Bibliographie sélective OHADA

The Economic Community of West African States, ECOWAS, had an agreement to adopt the Eco as its single currency for the fifteen member-states of the West African Sub-regional organization. This major objective has failed to materialize after a long period of time. This paper, therefore seeks to highlight the major challenges confronting the Eco currency project. Data were collected from secondary sources, using content analysis. The paper of discusses the challenges facing the proposed Eco single currency in West Africa, discusses the theoretical framework of monetary integration using Mundell’s factors of Mobility Theory and Mundell’s Optimum Currency Area Theory applied. Based on the findings, Some of the challenges facing the proposed Eco currency in ECOWAS include lack of political will, influence of France on its former territories in West Africa, membership of multiple regional blocs by member states of ECOWAS and fear of domination of the smaller states in the bigger ones. Other challenges include; security and political challenges, inadequate legal instruments to enforce treaty obligations, inadequate modern infrastructure among others. To make this proposed Eco currency a success, the paper suggests that West Africa Monetary Zone member states must take concrete action by showing political will towards the creation of Eco currency area in West Africa. There should be clearly spelt out benefits and costs accruing to each member state in the proposed Eco community currency area. All member states of ECOWAS must be treated as equal partners.

This article examines the implementation of the Mining, Agricultural and Construction (MAC) Equipment Protocol under the Cape Town Convention in Africa, focusing on enhancing economic growth and sustainable development through improved access to financing for high-value mobile equipment. Africa’s economic development is significantly hindered by inadequate infrastructure, which escalates transaction costs and limits access to international markets. Investment in modern infrastructure, particularly in the mining, agricultural, and construction sectors, is typically expensive for many businesses in the African region. The MAC Protocol aims to address these challenges by providing a uniform legal framework that supports the financing of MAC equipment. The Convention and the MAC Protocol facilitate access to affordable capital and reduce risks for financiers who take international interests in MAC equipment, promoting economic activities in Africa. The article highlights the legal protections offered by the MAC Protocol, ensuring rights against third-party claims and enhancing the enforceability of international interests. The adoption of the MAC Protocol by African States could significantly impact their ability to meet the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals by making modern, cost-efficient equipment more accessible, thus boosting productivity and economic diversification. The article advocates for adopting the MAC Protocol, emphasizing its potential to enhance foreign investment in the mining, agriculture, and construction sectors, stimulating economic development in Africa. This strategic move will propel African countries towards greater economic resilience and integration into the global economy. The article also critically analyses and illustrates the several declaration mechanisms available to countries adopting the MAC Protocol, accompanied by a guidance note to sensitize lawmakers when signing and/or ratifying or acceding to the Cape Town Convention and the MAC Protocol.

Although the forging of an efficient system for enforcement of security interest is one of the central expectations of secured transaction law reforms in civil law systems, the results hardly give reason for satisfaction. As the reforms tend to be supported and influenced by various international organizations’ projects (especially the World Bank, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the International Institute for the Unification of Private Law, and the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law), most out-of-court methods of enforcement of security interests have played a central role. Yet due to civil law’s general hostility towards self-help as such, either the introduction of the concept has been rejected or the local limited-reach kin have been merely ‘paper tigers’. Similarly, although security interests on several types of collateral (accounts, investment property) or on the workhorse of the English financial system—the floating charge—have also been enforced extrajudicially (save the exceptions), little attention has been attributed to these enforcement modalities. The same applies to strict foreclosure in civil law systems still being prohibited, or restricted, and thus rarely resorted to, due to the inherited hostility towards the doctrine of lex commissoria. Rethinking local laws on preliminary and temporary court orders to match them with such globally known ex parte preliminary measures as the English Mareva Injunction or the French Saisie Conservatoire, which allow creditors to swiftly freeze debtors’ assets and thus substitute self-help repossession, has also been given short shrift. The enforcement segment, consequently, remains the Achilles’ heel of secured transaction law reforms in civil law systems. This article desires to contribute to reform literature by addressing these deficiencies and by offering tested, fully or partially fitting, functional equivalents of self-help repossession.

Beyond the thorny, even insoluble question of the definition of a region and the definition of the criteria that should make it possible to apprehend the polymorphism of rio s, the raison d’être of these organizations, their mode of operation and their activities are at the heart of the debate on “international governance”. For many authors, the advent of RIO s has often been seen as a challenge to the state monopoly in the international legal order and a redefinition of the relationship between these particular organizations and states. It is this relational dynamic between the States and the RIO s that this contribution aims to describe and analyse. The aim is to examine the originality and specificity of the relationship between the RIO s and the States, compared to the latter’s relationship with the ‘classic/universal’ ios, which would reveal something about the very nature of regional organizations.

