Senegal's first President, Léopold Senghor, advocated close relations with France and negotiation and compromise as the best means of resolving international differences after Senegal's independence from its status as a French colony. To a large extent, the two succeeding presidents, Abdou Diouf and Abdoulaye Wade, have carried on Senghor's policies and philosophies. Senegal has long supported functional integration among French-speaking West African states through the West African Economic and Monetary Union. Senegal has a high profile in many international organizations and was a member of the UN Security Council in 1988–89. It was elected to the UN Commission on Human Rights in 1997. Friendly to the West, especially to France and to the United States, Senegal also is a vigorous proponent of more assistance from developed countries to the Third World. Additionally, Senegal has been a member state of the African Union since 1963. The present-day Senegalese president, Macky Sall, is currently serving as the African Union's chairperson as of February 5, 2022. Senegal borders The Gambia, Mauritania, Mali, Guinea, and Guinea-Bissau. Senegal enjoys mostly cordial relations with its neighbors. In spite of clear progress on other fronts with Mauritania (border security, resource management, economic integration, etc.), there remains the problem of an estimated 30,000 Black Mauritanian refugees living in Senegal. Senegal is also a member of the International Criminal Court with a Bilateral Immunity Agreement of protection for the US-military (as covered under Article 98). Pre-colonial foreign policy Senegal was regarded as Senegambia before the arrival of Europeans (Jaiteh), where a number of independent kingdoms settled. By the 15th century, when the first Europeans arrived, Senegambia was linked to intra and inter-regional (Decourse, 8) trade networks that extended throughout the coast. During the 17th and 18th centuries, the African slave trade took advantage of autonomous kingdoms such as, the Wolof and Jolof kingdoms (Tang, 3). The establishment of French colonies coupled with the competing hegemonic power between local ethnic groups within the Wolof kingdom led to a power void after traditional rulers could not prevent the French from impeding the establishments already in place by politicians and elites (Venema, 4) . The change from slave trade to the trade of cash crops set the precedent for the collapse of states within both empires (Gray, 3). The French used Senegal's advantageous geographic location, on the coast of the Atlantic Ocean, to safeguard their interest in the trade of groundnuts (Schraeder