Cooperation between Regional Economic Communities and the Integration process in Africa: Legal Appraisal of the Stakes and Opportunities
Downloads
Keywords:
Cooperation, Regional Economic Communities, African Integration, Legal Stakes and OpportunitiesAbstract
Many experts in regional integration are convinced that, in order to develop, Africa had to launch a programme of regional economic cooperation among its nations and Regional Economic Communities (RECs). This is because cooperation within and between RECs is considered as a key factor for development and integration in the continent. It is by dint of this fact that most scholars agree that cooperation within and between RECs must prevail amidst the numerous challenges plaguing the integration process in Africa. By selecting eight RECs as building bloc for the African Economic Community (AEC), the African Union agrees that cooperation is an indispensable means through which regional integration can be attained. This work seeks to give a legal appraisal of the stakes and opportunity of cooperation between RECs for integration in Africa. To unravel this, we carefully kempt and analysed the contents of some relevant legal instruments and some literature around the subject. The results of our analysis suggest that, the timid level of cooperation within the African continent is a major challenge to the integration process and therefore the challenges to cooperation must be dealt with if Africa must achieve the desired level of integration. Informed by this conclusion, we submit inter alia that, the AEC should adopt a protocol founded on “one country, one community membership” of the eight recognised RECs. We also avouch for a rationalisation of RECs in each sub-region through harmonisation.
External References to this Article
Loading reference data...
License Terms
Ownership and Licensing:
Authors of research papers submitted to any journal published by The Law Brigade Publishers retain the copyright of their work while granting the journal specific rights. Authors maintain ownership of the copyright and grant the journal the right of first publication. Simultaneously, authors agree to license their research papers under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) License.
License Permissions:
Under the CC BY-SA 4.0 License, others are permitted to share and adapt the work, even for commercial purposes, provided that appropriate attribution is given to the authors, and acknowledgment is made of the initial publication by The Law Brigade Publishers. This license encourages the broad dissemination and reuse of research papers while ensuring that the original work is properly credited.
Additional Distribution Arrangements:
Authors are free to enter into separate, non-exclusive contractual arrangements for distributing the published version of the work (e.g., posting it to institutional repositories or publishing it in books), provided that the original publication by The Law Brigade Publishers is acknowledged.
Online Posting:
Authors are encouraged to share their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on personal websites) both prior to submission and after publication. This practice can facilitate productive exchanges and increase the visibility and citation of the work.
Responsibility and Liability:
Authors are responsible for ensuring that their submitted research papers do not infringe on the copyright, privacy, or other rights of third parties. The Law Brigade Publishers disclaims any liability for any copyright infringement or violation of third-party rights within the submitted research papers.
Published
Issue
Section
License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Copyright © 2026 by Tsayem Boukeu Romanie
The copyright and license terms mentioned on this page take precedence over any other license terms mentioned on the article full text PDF or any other material associated with the article.