This collection of chapters tracks and explains the impact of the nine core United Nations human rights treaties in 20 selected countries, four from each of the five UN regions. Researchers based in each of these countries were responsible for the chapters, in which they assess the influence of the treaties and treaty body recommendations on legislation, policies, court decisions and practices. By covering the 20 years between July 1999 and June 2019, this book updates a study done 20 years ago.

"Chapter 16 The Impact of the United Nations Human Rights Treaties on the Domestic Level in Senegal" published on 09 Feb 2024 by Brill | Nijhoff.

International conference proceedings

This paper investigates the recent performance of Nigeria towards Africa’s regional integration as a major power in Africa. The main objective of the research is to determine the extent of Nigeria’s commitment to the realization of the African Union’s vision of becoming a fully integrated, prosperous and peaceful Africa; and a dynamic force at the global level. Since her independence in 1960, Nigeria has been widely acknowledged as a leading power in Africa (The Giant of Africa) by several studies because of its preponderant political, economic and militarily power; influence; and benevolent contributions regarding to the liberation and progress of Africa. However, there are hardly substantive assessments of its recent performance towards Africa’s integration. The study adopts the Hegemonic Stability Theory; and descriptive analysis method to analyze data obtained from secondary sources. Analysis of the 2016 and 2019 Regional Integration Index (ARII) reports covering the period from 2010-2019 reveals that Nigeria has performed poorly towards the continent’s integration among its peers, both at the continental and sub-regional levels. The paper concludes that Nigeria’s poor performance would significantly slow the acceleration of Africa’s integration; and the country risks losing its leadership position in Africa to its rivals, especially South Africa. It recommends that the Nigerian government should take deliberate steps in formulating and implementing policies that would improve its performance across the five dimensions of the regional integration; and it should strengthen its commitment to consolidate its leadership position in Africa, and motivate smaller countries to contribute their best.

The paper is an investigation of the challenges of regional integration in Africa and their effects on the implementation of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) policy. The major objective of the paper is to proffer solutions to the challenges for the effective actualization of the policy. The assumptions of the neo-liberal theory were used to support the AfCFTA initiative to promote economic growth and development in Africa. The data used to advance the argument were obtained from secondary sources of data collection. The study finds that language barrier, multiple currencies, porosity of borders, foreign interference, political instability and insecurity, poor human development, over-lapping of membership of sub-regional organizations, poor state of infrastructure, and state-centric nature of integration initiatives are some of the core challenges hindering the effective execution of the AfCFTA policy. The study recommends that the African Union (AU) should intensify effort at realizing a single currency policy for Africa; design comprehensive regional security architecture to include high technological surveillance, joint air and ground border patrol among member states of Regional Economic Communities (RECs) to address trans-border crimes and insecurity. There should also be institutionalization of counterpart funding among AU member-states for infrastructural development; and encouragement of private and civil society participation in the integration initiative, among others. In concludes that if the challenges identified are not effectively addressed, it will be very difficult for the AU to successfully realize the objectives of the AfCFTA policy.

Sub-Saharan Africa has one of the dynamic economies in the world. Unfortunately, the performance achieve has not led to a reduction of social issues. So, the government are making massive investment to overcome social issues. This massive public investment highlights the exogenous nature of the current economic growth. So, a change of the strategy in the economic management of sub-Saharan Africa is required. One solution remains the change of economic paradigm: the transition from exogenous economic with decreased return to endogenous economic with increased return. The theoretical explanation of such arguments are supported by New Growth Theory. However, the implementation of the new theory required compliance to a set of indicators known as stylized facts. In 2009, Romer and Jones have developed a list of stylized corresponding to the need of New Growth Theory. The stylized facts of the West African Economic and Monetary Union (WAEMU) have been compared to the standard facts of Romer and Jones in order to apply the recommendations of New Growth Theory in this area. To reach that aim, the stylized facts have been described and analysed with econometric panel model. As result, we find that the description of the stylized facts in WAEMU fitted perfectly with that of Romer and Jones for the same period. Unfortunately, when using data, institution don’t work as expected by Romer and Jones. This study strengthens the argument for the implementation of economic policy based on the valorisation of knowledge economic in WAEMU.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the constitutional provisions relating to the relationship between international law and domestic law of the States of the Economic and Monetary Community of Central Africa reveals an ambivalent conception of the system relationships. This is all the more true since the choice of monism with primacy of international law is affirmed both formally and materially. Even if this variant of monism seems to be tempered by certain constitutional provisions, the treaties have considerable effects in the domestic legal order. Once integrated into the legal order through the modalities of insertion, treaties have a supra-legislative and infra-constitutional rank. However, some constitutions of the States of the Economic and Monetary Community of Central Africa, such as Gabon and Equatorial Guinea, have not enshrined constitutional provisions on the place of treaties in the legal order. The concern to safeguard the supremacy of the constitution and consequently of national sovereignty may justify such a constitutional practice.

