How did you choose your research topic?

In the course of my second Master’s degree (LLM) at the University of Cape Town, while studying international humanitarian law, I encountered literature on military humanitarian interventions that have been successfully conducted by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and the Southern African Development Community (SADC). This was a “eureka moment” since my previous relevant studies that spanned international trade law, international human rights law and international humanitarian law were oblivious to the aforementioned role of SSA trade communities in the humanitarian intervention space. Recognising the significance of (a) furthering research on the “root” causes of armed conflict in SSA (with a focus on the legacy of colonialism/neo-colonialism), (b) amplifying the role of sub-regional economic communities (SRECs) in African and international peace-security, and (c) breaking ground on scholarship on how SRECs can be fine-tuned to enhance delivery of peace-security dividends in Africa, I chose the topic of research. 

What were your research questions?

My main research questions were:

1. Do SSA SRECs have an impact on peace-security in the region? 
2. Why and how did the East African Community (EAC) and ECOWAS cross over from their original mandates around political-economic cooperation (in the 1960s–70s) into explicit peace-security functions (starting early 1990s)?

What was your methodology?

The research was desk-library based. It employed an essentially qualitative approach relying on primary sources (legal instruments, i.e. treaties, protocols, case law) and secondary sources (notably textbooks, academic journals, and newspapers), complemented with quantitative elements (statistics, numerical calculations/projections) similarly drawn mainly from primary sources (World Bank, International Monetary Fund [IMF], UN Conference on Trade and Development [UNCTAD], African Union [AU], African Development bank (AfDB), UN Economic Commission for Africa [UNECA], World Economic Forum [WEF]) and secondary sources (text books, journals, and newspapers). The study adopted an interdisciplinary approach exploring the interconnections encompassing international law (economic law, human rights law and humanitarian law), international relations (critical security studies) and economics in addressing the research questions – with a bias towards the legal discipline the principal discipline for the articulation of the study. The main research techniques employed when engaging with the relevant literature were discourse analysis, legal analysis, case studies and participant observation.

Can you tell us about your major findings?

My study highlights several matters critical for a fuller appreciation of the inimitable role of SRECs in African and international peace-security:

• It empirically confirms the existence of a "conflict trap" in a significant proportion of SSA states.
• It reveals the depth of trade treaties of SSA SRECs, which encompass multilateral cooperation of partner states in areas not traditionally housed under trade treaties (“WTO-extra” issues) such as peace-security, shared natural resources management, food security, land, energy, civil aviation, education, health research, etc.
• It establishes the prevalence of international armed conflicts (IACs) in SSA, contradicting the prevailing literature which fronts non-international armed conflicts (civil wars) as the most prevalent type of armed conflict in SSA.
• It establishes that SRECs (EAC and ECOWAS) have evolved from political-economic organisations into peace-security entities driving “deep” multilateral peace-security cooperation with sub-regional, continental and international peace-security implications, highlighting the factors that precipitated and those that propel this evolution.
• It reveals the tangible contributions of SRECs to peace-security in SSA and provides insights into their potential for even greater contributions by examining their impact on
  (a) negative peace through SREC humanitarian interventions, i.e. peace enforcement and peacekeeping, and the IAC deterrent effect from SREC-driven trade-economic interdependencies as per liberal peace theory;
  (b) positive peace through SREC enhancement of human rights, rule of law and good/democratic governance standards by means of SREC courts, SREC elections observance institutions, SREC “good offices” and SREC sanctions regimes;
  (c) human security;
  (d) emancipation-liberation through SREC-driven structural transformation of SSA economies, hence welfare gains and enhanced economic indicators while overcoming the colonial legacy of commodity export dependence in international trade.

To put it briefly, the thesis extensively demonstrates the contribution of SRECs to peace-security in SSA while making a case for the better leveraging of SRECs so they can play a greater role in resolving the “conflict trap” afflicting the region.

What are you doing now in your post-PhD life? 

I work at the World Economic Forum (Africa Division) as the Lead for Regional and Global Cooperation, Africa. The role entails leading on government affairs and engagement of African states for public-private partnerships facilitated by the WEF, in addition to coordinating the Forum Friends of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) – an initiative housed at the WEF that mobilises global business to support the AfCFTA’s implementation

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Walter Mandela defended with magna cum laude his PhD thesis in International Law on 27 October 2023. Assistant Professor Neha Mishra presided over the committee, which included Professor Joost Pauwelyn and Professor Keith Krause, Thesis Co-Supervisors, and, as External Reader, Professor Landry Signé, Thunderbird School of Global Management, Arizona State University, USA.

Citation of the PhD thesis: 
Mandela, Walter. “Resolving Sub-Saharan Africa’s ‘Conflict Trap’: The Inimitable Contribution of Sub-Regional Economic Communities (EAC, ECOWAS, SADC) through ‘Deep’ Trade Treaties.” PhD thesis, Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva, 2024.

Access to the PhD thesis:
Members of the Geneva Graduate Institute can access the thesis via this page of the repository. Others can contact Dr Mandela.

Interview by Nathalie Tanner, Research Office.