Hierarchy of Letters of Credit Laws in Ghana and Its Effect on International Trade

The advent of international business brought with it, its sophistications and one such is the cross jurisdictional facility of documentary letters of credit. This created a vacuum for regulation. To this, various international and municipal laws evolved. The question that arose with the development of these laws is What is the hierarchy of their application? The hierarchy of application of these laws is significant to successful launch of actions by disputants in aid of the protection of their rights and obligations. The relevance of the determination of their hierarchy is that it helps adjudicatory bodies to appropriately apply on a case by case basis what laws become relevant to the settlement of disputes thence avoiding any circumstance of conflict of laws. This paper employs quantitative and qualitative methods in reviewing various literatures related to the regulatory framework of letters of credit. These laws take their sources from municipal and international jurisdictions. On the international front treaties take top hierarchy followed by Customs, Case laws, Policies and publications of eminent jurists or legal academics. In Ghana, the hierarchy is sourced from the order in Article 11 of the 1992 Constitution