International Law and Regional Electricity Infrastructure: The West African Power Pool

In nearly all regions, politico-legal projects for regional organization and integration often prioritize infrastructure construction and maintenance. In West Africa, the development of a regional organization by the post-colonial independent states, in particular the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) formed in 1975, has enabled states to allocate certain powers to formal and informal regional political institutions with the aim of building state effectiveness and capacity and hence increasing public support and popular legitimacy. In this Essay, I argue that regional organizations serve as governance structures whose infrastructural and institutional mechanisms contextually address the needs of states and their citizens. This account particularly applies to West African electricity arrangements overseen through an unusual ECOWAS-linked regional infrastructural organization, the West African Power Pool (WAPP). The case of WAPP demonstrates how the energy infrastructure shapes and modifies regional institutional rules and practices.