European Economic Community

In this presentation, I have argued that the current national conflict of laws regimes to resolve intra-African private cross-border commercial disputes are not fit for purpose. They must be reformed to enable them to deliver on the goals of the AfCFTA. One can expect an increase in private cross-border commercial disputes arising from increased intra-African trade with the implementation of the AfCFTA. It would be unfortunate if all the efforts of member states and the AfCFTA Secretariate are devoted to developing AfCFTA’s inter-state dispute resolution mechanism, and little or nothing is done about the legal framework for resolving cross-border private commercial disputes. This is because most of the trade transactions under AfCFTA would involve private business entities. Their rights need to be protected to ensure certainty and predictability for them.

This article contends that premised on being Africa’s major trading partners, economies such as the US, the EU, and China are likely to experience trade diversion when the AfCFTA comes into force. As a result of such potential trade diversion, the implementation of the AfCFTA could be hindered. It is only by addressing the interests of these economies that AfCFTA will foreclose the possibility of a “crisis of implementation”.