Project Description

       CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

The growth of regional trade blocs has remained one of the major developments in international relations in recent years. Virtually all countries are members of one bloc or another, and many belong to more than one. Regional agreements vary widely, but all are primarily aimed at reducing barriers to trade between member states. Primarily, these agreements are aimed at removing tariffs on intra-bloc trade in goods. More fundamentally, these agreements often transcend tariff removal to cover non-tariff barriers as well as liberalization of investment and other policies. They also have the goal of economic union. This involves the construction of shared executive, judicial, and legislative institutions.

With respect to Africa, one of the major challenges facing the continent in the twenty first century is how to arrest the trend of economic decline and strengthen the capacity of African economies for effective participation in the increasingly competitive global economy. Promotion of regional economic integration has been identified as one key element in grappling with this challenge. This has for long constituted a significant aspect of African development strategy. Highlighting the essence of regional integration in Africa, Ake (1981) noted that African formations need to cooperate to be strong enough to deal the powerful multinational companies operating in Africa; exert better terms from their economic relations with international organizations, development agencies and other regional organizations; overcome the constraints placed on industrialization and development by the small size of the internal markets; and mobilize more capital for large-scale development.

Regional integration is usually considered from two complementary perspectives. First, regional integration is seen as a means of achieving greater trade relations among nation-states by lowering trade barriers and making provisions for free movement of people and labour and strong economic linkages between people (Polaski, 2004).  The second perspective has to do with the institutional character of integration. This is primarily a governance question, about whether regional bodies have the mandate to address general concerns, and if so, how they are in fact addressing them. The role, for example, which regional structures play in regulating trade, overseeing and enforcing free movement of people and goods, ensuring good governance and human security (Martìnez, 2004). The institutional perspective appears to be the core challenge facing integration in Africa due to the relative non-existence or recent creation of the law-making institution.

At the sub-regional level, West African states, in the last three and half decades, have equally been enmeshed in the struggle to attain sustainable economic development and self-reliance through regional economic integration. The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) was and has been at the vanguard of regional integration in West Africa, with focus on the development and expansion of the regional market as the corner piece of its comprehensive development strategy. The original mandate of ECOWAS which focused essentially on promoting co-operation and integration in the economic, social and cultural sectors with a view to forming a Monetary and Economic Union was seriously undermined by administrative bottlenecks thereby hindering the realization of economic regional integration in West Africa (Adebayo, 2002).

To ameliorate this unwholesome scenario, the Revised ECOWAS Treaty of 1993 was designed to accelerate economic integration among member states. The Preamble of Chapter 2 Article 3 of the Treaty seeks to achieve economic integration through liberalization of trade between member states, removal of all impediments that hinder free movement of factors of production, as well as harmonization of national economic and fiscal policies of member states. Articles 6 and 13 provide for a West African Parliament, an Economic and Social Council and an ECOWAS Court of Justice. The Treaty also formally entrusted the ECOWAS with the responsibility of preventing and settling regional conflicts. In 1994, the Protocol pertaining to the creation of ECOWAS Parliament was elaborated and signed by all ECOWAS member states except Guinea-Bissau and Côte d’Ivoire. The Protocol entered into force on 14 March 2002 after the mandatory nine member states had approved it.

ECOWAS Parliament is a forum for dialogue, consultation and consensus for the representatives of the people of West Africa in order to promote sub-regional integration. The forum provides capacity building to young parliamentarians, undertakes election observation and parliamentary diplomacy missions, and establishes gender standards and its members actively set the regional agenda in national parliaments (Eze 2004). Again, ECOWAS Parliament engages in a number of activities to promote good governance, democracy and regional integration. While a body of literature has already accumulated on the activities of the ECOWAS Parliament, the implication of the powers and resolutions of the body for the integration of the West African sub-region is yet to receive systematic treatment.

Against this background, therefore, this study focuses on the effect of the powers and resolutions of the Parliament of the Economic Community of West African States on regional integration in West Africa, between 2001 and 2011. Thus, the deepening democratic credentials of the institutional mechanisms of ECOWAS integration with specific attention to the Community Parliament come under close scrutiny.

The revision of the ECOWAS Treaty in 1993 marked a turning point both in the structure and the character of West African co-operation. There was a shift to a more “people-centred organization” as opposed to the “overly bureaucratic inter-governmental agency of the past” (Aryeetey 2001: 16). Article 5, relating to the composition of the ECOWAS Parliament, states that “the Parliament shall be composed of one hundred and twenty (120) seats, each member state should have a minimum of five (5) seats, while the remaining forty (40) seats are to be shared on the basis of population”. This reflects the principle of proportional representation, with implications both for the decision-making process of the ECOWAS Parliament, its democratic character, and the overall objective of furthering the interest of ECOWAS citizens and deepening regional integration.

The reference to democratic character concurs with the classical definition of modern parliament. The democratic character of a parliament expresses a global modulation of the notion of representation, decision-making and responsiveness to the yearnings of the citizenry. The linkage between the people of the sub-region and the ECOWAS Parliament is, therefore, critical for the survival of the envisaged regional integration project. And since international trade offers an important means of increasing competition by allowing new suppliers to enter markets, it was envisaged that ECOWAS Parliament would generate such opportunities and benefits by fostering trade between members through debates, resolutions and declarations.

