Regional Integration in Africa through the Harmonization of Laws

What is it about?

Poverty is the most important public policy issue for all countries in Africa today. One way to confront that problem is to provide each African economy with a robust private sector that can create the wealth that is needed to deal with poverty and significantly improve the living conditions of its citizens. Creating a domestic environment that enables investment – both domestic and foreign – requires, at the very least, that the economy be provided with a set of institutional arrangements that guarantees the rule of law. Such a legal regime must (i) adequately constrain state custodians (i.e., civil servants and politicians) so that they cannot act with impunity and engage in growth-inhibiting behaviors (e.g., corruption and rent seeking); (ii) provide mechanisms for the peaceful resolution of conflict in order to enhance effective management of ethnic and religious diversity; and (iii) create an enabling environment for entrepreneurial activities.

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Why is it important?

“Conscious” of the power of law to bring development and the desire to stimulate both national and international investments, a group of African states empowered a supranational body, the Organization for the Harmonization of Business Law in Africa (OHADA), to initiate law reform among them. This paper tests the OHADA against the rhetoric of law as a development engine. It also aims at assessing the extent to which OHADA, as a legal tool, could be useful in serving the purpose of regional integration and economic growth in Africa.