Informal-sector entrepreneurs, development and formal law: A functional understanding of business law

American Journal of Comparative Law

Volumn 59, Issue 1, 2011, Pages 179-226

  Dickerson, Claire Moore ^a,b  

^a TULANE UNIVERSITY   (United States)

^b UNIVERSITY OF BUEA   (Cameroon)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 79953081889     PISSN: 0002919X     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.5131/AJCL.2010.0011     Document Type: Article

References (111)

1. Traité du 17 octobre 1993 relatif à l'harmonisation du droit des affaires en Afrique [Treaty on the Harmonization of Business Law in Africa], Oct. 17, 1993, 4 JOURNAL OFFICIEL OHADA 1 (Nov. 1, 1997) [hereinafter OHADA Treaty], available at http://www.ohada.com/traite.php?categorie=10. See also infra Part II.B.1.
2. U.N. Development Programme, Comm'n on Legal Empowerment of the Poor, Volume I: Report of the Commission on Legal Empowerment of the Poor 28 (2008) [hereinafter UNDP Report v. 1] (citation omitted), available at http://www.undp.org/legalempowerment/report/Making-the-Law-Work-for-Everyone. pdf.
3. See Friedrich Schneider, Size and Measurement of the Informal Economy in 110 Countries Around the World 5 (July, 2002), available at http://rru. worldbank.org/Documents/PapersLinks/informal-economy.pdf.
4. Infi Labour Org. [ILO], Women and Men in the Informal Economy: A statistical picture, 19 (2002), available at http://www.wiego.org/publirations/ women%20and%20men%20m%20the%20informal%20economy.pdf [hereinafter ILO Statistics].
5. Up to seventy-two percent of nonagricultural employment in sub-Saharan Africa is in the informal economy. Id. Developed countries such as the United States do have informal economies as well, of course. See, e.g., Carmen G. Gonzalez, Squatters, Pirates and Entrepreneurs: Is Informality the Solution to the Urban Housing Crisis?, 40 U. MIAMI INTER-AM. L. REV. 239, 252 n. 102-07 (2009)
6. (quoting Saskin for explanation and Larson for trend). In developed countries, however, the informal economy represents a much smaller percentage of GDP. See, e.g., Schneider, supra note 3, at 18-20 (OECD countries; U.S. estimated at 8.7% of GDP in 2001/2002). For a multi-variable analysis of the size of the informal sector, see Guillermo Vuletin, Measuring the Informal Economy in Latin America and the Caribbean 5-8 (Int'l Monetary Fund, Working Paper No. 08/102, Apr. 2008), available at http://www.inif.org/extemal/pubs/ft/ wp/2008/wp08102.pdf.
7. See infra Part II.A.1. See also Int'l Labour Conference, June 3, 2002, Report of the Committee on the Informal Economy, 16-19, 53 ELC90-PR25-292-En.Doc (2002) [hereinafter ILC Informal Paper], available at http://www.ilo.org/ public/english/standards/relm/ilc/ilc90/pdf7pr-25.pdf (listing various asserted characteristics of the informal economy and denning the informal economy); see also Schneider, supra note 3 at 3 (noting the difficulty of defining the informal economy).
8. See, e.g., World Bank Group, Intl Finance Corp., Designing a Tax System for micro and Small Businesses: Guide for Practitioners ix (Dec. 2007) [hereinafter Designing a Tax System], available at http://www.ifc.org/ifcext/ fias.nsf/AttachmentsByTitle/Manualsand Toolkits-DesigningTaxSystem/$FILE/ Designing+a+Tax+System.pdf ("[o]perating in the informal economy negatively impacts society as a whole...").
9. The World Bank articulates that it is seeking to improve the life of ordinary people. The World Bank, Comprehensive Development Framework, http://go.worldbank.org/O3CN35INY0 (last viaited June 29, 2010). lt also tells governments to collect taxes. E.g., Designing a Tax System, supra note 7, at vii (instructing government actors on how to extract taxes from the informal sector).
