Preliminary draft of treaty for the Economic Community of West Africa and explanatory notes

Abstract

This preliminary draft of a treaty for Economic Community of West Africa, together with explanatory notes, is submitted for the consideration of the first session of the Interim Council of Minsters. In its basic structure, this draft treaty generally follows analogous regional association treaties. While the draft articles draw widely upon practice under existing regional economic association, they rest primarily on consideration of the specific situation in and the requirements of the West African sub-region. The approach followed in this paper is essentially pragmatic. As a result, the substantive provisions do not contain any single common denominator of over-all Treaty objectives but, rather, constitute a search for selective ad- hoc objectives applicable to individual topics and spheres of action in the light of the realities of the situation.