the institution that has asserted its mandate to lead on this issue: the United Nations Security Council (UNSC). The paper will then utilise this understanding to interrogate the need for a geopolitical paradigm shift in terms of the existing order, and argue for the dismantling of the UNSC and the wider United Nations (UN) system due to its inability to address contemporary crises. Furthermore, the paper will argue that the nefarious activities of the Permanent Members of the UNSC, such as carpet bombing Syria, have transformed this body into a net producer of instability, and that it would be more appropriate to rebrand the institution as the ‘UN Insecurity Council’. The paper argues that the world has reached crisis point due to the historical and continuing geopolitics of exclusion.
