Communitarisation of the Legal Profession in the WAEMU Region: 19 Years of Legal Integration and Professional Challenges

Article written on May 30, 2025 by Mathieu KOMBATE

Since the adoption of Regulation No. 10/2006/CM/UEMOA on the free movement of lawyers, the legal profession within the WAEMU region has undergone a progressive and structuring process of communitarisation. This term refers here to the establishment of a genuine regional professional legal order, governed by common norms, oriented towards free movement, harmonisation of practices, and the construction of a shared professional ethic.

After 19 years of normative evolution, WAEMU now offers one of the most advanced frameworks in Africa for the supranational regulation of a liberal profession. However, this process remains incomplete, confronted with institutional challenges, national resistance, and emerging technical issues.

I. A Progressive Construction of the Coherence of the Community Legal Framework

The legal foundation of communitarisation is built on a set of complementary legal instruments that define the conditions of access, practice, discipline, and professional ethics for lawyers at the regional level:

Regulation No. 10/2006/CM/UEMOA, adopted eight years before Regulation No. 05, marks the birth of professional mobility within the Union. It sets out the principle of freedom of movement and establishment for lawyers who are nationals of WAEMU Member States, recognising their ability to practice in any other Member State.
Regulation No. 05/CM/UEMOA of 25 September 2014 represents a major qualitative advancement. It harmonises the conditions of access to the profession, the disciplinary regime, modalities of individual and collective practice, and the general principles of the profession. It establishes mutual recognition and guarantees equality of professional practice for community lawyers.

Beginning in 2018, seven implementing regulations structured this architecture:

The WAEMU Code of Ethics for Lawyers (2018): adopted by national bars, it introduced a shared ethical foundation (independence, confidentiality, loyalty, dignity);
Regulation No. 002/2019 on initial and continuing legal education, and Regulation No. 001/2019 on the CAPA (Certificate of Aptitude for the Legal Profession): these instruments define a shared foundation ensuring the lawyer’s obligation of competence;
Regulation No. 003/2018 on the lawyer's countersigned act: it enhances the evidentiary value of such acts and allows for their enforcement pursuant to Article 33 of the OHADA Uniform Act on Simplified Recovery Procedures and Enforcement Measures;
Regulation No. 002/2018 on CARPA: it standardises the management of client funds and the operating procedures for CARPA accounts;
Regulation No. 001/COM/UEMOA on the right of audience: it governs the payment of a mandatory fee by any person who retains a lawyer for representation.

This body of law constitutes a true community-level professional constitution, inspired in part by the European model (Directive 98/5/EC), but endowed with direct applicability in all WAEMU Member States.

II. A Rethinking of Professional Territoriality

The communitarisation process has significantly transformed the traditional territorial framework of the legal profession. Lawyers are no longer confined to their national bar’s jurisdiction. Thanks to the principles enshrined in Regulation No. 10/2006/CM/UEMOA and strengthened by Regulation No. 05/CM/UEMOA of 2014, any lawyer duly registered with a bar in the Union may practice, plead, and even associate in another Member State, without undergoing a full national integration procedure.

This right to free professional movement also includes the ability to open secondary offices in multiple Member States, or to join multidisciplinary regional firms. As a result, regional law firms have emerged, established in Lomé, Cotonou, Dakar, or Ouagadougou, and operating simultaneously in several countries according to a “one-stop shop” legal model.

Communitarisation has also intensified lawyers’ involvement in cross-border litigation, especially in matters of OHADA law, regional tax issues, and international arbitration. Today, it is increasingly common to see a Beninese lawyer represent a Togolese company in arbitration seated in Abidjan, or a Senegalese lawyer act for a Burkinabe investor in commercial litigation before the courts in Lomé. This expanded mobility is all the more significant given that WAEMU Member States now share a harmonised legal corpus (OHADA, CIMA, WAEMU, ECOWAS), making cross-border legal expertise indispensable.

Nonetheless, mobility remains hindered in practice. Some bar associations still require disguised re-registration procedures or impose informal conditions (exclusive domiciliation, letters of sponsorship, etc.). Similarly, several national courts ignore or fail to apply community law, either due to insufficient judicial training or a lack of institutional will.

This tension between community norms and local professional sovereignty remains one of the primary obstacles to the system’s effectiveness.

III. A Professional Community Governance Yet to Be Consolidated

Despite a substantial body of regional law, WAEMU still lacks a formal community-level regulatory body for the legal profession. Although a coordination platform exists—the Conference of WAEMU Bar Associations—it is not, or at least not yet, a full-fledged community disciplinary authority in the institutional sense.

