Integrating African Markets into the Global Exchange of Services: A Central African Perspective

Simo Regis Y. ()
Additional contact information
Simo Regis Y.: PhD Candidate, Università Commerciale L. Bocconi, Milan, Italy

The Law and Development Review, 2013, vol. 6, issue 2, S255-297

Abstract: Services liberalisation has gradually become very important for growth in developed and less-developed countries alike and can, as such, be seen as development prospects for sub-Saharan Africa where numerous economic integration attempts are stories of repeated failures. Despite the abundant literature on PTAs, however, little attention has been given to Central Africa Economic and Monetary Community (CEMAC) as a trade bloc. This is an attempt to address that dearth.At a time when “boosting intra-African trade” is gaining currency on the continent, this article tests the compatibility of the potential CEMAC economic integration agreement (EIA) against the background of the existing framework and argues that Central Africa countries would be in a better position to integrate their economies after widening the borders of their individually tiny markets. Analysing the legal discipline behind services Preferential Trade Agreements (PTAs) under the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) and how CEMAC’s agreement fits into this legal landscape, this article further advocates that this sub-group of countries should go beyond the Enabling Clause self-contentment and embark on a deeper (and comprehensive) integration.

Keywords: CEMAC; WTO; trade in services; Africa; preferential trade agreements (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1515/ldr-2013-0026 (text/html)
For access to full text, subscription to the journal or payment for the individual article is required.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bpj:lawdev:v:6:y:2013:i:2:p:s255-297:n:9

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.degruyter.com/journal/key/ldr/html

DOI: 10.1515/ldr-2013-0026

Access Statistics for this article

The Law and Development Review is currently edited by Yong-Shik Lee

More articles in The Law and Development Review from De Gruyter
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Peter Golla ().