African arbitration must no longer be viewed from Europe
African arbitration must no longer be viewed from Europe
For a long time, whenever international arbitration in Africa came up, attention turned naturally toward Paris, London, Geneva, or Singapore. That reality is gradually changing.
Africa is no longer merely an investment territory requiring dispute-resolution mechanisms imported from elsewhere. It is building its own institutions, its own practitioners, its own arbitration centres, and above all a new generation of professionals capable of carrying a genuinely international vision of dispute resolution.
From Casablanca to Abidjan, from Dakar to Lagos, from Nairobi to Johannesburg, Africa's arbitration ecosystems are evolving. The question is therefore no longer simply:
The real question is now:
This question matters especially for Francophone Africa. The growth of trade, infrastructure, energy, telecommunications, international financing, and intra-African investment will inevitably increase the volume of complex contracts and, with them, the risk of disputes. Arbitration should therefore be seen not merely as a mechanism for resolving a crisis that has already arisen, but as a tool of legal certainty and economic confidence.
Africa must also connect its ecosystems. One of the great challenges of the coming years will be to bring the continent's different arbitral traditions and communities closer together.
- Francophone Africa
- Anglophone Africa
- Lusophone Africa
- North Africa
- East Africa
- Southern Africa
These regions have different experiences, but they share the same need: creating an environment where investors and businesses can trust the mechanisms used to resolve disputes. This is where international exchange between institutions, arbitrators, and young practitioners becomes essential.
My involvement in the YSIAC / SIAC ecosystem has convinced me of one thing in particular: the new generation of arbitrators no longer thinks solely along traditional geographic lines. It thinks in networks. It exchanges across continents. It learns from different arbitral cultures. And above all, it believes that the future of international arbitration is built through cooperation.
And where does Morocco fit into this dynamic?
Morocco occupies a particularly interesting position. At the crossroads of Europe, Africa, and the Mediterranean and Atlantic spaces, Casablanca can play an important role in building a genuine arbitral bridge between Francophone Africa and the major international arbitration centres. But this will require more cooperation, more training, greater international visibility, and above all a new generation of practitioners capable of engaging with multiple legal cultures.
The goal should not be to replace the major international centres. The goal should be to build bridges with them.
A conviction
The future of African arbitration will probably be neither exclusively African nor exclusively international. It will be African AND international. It is precisely this convergence that can allow the continent to become not only an important ground for international arbitration, but also a genuine centre for producing knowledge, expertise, and arbitral talent.
Because Africa should no longer simply be the place where disputes are arbitrated. It must also become one of the places where the international arbitration of tomorrow is conceived and built.
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