Africa’s Single Market Needs Enforcement. But a Continental Court Alone Cannot Deliver It

The argument that Africa’s single market will fail without a supranational court is both compelling and incomplete. Compelling, because it correctly identifies the lack of enforcement (not vision) as the Achilles’ heel of African integration. Incomplete, because it places the judicial cart before the institutional horse.

There is little doubt that Africa suffers from an implementation deficit. The continent is rich in treaties, protocols, and summit declarations, yet poor in compliance. The African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), free movement commitments and the Single African Air Transport Market all share a common weakness: execution depends overwhelmingly on voluntary compliance by sovereign states. In this sense, the call for stronger enforcement mechanisms is justified.

The argument in this article goes too far is in assuming that a continental court, by itself, can supply what Africa’s integration architecture currently lacks.

Courts do not create markets. They enforce rules produced by political and administrative authority. In Europe and the United States (cited as models) judicial supremacy emerged alongside strong supranational or federal institutions capable of legislating, regulating, and administering policy across territories. The European Court of Justice does not operate in a vacuum: it is embedded in a system that includes a supranational executive, a legislative process, a binding budget, and an acquis communautaire that member states had already accepted as superior to national law. Similarly, the authority of U.S. federal courts rests on a federal constitution that explicitly limits state sovereignty.

Africa has not yet reached this level. The African Union and the AfCFTA Secretariat play critical agenda-setting and coordination roles, but they do not possess autonomous regulatory or executive powers. Continental law does not yet enjoy primacy over national law, nor is there a political consensus to grant supranational institutions authority insulated from national vetoes. In this context, proposing a court with sweeping powers to override domestic legislation risks creating an institution whose legal ambition exceeds its political and constitutional foundations.

This is not an argument against judicialisation per se. It is an argument for sequencing. A supranational court is most effective when it locks in an integration process, not when it substitutes for missing governance capacity. Without parallel reforms that delegate clearly defined powers to continental institutions (such as the authority to set technical standards, manage corridors, enforce trade facilitation rules, or coordinate digital and transport systems), a court would struggle to enforce compliance beyond symbolic rulings.

Africa already hosts multiple regional courts whose judgments are unevenly implemented, even when individual standing is permitted. Adding a continental commercial court without credible enforcement tools could deepen institutional fragmentation rather than resolve it, reinforcing scepticism about continental mechanisms.

A more realistic path lies in gradual, functional integration. This could involve strengthening the AfCFTA dispute settlement system, introducing preliminary ruling mechanisms to ensure uniform interpretation of AfCFTA rules, granting access to this mechanism (currently reserved to State parties) to firms in narrowly defined areas, and progressively expanding the authority of continental institutions in specific sectors such as customs, payments, and corridor governance. Judicial authority would then grow alongside administrative capacity and political buy-in.

Africa’s integration challenge is not a lack of courage alone. It is the absence of agreed limits on sovereignty and clear delegation of authority. Until member states are willing to transfer defined competences to continental bodies (starting with trade facilitation and cross-border transport regulation) no court, however well designed, can deliver a single market by decree.

Enforceable law is indispensable. But enforcement cannot leapfrog politics, institutions, and constitutional realities. Africa’s single market will ultimately require a supranational court, but only as part of a broader, carefully sequenced architecture of shared authority. Without that foundation, judicial ambition risks outpacing what the continent is presently willing (and able) to sustain.