Chapter 4 further explores the role of bureaucrats within the African Union Commission (AUC) and the influence of Algerian representatives on continental security policies. It opens by reconstructing the formation of the Nouakchott Process in 2013 that brought together eleven member states of the ‘Sahelo-Saharan Region’, from Senegal to Chad and Libya to Nigeria, in a political environment marked by long-standing distrust and suspicion that had already hampered previous attempts at security cooperation. Based on this, the chapter analyzes how the spatial semantic ‘Sahelo-Saharan Region’ allowed the initiators of the Nouakchott Process to create a ‘transregional’ space to overcome the spatial dissatisfaction with the African Standby Force (ASF) geography without undermining it. This allowed the AUC and Algerian representatives to regain influence over the conflict interventions in Mali and the Sahel to re-engage where they had felt sidelined after the French intervention and United Nations Mission’s take over. The chapter concludes with an examination of the proposed Nouakchott Process Intervention Force, which, while never deployed, reveals from its conception the growing desire for military-heavy, robust, counterterrorism engagement by African policymakers.

International law does not address intelligence activities explicitly, and many scholars assume that international law has no effect on the practice of intelligence. Yet, international courts and bodies have recently started to hold states to account for internationally wrongful acts resulting from intelligence cooperation. This chapter analyses the effects of recent instances of state accountability on state decision-making, using a modified rational choice model accounting for the boundedness of state rationality. It shows that these instances of state accountability have changed the payoffs and costs of intelligence cooperation. States must now take into account the risk of accountability, and considerations of international legality may now outweigh domestic considerations. The chapter therefore argues that recent instances of state accountability before international courts and bodies have constrained states’ freedom in intelligence cooperation, thereby serving their national security interests. Existing research shows that respect for the rule of law is necessary to an effective fight against national security threats, and that measures violating human rights or undermining the rule of law are counter-productive. Hence, the chapter further argues that these recent instances of state accountability increase states’ respect for the international rule of law, leading them to protect their national security more effectively.