Two Sides of the Same Coin? Analysing the Efficacy of the African Continental Free Trade Area and WTO’s Dispute Settlement Mechanisms in Resolving Trade Disputes Between African States

Abstract

The World Trade Organisation (WTO) has often referred to its dispute resolution system as the “crown jewel” of the world trading system. However, the current crisis on the lack of a quorum in the Appellate Body is slowing down the dispute resolution process at the WTO considerably. Notwithstanding, African countries have an alternative dispute resolution mechanism available under the soon to be operationalized African Continental Free Trade Area Agreement (AfCFTA Agreement). This paper aims to highlight the efficiency of the AfCFTA dispute resolution mechanism as compared to that of the WTO. To this end, it is divided into four parts. Section 1 sets the background to this paper by expounding dispute settlement at both the WTO and AfCFTA. Section 2 focuses on the concept of concurrent jurisdiction between the two systems. It intends to find out whether recourse to one system automatically bars a state party from seeking a remedy in the other dispute resolution system. Section 3 concentrates on the similarities between the two systems. Section 4 highlights the lessons that AfCFTA may draw from other dispute settlement mechanisms (DSM) on the African continent and recommends changes to the AfCFTA dispute resolution system.