Towards a Green Continental Market: A Critical Analysis of the Environmental Governance Gaps of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA)

This article provides the first comprehensive and critical assessment of the environmental governance gaps within the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA). It argues that the AfCFTA's limited and defensive trade and environment provisions risk undermining its own sustainable development objectives. Through a comparative legal and policy analysis, it identifies key areas where the AfCFTA falls short of integrating environmental considerations. It then develops a broad and innovative analytical framework for embedding substantive and procedural trade and environment provisions into the legal and institutional architecture of the AfCFTA. The findings offer important insights for the better alignment of regional economic integration initiatives with environmental sustainability in Africa and beyond.