The Southern African Development Community (SADC), formerly known as the
Southern African Development Coordination Conference (SADCC), is an
organization of Southern African states initially formed to reduce economic
dependence on South Africa (then an Apartheid state) and to harmonize and coordinate
development in the region
The vision and mission of SADC reach well beyond the harmonization of
development within the region. It extends to fields that include political stability,
peace building, the maintenance of security and justice as well as economic cooperation.
The attainment of these goals requires well co-ordinated regional
mechanisms; as such over the past decade member states have paid particular
attention to the possibility of attaining these goals through regional integration.
The transformation from SADCC to SADC indicated that the body would no longer
be a loose association (conference) of states but rather a regional body that would
have a legally binding effect on its member states. The question is, when the
member states assembled in Windhoek, August 1992, did they create an institutional
framework, and policies that would have enough legal force to ensure that the
institutional agenda of integration is not defeated by member states? The argument
of this dissertation is that the Treaty and the policies established afterwards contain
principle imperfections that are self defeating for the pursuance of regional
integration.
The work will begin by discussing regional integration in general, highlighting the
historical origins of SADC as well as the role of the African Union. The work will then
discuss the dimensions and functioning of SADC, laying the foundation for a proper
critique on how the institutional framework contains inherent weaknesses that
eventually hinder the progression of SADC. The dissertation ultimately will discuss
and benchmark the European Union against SADC, in an attempt to extract
important lessons for the progression of SADC. / Thesis (LLM) North-West University, Mafikeng Campus, 2011
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:nwu/oai:dspace.nwu.ac.za:10394/15788 |
| Date | January 2011 |
| Creators | Mwanawina, I |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
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