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The Economic Community of West African States and International Law

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 November 2008

Sunday Babalola Ajulo
Sunday Babalola Ajulo
Affiliation:
Assistant Director in the Department of the Armed Forces Ruling Council Secretariat, The Presidency of Nigeria Office, Lagos.
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Extract

The Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas) was established by the Treaty signed in Lagos on 25 May 1975 by the Heads of State and Government (or their representatives) from Benin, Burkina Faso, Côte d'Ivoire, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, and Togo. They were joined a few months later by Cape Verde, thereby increasing the number of member-states to 16. Following the post-World War II convention whereby international organisations formally insert in their constitutive instruments a declaratory statement concerning their status, it is not surprising that Article 60(1) stipulated that the Community ‘shall enjoy legal personality’. Although such organisations may be similar they are never identical, and this is why the nature and scope of the legal personality of each needs to be ascertained and discussed.

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Modern African Studies , Volume 27 , Issue 2 , June 1989 , pp. 233 - 250
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1989

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References

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page 237 note 2 This publication contains a number of the papers presented to the West African Economic Association in Freetown in 1982, including a study in French of the often ignored West African Clearing House which, according to Kaye Whiteman, ‘is still the most hopeful institution in the Ecowas context, as it could pave the way for the monetary unity which is periodically reasserted as the best hope for the Community's survival and progress’. See his review in West Africa, 6 July 1987, pp. 1287–8, of Orimalade, Adeyinka and Ubogu, R. E., (eds.), Trade and Development in the Economic Community of West African States (New Delhi, 1984).Google Scholar

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page 244 note 7 Ibid. p. 27.

page 245 note 1 See Lodge (ed.), op. cit. p. xiii.

page 245 note 2 Only The Gambia, Senegal, and Côte d'Ivoire have not been ruled by the military.

page 245 note 3 Rosenstiel, op. cit. p. 41.

page 245 note 4 Gravil, Roger, ‘The Nigerian Aliens Expulsion Order of 1983’, in African Affairs (London), 84, 337, 10 1985, pp. 532–37;Google Scholar Olajide Aluko, ‘The Expulsion of Illegal Aliens from Nigeria: a study in Nigeria's decision-making’, in Ibid. pp. 539–60; and Lynne Brydon, ‘Ghanaian Responses to the Nigerian Expulsions of 1983’, in Ibid. pp. 561–85.

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page 246 note 2 The Foreign Minister of Ghana, Obed Asamoah, recently suggested at a meeting in Accra attended by representatives from Benin, Nigeria, and Togo that an Ecowas Parliament should be directly elected by the people. Shortly after being reported in the Daily Times (Lagos), 31 03 1989Google Scholar, and editorial in the same newspaper expressed the view that what was being proposed would ‘be no more than a military assembly’, albeit ‘something good whose time has only not yet come’.

page 246 note 3 Rosenstiel, op cit. p. 89.

page 247 note 1 See, generally, African Affairs, loc. cit pp. 523–85. S. K. B. Asante argued that Nigeria did not actually breach any part of the Ecowas Protocol on the free movement of persons by its expulsion of illegal immigrants. See West Africa, 11 and 18 April 1983.

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page 248 note 2 For example, all the Heads of Government at their June 1989 summit in Madrid strongly condemned ‘the brutal repression taking place in China’, and asked ‘the Chinese authorities to respect human rights and to take into account the hopes of freedom and democracy deeply felt by the population’. The Times (London), 28 06 1989.Google Scholar

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page 248 note 4 Becker, op. cit. Cf. Ajulo, S. B., ‘Lomé Abkommen’, dissertation, University of Heidelberg, 1979.Google Scholar

page 248 note 5 The Times, 28 June 1989.

page 248 note 6 Renninger, op. cit. p. 94.

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page 249 note 5 Whiteman, loc. cit. p. 1381.

page 250 note 1 Munu, Momodu, ‘The Future of Ecowas’, Nigerian Institute of International Affairs, Lagos, 12 05 1986, pp. 15–16.Google Scholar See National Concord (Lagos), 30 06 1986, p. 3, for a brief critique of this address.Google Scholar

page 250 note 2 The 1988/1989 Annual Report of the Executive Secretary to the Authority of Heads of State and Government of Ecowas, Ouagadougou, 29 June 1989, entitled ‘A Time for Implementation’.