Cross-border sale of goods within the East African community

The need for a uniform legal regime

Abstract

The establishment of the East African Community has enhanced cross-border trade between private (both natural and legal) persons in the region. Crossborder trade has been enhanced by the elimination of barriers to trade in the form of custom duties at the border. A report by the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) shows that in 2017, the net value of cross-border trade in East Africa was $2.4 billion. Tanzania and Kenya are seen as the economic heavyweights of the region, although each of the EAC Partner States has a key role to play in promoting trade in the region. Tanzania accounts for approximately 30% of East African Community’s economy while Kenya accounts for approximately 50% of the economy of the region.
However, despite this growth in trade as a result of regional integration, cross-border private traders feel that the EAC Treaty and Protocols do not adequately protect contracts of sale that they enter into in the course of trade. Most imimportantly, and apart from the domestic laws of the EAC member states, crucial areas of the contract of sale like formation of the contract, transfer of property, obligations of parties and remedies are evidently not regulated by EAC instruments.