African Law and Legal Systems

For a long time, many African States have suffered from a slowdown in the level of foreign investments in these countries, due to the juridical insecurity. As such, there is a real need to rebuild the legal systems of those countries. In this scope, The Organization for The Harmonisation of African Business Laws (OHADA) was established by an international
treaty among many African states, especially within the French zone, signed in Port Louis, Mauritius, on October 7, 1993. OHADA’s main objective is the implementation of a modern, harmonized legal framework in the area of business law. This article seeks to broadly
present his historical background, the main focus and the methodology of OHADA’s treaty, the geographical and material scope of the treaty, main characteristics of Uniform Acts and the procedure for the adoption of them, its institutions -The Conference of Heads of State and Government, The Council of Ministers, The Permanent Secretariat, The Common Court of Justice and Arbitration and the Regional Training Center for Legal Officers (ERSUMA)- and his place among the other economical unions in Africa.

This chapter tells a brief story about how, despite a highly contested trajecto-ry, a strong enough consensus ultimately emerged at the African continental level to actively address and eventually also prevent constitutional crises within African Union (AU) member states. It emphasises how these efforts are resulting in a unique form of continental legal integration through a gradual yet fragile harmonization of constitutional frameworks among African states under the co-direction of the AU. In other words, this chapter traces and ex-plains the contestations and fragmentations associated with the process of an Africanization of constitutional law. It describes how increased holistic think-ing at the continental level about the interrelated nature of various challeng-es witnessed in the African constitutional governance landscape is steadily reflected in the nature and scope of a variety of AU legal, institutional and policy frameworks. The chapter notes how the expansion of the web of AU ac-tors and their respective mandates has resulted in a proliferation of diverse continental encounters with national implementation partners of the AU’s constitutional agenda. However, it also observes that the effects of these con-tinental-constitutional encounters remain largely understudied. While the chapter underscores the varying acceptance of the AU’s constitutional agen-da throughout the African continent and across different subject matters, it also highlights the shifting imaginaries held at the continental level about constitutional rule, the indeterminacies underlying the notion itself and the different risks associated with those indeterminacies. From the above the key argument underlying this chapter can easily be deduced: constitutional law in Africa is increasingly becoming a terrain of continental struggle in its own right.

Following the spread of ICTs and Internet penetration in Africa and growing concerns over the protection of personal data in the information society, some African regional intergovernmental organizations have established legal frameworks on data protection. The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) has adopted a regional Data Protection Act as legal framework to address data protection concerns amongst its member States in West Africa. The ECOWAS Data Protection Act recognizes that advancements in ICTs increases the problem of personal data protection and seeks to address the problem by establishing a harmonized legal framework for data protection in the ECOWAS region. This paper seeks to analyze the ECOWAS Data Protection Act while also comparing it with international data protection regimes such as the EU Data Protection Directive, Council of Europe Data Protection Convention and the EU General Data Protection Regulation. The paper also identifies some data protection governance mechanisms that are missing in the ECOWAS Data Protection Act and proposes the establishment of an institutional data protection governance mechanism within the framework of the ECOWAS framework in order to facilitate the regional harmonization of data protection law and the dissemination of best practices.The paper is divided into eight sections: The first section briefly examines the concept of data protection (I.). The second section introduces the ECOWAS Data Protection Act and also examines provisions relating to the regulation of data processing activities by National Data Protection Authorities including the authorization of specific data processing activities and regulation of data processing activities in public services (II.). The third section examines the general principles governing the processing of personal data under the Act (III.). The fourth section examines the specific principles governing the processing of “sensitive" personal data (IV.). The fifth section examines the rights of data subjects (V.). The sixth section examines the obligations of data controllers (VI.). The seventh section examines provisions governing trans-border data flows to non-ECOWAS Member States (VII.), while the eighth section examine some data protection governance mechanisms that are absent from the Act (VIII.).