Fondements constitutionnels de l'intégration régionale en Afrique : de l'opérationnalité du concept d'"Unité africaine"

One of the leitmotifs of Africa’s continental bodies from the Organization of African Unity to its successor (the African Union) has been to define and implement regional integration disciplines. This goal was well encapsulated in the Lagos Plan of Action that constituted extant regional economic communities as the building blocks for an eventual African Economic Community. All these developments were contingent on the politically charged concept of African unity which constituted the guiding precept for integration in Africa following independence. In varying degrees, the idea of African unity has in turn been incorporated in many constitutions in Africa. This is a very important element because the fact of including regional integration in these constitutions imbues the pursuit of regional integration with traits of constitutionality: realised by making regional integration a constitutional objective. This has serious and precise legal and constitutional implications especially in the context of constitutional litigation. The incorporation of regional integration as a constitutional goal can in specific cases, engender what the author describes as the constitutional « right of integration. »