ESQ Legal Practice Magazine JUNE 2014 EDITION | Page 82

A few African countries have recently informally indicated an intention to become signatories to the New York Convention in the near
future, including Angola and the Democratic Republic of Congo,
perhaps as a result of the significant foreign direct investment
inflows to these countries and a desire to signal their commitment to
improving the transparency and predictability of their legal environments.
including requirements such
as reciprocity of enforcement
by the award-holder's home
state and with wider scope for
refusal of recognition.
Foreign investors will
therefore need to invest more
resources in investigating the
position in these countries,
and issues such as the judicial
attitudes to arbitration become
more significant.
A few African countries have
recently informally indicated
an intention to become
signatories to the New York
Convention in the near future,
including Angola and the
Democratic Republic of
Congo, perhaps as a result of
the significant foreign direct
investment inflows to these
countries and a desire to
signal their commitment to
improving the transparency
and predictability of their
legal environments.

OHADA member states that
are not party to the New York
Convention, the territorial
limitations of the OHADA
enforcement regime for
arbitral awards may impact
upon the attractiveness of
their investment climate for
foreign investment.
NON-CONVENTION
COUNTRIES
In countries which are neither
party to the New York
Convention nor an OHADA
member state, foreign
investors seeking to enforce a
foreign award must rely on
the enforcement provisions of
national arbitration laws,
which, by and large, tend to be
more onerous than the
enforcement regime under the
New York Convention, often

www.esqlaw.net

ARBITRATING IN AFRICA:
OPEN FOR BUSINESS
Hand in hand with the need
for stronger and more
predictable enforcement
regimes for arbitral awards in
Africa, is the need for more
arbitration hearings to be held
on the continent. The regular
application and testing of
arbitration laws will develop
the arbitration experience of
domestic courts and increase
public awareness of arbitration in commercial matters,
which in turn may alleviate
current challenges such as the
time it takes to enforce arbitral
awards in certain countries.
Over the past year there have
been a number of new
arbitration centres springing
up in countries across the
continent in efforts to
strengthen the legitimacy of
international arbitration in
Africa.
In the continuing spirit of
improving its legal system and
attracting investors, Rwanda
launched its own arbitration
centre, the Kigali Centre for
International Arbitration
(KIAC), on 31 May 2012. The
KIAC was the first dedicated
centre for the administration

of international arbitration in
the East Africa Community
(comprising Burundi, Kenya,
Tanzania, Rwanda and
Uganda) with the ambition of
serving not only the business
and investment community of
Rwanda, but of the entire
region, including the Common
Market of Eastern
and Southern Africa (comprising twenty countries stretching from Libya to Zimbabwe).
There has been a recent
addition to the number of
arbitration institutions in
Nigeria, with the launc