10. A survey of the U.S. business-law literature suggests that business experts will focus on classic business-law concepts, such as the predictability of business law and the agency problems attendant to manager-owner relations, as they seek to identify the essential building blocks of the pro-business environment in the North. As an example, consider the number of articles in Northern reviews discussing agency cost, collective action problems, and corporate law generally. E.g., John C. Coffee, Jr., Reforming the Securities Class Action: An Essay on Deterrence and Its Implementation, 106 COLUM. L. REV. 1534 (2006) (discussing the role of agency costs in securities class action suits);
11. Bernard Black et al., Legal Liability of Directors and Company Officials Part 2: Court Procedures, Indemnification and Insurance, and Administrative and Criminal Liability (Report to the Russian Securities Agency), 2008 COLUM. BUS. L. REV. 1, 161 (2008) (noting the procedural obstacles to solving collective action problems in Russia).
12. See, e.g., Winnie V. Mitullah, Street Vending, in African Cities: A Synthesis of Empirical Findings from Kenya, Côte d'Ivoire, Ghana, Zimbabwe, Uganda and South Africa 7 (Aug. 16, 2003), http://www.wiego.org/ papers/2005/unifem/24-Mitullah-Streetvending-African-Cities.pdf.
13. There is a long history of such thinking. One particularly fascinating example is the work of the great French comparatist, René David, to introduce the French Code of Commerce, in English translation, to Ethiopia. See WERNER MENSKI, COMPARATIVE LAW IN A GLOBAL CONTEXT: THE LEGAL SYSTEMS OF ASIA AND AFRICA 486 (2006);
14. RENE DAVID, COMMENTARY ON CONTRACTS IN ETHIOPIA (Michael Kindred trans. 1973).
15. Abhijit Vinayak Banerjee, Big Answers for Big Questions: The Presumption of Growth Policy, in WHAT WORKS IN DEVELOPMENT? 207 (Jessica Cohen & William Easterly eds., 2009) (emphasizing the relationship).
16. See, e.g., World Bank, Executive Summary, Annual Review of Development Effectiveness 2006 (2006), available at http://lnweb90.worldbank.org/OED/ oeddoclib.nsf/DocUNIDViewForJavaSearch/0250B7B211337A4C852574EF0073DAF9/ $file/arde06-full.pdf.
17. AMARTYA SEN, CHOICE, WELFARE AND MEASUREMENT 30-31 (1982) (discussing capability as the ability to function as the individual wishes).
18. See also, e.g., David M. Trubek & Alvaro Santos, Introduction: The Third Moment in Law and Development Theory at the Emergence of a New Critical Practice, in THE NEW LAW AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT: A CRITICAL APPRAISAL 1, 11 (David M. Trubek & Alvaro Santos eds., 2006) (discussing Sen);
19. Claire Moore Dickerson, Harmonizing Business Laws in Africa: OHADA Calls the Tune, 44 COLUM. J. TRANSNAT'L L. 17, 70 n. 222, 26-27 n. 21, 28-29 n. 31 (2005) (discussing Sen).
20. AMARYA SEN, DEVELOPMENT AS FREEDOM 119 (1999). See also UNDP Report v. 1, supra note 2, at 26 (stating that a Kenyan woman's job selling cabbage allows her to send three of her twelve children to school).
21. SEN, supra note 22, at 144 (discussing capability as a kind of freedom and the state's role in supporting the capabilities of education and welfare). See also Jeffrey D. Sachs et al., Ending Africa's Poverty Trap, in BROOKINGS PAPERS ON ECON. ACTIVITY 1:2004 117, 146 (George L. Perry & William C Brainard eds., 2004) (listing certain factors for development, and including a reference to the UN's Millennium Development Goals as a starting point).
22. See, e.g., 15th Int'l Conference of Labour Statisticians, Jan. 1993,
23. Resolution Concerning Statistics of Employment in the Informal Sector, 5(1) (Jan. 28, 1993) [hereinafter ICLS Resolution 1993], available at http://ilo-mirror.library.cornell.edu/Public/english/bureau/stat/download/res/ infsec.pdf.
