Regional Integration as an Instrument of Human Rights: Reconceptualizing ECOWAS

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Acknowledging the classic conflict between the trade and human right regimes, this paper argues that the realities of the least developed regions create an instance where the fundamental motivation for economic integration regimes like ECOWAS is not at odds with the human rights principle. Rather, such economic integration regimes are in themselves the very mechanism for the achievement of human rights as conceptualized within the normative framework of the African human rights system. Through an examination of the ECOWAS Revised Treaty provisions and an exposition on the evolution of the ECOWAS Community Court of Justice, this paper argues that the drafters of the Revised Treaty created a document that took cognizance of human rights. With the key goal being the achievement of development, ECOWAS's greater legitimacy derives from the lack of development in its constituent parts. As such, ECOWAS fulfills the Article 22(2) development duty imposed on member states by the African Charter and is increasingly fine-tuning its activities to follow the Articles 22(1) and 24 guidance on this duty. Therefore, ECOWAS as a mechanism for the achievement of the human right to development collapses Garcia's chasm between the underpinning principles of trade and human rights because it presents regional integration as a utilitarian mechanism for the achievement of deontological rights. While enforcement is crucial to maintaining the commitment for which ECOWAS exists, the lack of enforcement does not obliterate the theoretical interpretation of ECOWAS as a rights tool; it only impeaches the political will of its member states.