As a result, regulation of the profession remains largely national, even as professional activity becomes increasingly community-based. This creates several imbalances:

Disciplinary sanctions issued in one Member State are not automatically transmitted or enforceable in others;
Continuing education, although mandatory under WAEMU law, is unevenly applied and lacks regional coordination;
The organisation of the CAPA exam and entry into professional training centres varies greatly from one state to another, creating a structural inequality of access to the profession despite the regional framework;
The Conference of Bar Leaders’ meetings (Lomé 2023, Abidjan 2024) remain consultative and have no binding legal authority.

This governance gap undermines the coherence of the system, despite the high quality of its legal instruments.

IV. A Momentum Oscillating Between Deepening and Fatigue

The communitarisation project has reached a critical juncture. On the one hand, the legal foundations are comprehensive, coherent, and modern. The emerging generation of lawyers is familiar with UEMOA regulations, integrated firm models, and shared ethical standards.

On the other hand, the profession lacks essential operational tools to function effectively at a regional level. Notably, no central professional register exists to list WAEMU lawyers authorised to practice across Member States. This lack of traceability hampers oversight and makes it harder to monitor cross-border ethical violations or disciplinary histories. In contrast, the European Find-a-Lawyer system, coordinated by the CCBE, provides open access to key data on lawyers registered in EU Member States—a tool still missing in the WAEMU region.

In addition, although Regulation No. 002/2018 on CARPA sets the framework for client fund management, no regional digital CARPA system has been implemented. In countries like France or Morocco, digital CARPA platforms allow lawyers to manage client accounts securely and transparently online—offering a model that WAEMU could emulate.

Another major shortcoming is the absence of a certified community-level continuing legal education system. Although Regulation No. 002/2019 mandates continuous training, implementation varies widely across national bars. Unlike the European Union, where transnational courses validated by the CCBE enhance legal capacity, WAEMU has no unified platform for professional development.

These technical shortcomings are increasingly concerning as new challenges arise, such as legal digitalisation, virtual court platforms, legaltech innovation, and online or hybrid practice models. Yet none of the current WAEMU regulations explicitly address these shifts. The risk is that a profession structured around regional law may become practically outdated and unable to meet the demands of a modern, mobile, and tech-driven legal landscape.

In light of this, a comprehensive regulatory revision is necessary. Such reform should aim to:

Establish a permanent regional professional body to supervise and guide the profession’s development;
Ensure uniform implementation of community law, notably through the creation of a regional lawyers’ register interoperable with national bars and courts;
Introduce a digital and cross-border dimension into the legal framework, including provisions for e-signatures, online practice, remote training, and digital management of ethical obligations.

Only through such reforms can WAEMU transition from a partially harmonised normative framework to a fully functional, modern, and enduring regional legal profession—on par with the most advanced legal systems in the world.

Conclusion

In the span of 19 years, the legal profession in WAEMU has evolved from a purely national model to a regional legal system. Communitarisation has produced a shared professional law, regulated mobility, harmonised ethics, and a collective aspiration toward functional unity.

The legal foundation has largely been laid. What remains is the profession’s ability to translate that framework into daily practice: a regional, inclusive, and adaptive legal profession equipped for contemporary realities.

Sources:

This article draws on the following WAEMU regulations:

* Regulation No. 10/2006/CM/UEMOA on the free movement and establishment of lawyers within the Union;
* Regulation No. 05/CM/UEMOA of 25 September 2014 on the harmonisation of rules governing the legal profession in WAEMU;
* Implementing Regulation No. 001/2019/COM/UEMOA on the Certificate of Aptitude for the Legal Profession (CAPA);
* Implementing Regulation No. 002/2019/COM/UEMOA on initial and continuing training for lawyers;
* Implementing Regulation No. 003/2018/COM/UEMOA on the lawyer’s act;
* Implementing Regulation No. 002/2018/COM/UEMOA on CARPA (client fund management);
* Implementing Regulation No. 001/COM/UEMOA on the right of audience;
* WAEMU Code of Ethics for Lawyers.

Web sources consulted:

* [www.uemoa.int](http://www.uemoa.int) – Official WAEMU Commission website;
* [www.ordredesavocats.sn](http://www.ordredesavocats.sn) – Senegal Bar Association;
* [www.barreaudutogo.tg](http://www.barreaudutogo.tg) – Togo Bar Association;
* [www.cfpa.tg](http://www.cfpa.tg) – Togolese Legal Training Centre;
* [www.barreauduniger.ne](http://www.barreauduniger.ne) – Niger Bar Association (notably the 3rd WAEMU Lawyers Congress proceedings);
* Case law from the WAEMU Court of Justice, particularly ruling No. 01/2021 of 19 May 2021.

Comparative references were also made to European Union standards, particularly Directive 98/5/EC of 16 February 1998 on the permanent exercise of the legal profession in another Member State.

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