Abstract

The Dispute Settlement Mechanism (DSM) of the Agreement Establishing the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) is established as a central element to provide security and predictability to the newly created regional trading system. Enacted to preserve the rights and obligations of State Parties to the Agreement and modelled after the dispute settlement system of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), the AfCFTA Agreement's Dispute Settlement Protocol (DSP) provides that the DSM is only accessible to States. This inter-state feature of the AfCFTA DSM is, however, seen as a setback ...