ECOWAS (Economic Community of West African States)
A regional community founded in Lagos in 1975 and based in Abuja, which sanctions its members after a coup and is distinct from the WAEMU monetary union.
ECOWAS (Economic Community of West African States) is a regional community founded in Lagos in 1975, with its Commission in Abuja, that sanctions its members after a coup. On January 9, 2022, in Accra, ECOWAS heads of state closed their countries' borders with Mali, suspended trade other than essential goods and froze the Malian state's assets in their central banks; the measures were lifted on July 3. The Economic Community of West African States was born of the Treaty of Lagos of May 28, 1975, revised in Cotonou in 1993, and its Commission sits in Abuja. For a long time it had fifteen members, English-, French- and Portuguese-speaking, with Nigeria as the heavyweight and eight currencies. That is what separates it from WAEMU (West African Economic and Monetary Union): ECOWAS is an economic and political community, with no common currency to date, the eco project having been postponed several times, while WAEMU groups the eight states of the West African CFA franc. The 2001 Supplementary Protocol on Democracy and Good Governance sets zero tolerance for any unconstitutional access to power and is the basis for sanctions. Guinea in 2021, Mali in 2022, Niger after the coup of July 26, 2023, with a threat of armed intervention and sanctions lifted in February 2024: the Community has used them more than any other African regional organization. For an underwriter, the technical point is simple and often missed. The most widely used sanctions clause in the London market, LMA 3100 (a Lloyd's Market Association clause), refers to United Nations resolutions and to the sanctions of the European Union, the United Kingdom and the United States. An ECOWAS sanction is not among them. It therefore does not trigger the exclusion, but it can produce a loss: a border closure for a landlocked country, a frozen payment, a broken supply contract. The withdrawal of Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger, effective at the end of January 2025, cut the Community to twelve members and took away part of the reach of its sanctions.
Textbook case: in August 2023, a freight forwarder covered for disruption of its flows between the port of Cotonou and Niamey sees the border closed under ECOWAS (Economic Community of West African States) sanctions. The underwriter notes that the policy's sanctions clause does not refer to the Community and handles the claim as an embargo risk.
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