The Prospect Of Public Rights Litigation Before The Ecowas Court Of Justice

The 1975 treaty that founded ECOWAS envisioned an international tribunal. But governments did not agree to create a community court until 1991, when they adopted a protocol that limited the court‘s jurisdiction to interstate disputes concerning the interpretation of ECOWAS legal instruments. The actual creation of a court was delayed for another decade. And when the Court finally opened its doors for business in 2001, governments refrained from filing any cases against each other. In 2003, a Nigerian goods trader filed the first suit with the ECCJ, complaining that the closure of Nigeria‘s border with Benin damaged his import-export business. The suit cast in sharp relief the serious impediments to intra-regional trade. Nevertheless, the Court dismissed the complaint in 2004, relying on the member states‘ unambiguous decision to deny access to private parties.