The Single African Air Transport Market (SAATM) is Africa’s most ambitious aviation liberalization initiative to date. However, progress towards making SAATM a reality has been frustratingly slow. This article argues that SAATM’s main limiting factor pertains to the lack of compulsory supranational adjudication that can convert policy pledges into enforceable rights. A reading of the Yamoussoukro Decision’s (YD’s) dispute settlement provision (Annex 3), the African Union (AU) Constitutive Act and the African Civil Aviation Commission’s (AFCAC’s) enforcement powers show that SAATM commitments are currently designed to be aspirational rather than self-executing. Drawing on the European Union (EU) experience, this article explains how doctrines of compulsory jurisdiction, direct effect and judicial supremacy allowed the EU Court of Justice to constitutionalize the EU’s internal market freedoms and underpin market actors’ expectations. While consent-based arbitration decides individual cases under SAATM, it does not foster consistent interpretations or systemic compliance. Meaningful liberalization will require a more solid and effective supranational constitutionalization of the AU legal order. Hence, this article concludes that without binding enforcement mechanisms, SAATM will remain a liberalization framework rather than a single aviation market. This article forms part of a broader research project examining institutional design in aviation dispute settlement. For a complementary analysis that proposes a detailed institutional model for both African and global aviation dispute resolution.
Air and Space Law