Reconceptualising ECOWAS priorities. The judicial protection of human rights as a tool to strengthen effective integration?

The Economic Community of West African States (the ECOWASor the Community)1Court of Justice (the ECOWAS Court, the Court, or the ECCJ) is one of the leading sub-regional tribunals of the African continent. Originally conceived as a traditional Community Court entrusted to solve inter-State disputes relating to the ECOWAS law, the ECCJ experienced an articulated and uneasy reorganisation, in line with the evolving ECOWAS priorities.After a worrying initial inactivity, and with the inclusion of human rights concerns into the West African agenda, the ECCJ was also given competence to hear cases of human rights violations, thus transforming into a hybrid “two-in-one” tribunal.Since then, the case load of the ECCJ mostly centred on this part of its mandate and, while the Court is sustaining the creation of a stable and conflict free environment in the region, it has rarely exercised jurisdiction on Community law. Running contrary to the expectations of its founding fathers, the ECCJ is now increasingly called to play a proactive role in favouring the ECOWAS effective integration. This paper will briefly introduce the context of regional and sub-regional integration in Africa. In accordance with the highlighted stages of sub-regional integration, the ECOWAS will be analysed in its main institutional features. In particular, the ECCJ will be considered from its evolutive perspective, by adequately marking the relevant steps towards the today’s configuration. A specific focus will be given to the “layering” of the human rights mandate to highlight its very unique traits. Having regard to the original project of ECOWAS policymakers to create a Court which resembled, from the institutional perspective and for its role in the advancement of the integration process, the European Court of Justice (ECJ),this contribution will also discuss to which extent the ECJ model has been implemented in the ECOWAS system.Taking into account the tools used by the ECJ to facilitate the achievement of the Community goals, an evaluation of the diversion effect of the ECCJ human rights mandate will show that the primacy of human rights litigation over Community disputes could even result in the Court’s “judicial suicide”.