African regional community courts and their contribution to continental integration

African Regional Communities have been portrayed by international legal scholars on a regular basis. Yet, this is only partially the case with regard to their respective judicial organs. For the first time a contribution focuses exclusively on the West African ECOWAS, the Southern African SADC and the East African EAC courts and their jurisprudence. After outlining the potential of community courts to contribute to integration follows a microscopic analysis of pertinent extracts from their judgments regarding the courts‘ methodology, their jurisdiction and procedural law, the hierarchy between community and national legislation, the question of regional human rights protection and the essential obstacle to integration, which is non-compliance. The research is completed by evaluating whether the three courts had a share in the integration process and to what extent they are able to further promote integration in the future.