Bibliographie sélective OHADA

L’Accord de Cotonou, signé en juin 2000 entre l’Union européenne et les États d’Afrique, des Caraïbes et du Pacifique (ACP), se caractérise par un respect des droits de l’homme, des normes démocratiques et de l’État de droit d’une part, et la quête d’une conformité des normes aux principes de l’Organisation mondiale du commerce (OMC), d’autre part. En effet, la politique de développement mise en place par l’Europe au profit des États ACP a vu le jour avec le Traité de Rome et la création du Fonds européen de développement au profit des ces pays. Pendant longtemps, le partenariat, essentiellement économique, a octroyé d’énormes avantages aux pays ACP en vue d’assurer leur développement. Depuis bientôt deux décennies que les normes politiques ont été insérées dans ce partenariat, force est de constater que quelques pays, dont le Togo, demeurent toujours réticents quant à l’instauration de réelles réformes démocratiques en vue d’assurer une véritable alternance politique. En dépit des sanctions infligées çà et là par l’Union européenne, ces pays trouvent un appui auprès de la Chine qui mène, avec les pays d’Afrique, un partenariat en toute exclusion de la société civile.

La recherche porte sur la modernisation du cadre budgétaire des pays de l’UEMOA. Il s’agit d’évaluer la portée des réformes budgétaires développées dans chacun de ces pays. On s’est essayé à mettre en évidence la nécessaire mise en place d’une standardisation de certains dispositifs ainsi que d’une adaptation des procédures ayant fait leurs preuves non seulement dans certains États de la zone mais également dans d’autres pays confrontés à des problèmes similaires. On s’est appuyé sur les comparaisons internationales existantes et l’on a évalué la pertinence des solutions proposées notamment par les bailleurs de fonds.

The evidence of developments in the harmonization of international business laws shows that Africa is lagging seriously behind. There are still some skeptical voices about the need for and the value of harmonization of international business laws, but such voices are now in a minority. The aim of this paper is to assess the prospects for harmonizing international business laws in Africa. The main contention is that the debate today in Africa is not whether or not there should be harmonization of international business laws, but how this should be done. The paper reviews the imperatives for harmonization and the options that exist and then focuses on the present approach to harmonizing business laws in Africa under the auspices of the Organization for the Harmonization of Business Laws in Africa, better known under its French acronym, OHADA. Based on the critical review of the weaknesses and strengths of the OHADA regulatory framework, the paper suggests ways in which the agenda to develop a harmonized and modern set of business laws in Africa can be achieved.

L’articulation du droit uniforme et des droits nationaux constitue l’une des questions les plus importantes pour le développement d’un système juridique cohérent, particulièrement dans sa composante normative. A cet égard, la supranationalité des normes ohada consacrée par l’article 10 du Traité OHADA et l’interprétation dont en a fait la Cour commune de justice et d’arbitrage constituent une solution de principe . Malheureusement, force est de constater que la supranationalité de normes ohada ne permet pas de les résoudre tous les conflits entre les normes ohada et les normes internes des Etats membres. C’est le cas de normes constitutionnelles des Etats membres qui peuvent entrer en conflit avec les normes primaires et les actes uniformes de l’OHADA.

Ever since the colonial era, attempts have been made throughout the various regions of Africa at building supranational units chiefly for administrative and legal convenience. Examples of such attempts include the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland, the East African High Commission and the federations in former French West and Equatorial Africa, all of which were attempts at forging a supranational nation state. These experiments laid the foundation for further supranational initiatives in post-colonial Africa. In this respect, every region in Africa has either experimented with or is currently experimenting with the idea of supranational regional organisations. This article aims at investigating selected attempts at supranationalism on the continent, the successes and failures of such experiments, and the lessons to be learnt from them. As Africa embarks on the journey of solidifying its unity through the establishment of leviathan continental institutions, efforts should be geared towards building on the experiences of past and present experiments at the sub-regional level. Such experiments offer instructive lessons as they are rooted in similar historical and social contexts.     

The World Bank legal review gathers this input from around the world and compiles it into a useful resource for all development practitioners and scholars. The subtitle of this volume, legal innovation and empowerment for development, highlights how the law can respond to the chal-lenges posed to development objectives in a world slowly emerging from an economic crisis. The focus on innovation is a call for new, imaginative strategies and ways of thinking about what the law can do in the development realm. The focus on empowerment is a deliberate attempt to place the law into the hands of the poor; to give them another tool with which to resist poverty. This volume shows some of the ways that the law can make an innovative and empowering difference in development scenarios. Development problems are complex and varied, and the theme of innovation and empowerment naturally has a broad scope. Consequently, this volume reaches far and wide. It considers the nature, promise, and limitations of legal innovation and legal empowerment. It looks at concrete examples in places such as Africa, the Asia-Pacific region, and Latin America. It considers developments in issues with universal application, such as the rights of the disabled and the effectiveness of asset recovery measures. The theme of legal innovation and empowerment for development complements substantive and institutional sensibilities in current development policy. Substantively, development policy discourse seems to have moved away from tacking hard toward statist policy or neoliberal policy. Although this brief introduction cannot do justice to the richness and complexity of these contributions, it does consider each focal point in turn.

To reflect the growing trends in the international scene and in furtherance of the objective of its Revised 1993 Treaty, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) summit in December 2006 revolutionised the structure of ECOWAS by re-designating the Executive Secretariat into a quasi-independent commission headed by a President with a Vice President and seven commissioners. The rationale behind the revision was to make ECOWAS a supranational entity. This article considers whether or not a supranational system is essential for the attainment of ECOWAS' objectives. It asks if the conditions for an effective supranational system are in place in the West African sub-region which could provide a solid foundation for its success and why the quest for a supranational system has not yielded any fruitful result in West Africa. It argues that a retreat from the quest for supranationalism and a return to an inter-governmental system would be a retreat rather than the way forward, and expresses the need for the course of action to be sustained courageously till the impact of integration begins to emerge, and the disguised, patriotic impulse of states to protect their national sovereignty gives way to the full manifestation of ECOWAS as a supranational entity.   

The title of this contribution concerns the sovereignty of OHADA’s States as a solution or a problem of juridical integration. In our analysis, we consider that the States of the OHADA’s area are the main actors of this integration. In fact, the States express their sovereignty towards organs and tools of OHADA. In one hand, the way States express their sovereignty enable to have the same law amongst OHADA’s States. In another hand, by allowing any State to have his own criminal law (as far as sanctions are concerned) the aim of integration (unification) has been jeopardized. The solution of this problem is to have the same penal approach.

The thesis considers the approaches followed by the European Union with the Brussels Regime, the federal system of the United States of America under the ‘full faith and credit clause’; the inter-state recognition scheme under the Australia and New Zealand Trans- Tasman judicial system; as well as the convention-approach of the Latin American States. It finds that the most suitable approach for the SACU is the negotiation and adoption by all SACU Member States of a multilateral convention on the recognition and enforcement of foreign judgments, comparable to the 1971 Convention of the Hague Conference on Private International Law; the EU Brussels I Regulation and the Latin-American Montevideo Convention, as complemented by the La Paz Convention. It is imperative that a proposed convention should not merely duplicate previous efforts, but should be drafted in the light of the legal, political and socio-economic characteristics of the SACU Member States. The current legislative provisions in force in SACU Member States are compared and analysed, and the comparison and analysis form the basis of a proposal for a future instrument on recognition and enforcement of foreign judgments for the region. A recommended draft text for a proposed Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Judgments for the SACU is included. This draft text could form the basis for future negotiations by SACU Member States