Model EU and Pattern OHADA?

This volume contains all the papers presented during the working session of the Section for Comparative Commercial and Business Law at the 39th Conference of the German Society for Comparative Law in Berlin. Today, the European Union (EU) and the Organisation pour l'harmonisation en Afrique du droit des affaires (OHADA) are the two most integrated supranational organisations in the world. On the one hand, OHADA was institutionally modelled on the EU. But on the other hand, based on an essentially French legal tradition, OHADA was able to go much further in the unification of commercial law, as evidenced by meanwhile eleven Uniform Acts relating to principally all aspects of commercial law. 140 years after the beginning of the so-called Berlin Conference concerning the Scramble for Africa this comparative approach also reflects the paradigm shift in the relationship between Europe and Africa.

is Professor of Private Law at the University of Basel.