Assessing the Effectiveness of the Current Dispute Resolution Regime of the African Continental Free Trade Agreement

Written by:

Jamiu Ridwan Adeniyi

Abstract

Following the enactment of the Agreement Establishing the African Continental Free Trade Agreement (the AfCFTA Agreement or the Agreement), there was the adoption of a new Dispute Resolution Mechanism in addition to the numerous judicial mechanisms that are put in place to settle trade disputes between African States.

Modelled after the dispute settlement system of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), the mechanism is established as a central element to provide security and predictability to the newly created regional trading system.

Despite the fact that no State Party has brought a complaint under the current dispute resolution regime of the AfCFTA Agreement in any inter-African State dispute, an assessment of the effectiveness of the regime is of the utmost importance.

Having in mind the aim of this paper to undertake the task of discussing the assessment, the paper begins by first presenting the key contents of the AfCFTA Agreement and then proceeds to discuss the various mechanisms of dispute settlement under the Agreement.

It goes further to treat the assessment of the effectiveness of the current dispute resolution regime of the Agreement including issues that may provoke the underutilization of the regime if not ef iciently addressed.

Keywords: Africa, Agreement, Dispute Resolution, Effectiveness, Protocol, Trade

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Assessing the Effectiveness of the Current Dispute resolution Regime of the African Continental Free Trade Agreement