Supranational or Confederate? Rethinking the African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA) Competition Protocol Institutional Design

African countries are currently negotiating the substantive and procedural rules under the African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA) Competition Protocol. However, the most daunting task ahead for the negotiators is whether to institutionalize cooperation by delegating authority to the supranational institution or establish a confederate institution at the continental level that will provide a forum where competition agencies at the national and regional level cooperate in the enforcement of competition law, without a common binding continental competition law. Drawing from a dearth of literature on institutional designs and the experiences of existing regional competition regimes (RCR), the core aim of this paper is to explore the most appropriate institutional design for the AfCFTA continental competition regime (CCR). Building on rational choice design theoretical framework and considering the development of competition law enforcement on the continent, and preference heterogeneity, I argue for a confederate institutional design. Thus, within the AfCFTA Secretariat, African countries should establish an expert working group on competition policy, similar to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Experts Group on Competition (AEGC) ASEAN AEGC to oversee cooperation on competition policy within the AfCFTA