Together with Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso will leave the sub-regional organisation.
The transitional government in Burkina Faso has informed the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Commission that it maintains its decision to leave the regional institution, according to a note from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
The government “reiterates Burkina Faso’s decision to withdraw from ECOWAS without delay… It also informs it of the irreversible nature of this decision,” read the note, dated Wednesday, February 7, 2024.
Burkina Faso said it was “not bound by any deadline.”
Article 91 of the CEDEAO treaty stipulates that member countries remain bound by their obligations for a period of one year after giving notice about their withdrawal.
The country’s justification for maintaining its decision is that the organisation itself has violated its own stipulations. This is evidenced by the sanctions imposed on countries in transition.
For Ouagadougou, ECOWAS is denying its revised treaty by sanctioning Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso.
On Tuesday, February 6, Mali reaffirmed the irreversible nature of its decision to withdraw immediately from the bloc.
“Neither these texts nor any other legal instrument of the organization provides for the closure of borders to a member state. Furthermore, by this decision, the ECOWAS conference has violated Mali’s right of access to and from the sea and its freedom of transit, as provided for in Article 125 of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, adopted in Montego Bay on December 10, 1982,” the Malian government argued.