The existing literature on ECOWAS Parliament is highly limited. Writers on the link between ECOWAS Parliament and the participation of citizens of member states in ECOWAS integration process such as Manda, 2008; Matlosa, 2006; Terlinden, 2005; Eze, 2004; Adebayo 2003; Adedeji, 2002a; Marks, 1996; Kiplagat, 1994; and Yash, 1976 focused on socio-economic and political perspectives without a comprehensive and detailed study of ECOWAS from the institutional perspective. Writers on the link between the Community Parliament resolutions and the prospects of deepening regional integration in West Africa such as Ebobrah, 2009; Fontaine, 2009; Stavidis, 2008; Costa, 2008; Eze, 2005; Hettmann & Mohammed, 2005; Karuuombe, 2004; Lunn, 2003; Schiff & Winters, 2003; Aryeetey, 2001; and Pennetta, 1996 alluded to the inability to resist the pull of centrifugal forces such as weakness of central institutions and the issue of national sovereignty, visibility problem, inadequate power to further integration, poor contacts between parliament and citizens to be responsible for the inability of institutions in general, and ECOWAS Parliament in particular to promote regional integration. Writers on the link between powers of the ECOWAS Parliament and institutional capacity of ECOWAS integration such as Adar, 2008;  Ebo & N’Diaye, 2008;  Hooghe & Marks, 2005;  Harsch, 2002;  Adepoju, 2002;  Okolo, 1985; Pinder, 1968; and Ghai, 1976 essentially dwelt on visibility issue as well as the over-bearing dominance of the Authority of Heads of State and Government.

Altogether, these explanations hardly illuminate the understanding of the effect of the powers and resolutions of the Community Parliament on regional integration in West Africa, between 2001 and 2011. It is a defining characteristic of Africa’s integration processes that the role of law, rules or institutions are yet to be systematically articulated. The process of ECOWAS integration, particularly, has been a political construct fortified by economic theory with the central role of institutions missing. A situation in which most organs or institutions of integration in Africa are very weak in both functions and authority, and are subsumed under the powers of Authority of Heads of State and Government, make it pertinent to x-ray their democratic credentials. It follows that existing studies appear to fall short of a systematic analysis of the effect of the powers and resolutions of the ECOWAS Parliament on regional integration in West Africa. This study therefore aims at filling that lacuna through an examination of the effect of the democratic credentials of the powers and resolutions of the Community Parliament in relation to the prospects of deepening regional integration in West Africa, between 2001 and 2011 in the context of the following research questions.

1. Did the establishment of the Community Parliament fail to demonstrate popular participation of citizens of member states in ECOWAS integration process, between 2001 and 2011?
2. Were resolutions of the Community Parliament less encouraging to the integration process than the level of member states’ implementation of ECOWAS priority programmes, between 2001 and 2011?
3. Did the Powers of the Community Parliament fail to improve the weak institutional capacity of ECOWAS integration, between 2001 and 2011?

 

The broad objective of the study is to analyze the effect of the democratic credentials of the powers and resolutions of the Community Parliament in relation to the prospects of deepening regional integration in West Africa. The specific objectives are to:

1. Determine whether the establishment of the Community Parliament failed to demonstrate popular participation of citizens of member states in ECOWAS integration process, between 2001 and 2011;

 

2. Examine whether the resolutions of the Community Parliament were less encouraging to the integration process than the level of member states’ implementation of ECOWAS priority programmes, between 2001 and 2011; and

 

3. Ascertain whether the Powers of the Community Parliament failed to improve the weak institutional capacity of ECOWAS integration, between 2001 and 2011.

 

 

 

• Significance of the Study

The significance of this study is two-fold: theoretical and practical. At the theoretical level, this study examines the effect of the democratic credentials of the powers and resolutions of the ECOWAS Parliament in relation to the prospects of deepening regional integration in West Africa, between 2001 and 2011. The study proceeds from the thesis that the structure of membership, powers and resolutions of ECOWAS Parliament has failed to deepen regional integration in West Africa.

At the practical level, the growing emphasis on deeper economic integration has resuscitated researchers’ and practitioners’ interest in the institution of parliament and its potential value and contribution to West African quest for free trade and movement of persons. Therefore, the study will assist in highlighting the immense role of the ECOWAS Parliament in regional integration, through oversight functions both at the nation state level and over the Authority of Heads of States and Government. This has been the missing link in ECOWAS integration process.

Regional integration treaties and other instruments relating to critical areas such as human rights, trade, environment and many others do not pass through the parliament. This resulted in little, if any, debate on the instruments and their implications on domestic policy domestication, and harmonization thereof became, and remains, difficult if not virtually impossible. If parliamentarians from member states participate in regional economic integration bloc such as ECOWAS Community Parliament, it will provide a forum not only for debate on, harmonization and domestication of, and compliance to protocols and decisions of ECOWAS.

Thirdly, ECOWAS treaties have continued to be treated as the prerogative of the Heads of State and the Executive. Since its inception, the regional integration project has been state-centric and driven by the ruling elites and therefore lacks broad participation by other key stakeholders including political parties and legislatures. The need to enhance the role of parliamentarians and the institution of parliament in regional integration is therefore more profound than before. The continued negation of this cardinal role which can potentially enhance ECOWAS and African integration is seen as the missing link in the West African integration process. This study is thus, a welcome contribution to ongoing debate about the prospect of effective transformation of the peripheral role of African Regional Parliaments to progressive participation in the African integration project.

 

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