ECOWAS Court and Regional Integration in West Africa

The Court of Justice of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS Court), is, by its decisions, fast assuming the status of an alternative mechanism in a region typified by absence of effective national and regional judicial enforcement frameworks. Mainly set up to strengthen, or, at least, compliment, integration of the West African region, the activities of the Court had escaped scholarly analysis, thereby creating a gap in the state of current knowledge about regional integration in Africa. Accordingly, this book directs attention to this emerging institution as a distinct actor within the contemporary international legal/political system, particularly in relation to its role in the integration efforts in the West African region. Grounded on a theoretical framework that emphasises the role that judicial institutions have and can play in the furtherance of the uniting ties of regional integration in Africa, the book adapts social science methodology for institutional analysis of a judicial institution. The law, machinery, practice and procedure of the ECOWAS Court are contextualised in its decisions geared towards evolving a new regional legal order in West Africa