Joint UN-AU-ECOWAS Declaration is political, does not have any legal status, says a senior UN official

Mai Ahmad Fatty, Interior Minister 

Following our most recent blog post entitled "Is Jammeh's exit Agreement legally binding?" in which we asked whether the document, featured in the ECOWAS, United .Nations. and African Union websites has any legal status and encouraged by the intense interest generated by the post, based on the size of visits to out blog site, we decided to further extend our inquiries.

Using a back channel, we reached out to a senior U.N. official at the New York headquarters whose response is replicated below and it reads thus:

"The Joint U.N-A.U-ECOWAS declaration is political in nature and does not have any legal status."

The UN's interpretation appears consistent with Gambia's current Interior Minister, Mai Ahmad Fatty, who went by the title of Special Assistant to president-Elect Adama Barrow back in January before he was inaugurated President and before Mr. Fatty was appointed Interior Minister and whose position was corroborated by Senegal's Foreign Minister on Senegalese state television.

From the above, it appears that the legal questions have been put to rest - at least from the standpoint of the United Nations, leaving the politics of Jammeh's assets squarely in the hands of the politicians to grapple with.

Unless we've missed it, no official declarative statement was made after Adama Barrow was officially installed as President and the appointment of a cabinet.  We'd still suggest that this be done to put the legal component of the joint declaration to rest which is no guarantee that the politics of Jammeh's assets will go away anytime soon.