South Africa’s Foreign Policy: Highlights during 2011

Abstract

The first year of the second decade of the 21st century was replete with enormity in the international relations sphere, ranging from the natural disaster of Japan’s earthquake, to the human-engineered financial meltdown at the heart of the world’s largest economic bloc, the European Union. Within an otherwise turbulent year, some aspiring states took audacious steps: South Sudan became the world’s newest sovereign state when it obtained independence on 9 July 2011 and less than a week later joined the United Nations (UN), while a few months later Palestine tried, with much fanfare but less success, to do the same.