Legal impediments to regional integration in the great lakes region

Abstract

The Great Lakes Region has long been viewed as a land of untapped economic potential due to, amongst other factors, the failures of the Economic Community of the Great Lakes Countries (ECGLC)1 and the Rwandan genocide. The region has many opportunities and common initiatives despite tensions among its core countries. Cross-borders trade, common infrastructures and common border security zones operations have shown that regional integration is possible within the region. From the Dar-Es-Salaam Conference and Declaration2 in November 2004, and thereafter, the signing of the International Conference on the Great Lakes Region (ICGLR) Pact3 in Nairobi, in 2006 the Group of Friends (GoFs) and the member states plus international non-governmental organisations (NGOs) took a stance to build for the future of the region. They created this new regional integration initiative in order to achieve peace. Peace has multiple dimensions and implications among which poverty alleviation and building of common future in the region are crucial and conducive to increase of population resources.4 Poverty alleviation, sustainable management of common infrastructures, trade and security can be effectively achieved by integrating economically the region.