RTA

The Africa Continental Free Trade Area and the SPS Agreement: Insights for Africa

This blog appraises the Sanitary and Phytosanitary (SPS) Agreement that provides measures to protect animal or plant life or health within member territories, from risks, within the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) context. It considers the salient obligations and features on equivalence and harmonisation of SPS measures in the SPS Agreement.

REVIEW I of Regional Developmentalism through International Law – Establishing an African Economic Community, Jonathan Bashi Rudahindwa, Routledge, 2018

Rudahindwa’s contribution lies in his articulation of the need for institutions and legal frameworks to reflect these multiple objectives of African RECs. In this regard, he ably demonstrates how the specific objectives of NAFTA, ASEAN, MERCOSUR and the EU have informed the nature of the institutions that manage their respective organisations and their legal frameworks, including how they address issues such as the relationship between the laws of the organisations and their member states, the bindingness of agreed commitments and laws, and dispute settlement.