The Tribunal of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) was established to ensure adherence to and the proper interpretation of the provisions of the SADC Treaty and its subsidiary instruments, and to adjudicate upon such disputes as might be referred to it. However, since its establishment, it has had a troubled history. After the rulings it made against the Government of Zimbabwe in the landmark Campbell land seizures case, the Tribunal's operations were unceremoniously suspended. This was followed by a process to revise its mandate, one that ultimately condemned it to paralysis and ruin. The new 2014 Protocol on the Tribunal, meant to revise the mandate of the Tribunal to confine it to hearing disputes involving states only, has been criticised as an attempt to undermine the rule of law and human rights in the region. Since the adoption of this 2014 Protocol by the SADC Summit, stakeholders have mobilised regionally to resist its ratification by member states. In particular, lawyers in SADC countries are embarking on legal petitions to reverse the Protocol and promote the revival of the Tribunal in terms of its old mandate. So far, there have been victories in these cases in two influential SADC member states, South Africa and Tanzania. However, it remains important to assess the significance of these developments. As such, the article raises the question: Is the Tribunal rising from its ruins?

The Uniform Act related cooperative societies (UA-COOP) is the main source of cooperative law in all the seventeen States parties to the OHADA founding Treaty. Ten years after its entry into force (2011-2021), the aim of this study is to assess the level of enforcement of this Act. More concretely, the aim is to compare the state of cooperative law at the time of the entry into force of the UA-COOP (2011) with the current situation (in 2021). Such a comparison should make it possible to assess the contribution of the UA-COOP to the development of cooperative law and strengthening of national cooperative movements in the OHADA zone.

Amid COVID-19 pandemic lockdown in the year 2020, Economic Community of West African States hereafter called ECOWAS quietly celebrated its forty-five years of establishment. Widely, much was not heard of or written about the community probably due to the challenges of the pandemic. However, the address of the President of ECOWAS Commission to the staff of ECOWAS institutions on the occasion of the commemoration of the community’s forty-fifth anniversary serves as a reminder that attention should also be given to this regional giant against all odds. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to celebrate ECOWAS at forty-five and then examine whether it is a fool at forty that is proverbially referred to as a fool forever. The paper, through thorough examination of the data collected from secondary sources finds that ECOWAS is still far from achieving its main mandate, its achievements as orchestrated by His Excellency, the President notwithstanding. The paper argues that the postponement of the establishment of ECO, a common currency for the region for the sixth time from 2020 to yet to be announced date, lack of realistic free movement of persons and goods among members and selfish interests of its leaders in the guise of national interest are enough reasons to conceive ECOWAS as a fool at forty-five. With the aid of constructivist theory,it concludes that even if ECOWAS at forty-five is still fooling around it has the chances of not being a fool forever if the leaders should turn a new leaf and pursue the attainment of the community’s mandate before its fiftieth anniversary.

The Organization for the Harmonization of Business Law in Africa, OHADA, is a regional entity whose primary objective is to harmonize the Business Law of its members. It has adopted legislative measures and institutional setups to ensure the realization of this object. This paper critically examined the effectiveness of the harmonization tool adopted under OHADA. The paper first gives a brief overview of OHADA setups, then the advantages and shortcomings of the harmonization tool adopted under the OHADA regime and finally concluded that though OHADA is a major step towards the attainment of harmonization of business law and Integration with the view of fostering development and business activities, its harmonization tool is lacking full efficacy towards the attainment of the objectives of the organization due to prevailing limitations and challenges.

The Southern African Development Community's (SADC) colonial legacy which introduced foreign legal traditions and the consequences of the diversity heighten the urgency for unified commercial legislation to deal with cross-border disputes.Thus, the issue is whether the Organisation for the Harmonisation of Business Law in Africa (OHADA) structure can serve as a possible model for the development of a uniform commercial law structure in the SADC .Despite the success of the OHADA, the author submits that the OHADA can only serve as a source of inspiration, or roadmap, providing guidance to the SADC drafters.The paper aims at demonstrating that the OHADA provides practical lessons for the development of a uniform commercial law structure in the SADC.The significance of this paper lies in the contributions it makes to the development of a commercial law structure in the SADC.

