The Ecowas Electricity Market

The creation of the ECOWAS electricity market is an attempt to govern the West African regional electricity commons; that space for which if there is there is no framework for law and order, there can emerge tragic outcomes of overuse or under-exploitation of a valuable resource and space. The question then is what has driven the framework for the ECOWAS electricity market? While governing the commons is the prime rationale, law, when it appears at a certain time, reflects the ideas and interests of social and economic actors and variables at play. My thesis pursues this hitherto unexplored line of intellectual inquiry. My findings are that with the elaborate and detailed electricity market rules it seems ECOWAS continues down the path of transplanting European Union structures and practices without due consideration for whether such transplants find fertile soil in ECOWAS at this time.