The dissertation examines the role the Southern African Development Community (SADC) and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) can play in facilitating the political and economic convergence of the African Union (AU) member states. The developmental challenges facing Africa in spite of its wealth of human and natural resources is poignant. The genesis of this problem can be traced to the history of colonialism and the wave of independence in the continent in the late 1950s. Arguments have been put forward to suggest that one of the most viable ways of promoting Africa’s development is by developing and promoting intra-continental trade which can be possible through continental integration. The specific areas reviewed are regional stability and how intra-regional trade and investment is used to promote economic convergence. Africa's need for political and economic integration at a continental level is further sustained by the assumption that neocolonialism can be blamed for the weakness of structures in African states. Some scholars agree on the idea that regionalisation is often seen to offer a possibility to respond to the challenges of globalization. This impact nevertheless is dependent on the relation between globalisation and regional sentiment. Regional integration implies a form of interdependence among nation-states. Such interdependence leads to an establishment of regional integration arrangements between sovereign states within a geographical space. These agreements are shaped formally and there is a commitment to work together in order to realise political and socio-economic benefits. This study maintains that in order to achieve effective integration of the continent, Nigeria and South Africa as case studies, as continental giants have a key role to play to this end and as members of ECOWAS and SADC respectively. It is argued here that both the SADC and ECOWAS as sub-continental blocks have made some notable and commendable progress in developing policies for trade liberalization and economic integration, this, however, is not enough as such policies are also pertinent at a continental level. The study found that SADC and ECOWAS as regional blocks can play a role in aiding the continent to achieve a trade liberalization to achieve continental economic development.

The Abuja Treaty is the blueprint and reference point for continental-level economic integration that was first established in 1991 to see to the creation of an African Economic Community (AEC). The Treaty acknowledges that, the African continent, as a unified unit of countries, wields immense power in the international system, in terms of trade and political influence, and thus it seeks to bring to fruition a highly integrated Africa. This study strives to evaluate the progress made on the implementation of the Treaty Establishing the African Economic Community (AEC) by comparing two regional blocs, the Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS) and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), which serve as 2 of 8 building blocks for the realisation of the AEC. Accordingly, the research method used was qualitative and employed a purposive sampling method that draws on the selection of experts in the field of regional integration to shape the outcome of the study. The research findings include the fact that regional integration, on the continent, has progressed positively although it manifests slowly. Additionally, it found that both the ECOWAS and the ECCAS have progressed in terms of the implementation of the stages of the Abuja Treaty, although the former surpasses the latter in this regard. Yet, in spite of their progress, both RECs have faced challenges unique to their regions. ECOWAS for instance faces the problem of inability to completely enforce protocols on free movement of persons. The lack of national implementation of free movement legislation creates avenues for its ineffectiveness. Border checks are commonplace and there is very little standardization of official forms. ECCAS on the other hand faces a problem of overlapping goals and ideas with CEMAC as well as the failure of member states to carry out agreed decisions within their states due to issues such as conflict and instability in the region. On a whole, the study refutes the common idea that the Abuja Treaty has not been implemented at all but only sees its implementation as slow-paced.

Trade in Services can be described as a transaction between a supplier and a consumer without any physical movement of goods across international borders. This, in itself, presents major economic growth possibilities in both regional and multilateral terms. Regional trade agreements, if drafted to suit the specific region's strengths, can promote Trade in Services and establish regional integration. The fact that Trade in Services and regional integration, throughout the Southern African Development Community (SADC) specifically, is moving forward at such a slow pace is due to the lack of political ambition and policy makers failing to emphasise the establishment of trade specific regulatory coherence among member states. Given policy’s impact on Trade in Services, regional trade agreements must be designed to address new and emerging issues that, not only haven't been taken up in previous trade agreements, but which is also region specific and focused enough to build on new standards found in other new trade agreements that will boost regional integration. SADC countries are still in process of establishing a regional services market and, as it currently stands, major development possibilities still exist. This study compares the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) with SADC’s Protocol on Trade in Services (PTIS), with the goal to determine the principles that are necessary to establish a regional market for the integration of Trade in Services. It was found that the PTIS lacks such principles and that integration of services throughout the SADC region is highly unlikely if set forth in its current direction. The finding was that the establishment of regional integration of Trade in Services throughout SADC will have to start with regulatory coherence among its members.

The Organisation for Harmonisation of Business Law in Africa (OHADA) was established in October 1993 with the ambitious aim of inciting economic development in its Member States. Through the adoption of Uniform Commercial Laws, the organisation is expected to create an enabling environment for business development, thereby providing for a path to economic growth and subsequent development. In light of this professed aim, both the transnational methodological approach and comparative law theories are used in this paper to critically analyse the various processes conducted under the OHADA banner and to engage in discussions on the highly debated role of law as a vehicle for development in sub-Saharan Africa. This exercise, which proves crucial in order to trace its origin within the global governance and law and development theories, allows us to present OHADA as a transnational legal system, while also highlighting both its strengths and limitations.