24. Also approved by the World Bank. See The World Bank Group, Informal Labor Markets in Transition Economies, Concept of Informal Sector, available at http://mweb90.worldbank.org/eca/eca.nsf7Sectors/ECSPE/ 2E4EDE543787A0C085256A940073F4E4?OpenDocument (last visited June 29, 2010) (explaining that the informal sector is hard to define).
25. See, e.g., International Labour Conference, 90th session, 2002, Report VI Decent Work and the Informal Economy, sixth item on the agenda, 3-4 (2002), available at http://www.ilo.org/public/english/standards/relm/ilc/ilc90/pdf/rep- vi.pdf (not necessarily criminal; lack of protection). It is circumstance that forces persons in the informal sector to illegality. UNDP Report v. 1, supra note 2, at 18, 14 (noting illegality imposed in India). For example, workers cannot afford the required registration, or the mandatory operating licenses are systematically withheld for the center-city locales most appropriate for doing business. See Mitullah, supra note 14; see also infra Parts II.B.2.b & III.B.2.b (concerning taxes and licensing fees).
26. See generally Caroline Skinner, Constraints to Growth and Employment in Durban: Evidence from the Informal Economy, 65 DURBAN: SCH. OF DEV. STUDIES (2005), available at http://www.wiego.org/publications/wiego-members.php.
27. OHADA Treaty, supra note 1. As of July 7, 2010, the West African members of OHADA are Benin, Burkina Faso, Côte d'Ivoire, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Mali, Niger, Senegal, and Togo, and the Central African members of OAHDA are Central African Republic, Chad, Cameroon, Comoros, Congo, Equatorial Guinea, and Gabon. See http://www.ohada.org
28. http://www.ohada.com. On February 22, 2010,
29. the Democratic Republic of Congo's president ratified the country's adoption of the OHADA treaty. See, e.g., OHADA, La Fédération des entreprises du Congo rassurée par l'adhésion de la RDC à l'OHADA [The Federation of Enterprises of Congo (FEC) Reassured by the Accession of the DRC to OHADA], http://www.ohada.org/echo-des-etats-Partiesl/ informations/latest/0,0/6111.html?institution=25%2Crdc (last visited June 29, 2010). By the treaty's terms, the country becomes a member sixty days after the note has been deposited in Senegal. OHADA Treaty, art. 52, para. 3.
30. See, e.g., Robert Cooter, Doing What You Say: Contracts and Economic Development, 59 ALA. L. REV. 1107, 1109 (2008) (concerning the importance of Predictability to business).
31. The concept of negative obligations is familiar to students of human rights and, in particular civil and political rights. See, e.g., Louis B. Sohn, The New International Law: Protection of the Rights of Individuals Rather Than States, 32 AM. U. L. REV. 1, 22 (1982) (discussing civil and political rights as against the state).
32. See also ISAIAH BERLIN, FOUR ESSAYS ON LIBERTY 122-23 (1990) (1969) (discussing negative freedom as freedom from interference).
33. See generally Robert M. Lawless et al., Did Bankruptcy Reform Fail? An Empirical Study of Consumer Debtors, 82 AM. BANKR. L.J. 349 (2008).
34. See Elizabeth Warren, Bankruptcy Policy, 54 U. CHI. L. REV. 775, 777 (1987).
35. Robert Ikoja-Odongo & Dennis N. Ocholla, Information Seeking Behavior of the Informal Sector Entrepreneurs: The Uganda Experience, 54 LIBRI 54, 57 (2004) (finding that 83.2% used own capital, with some help from family and friends).
36. John R. Heilbrunn, Markets, Profits and Power: The Politics of Business in Benin and Togo, 53 INSTITUT d'ETUDES POLITQUES DE BORDEAUX 4 (1997), available at http://www.cean.sciencespobordeaux.fr/page%20perso/td53.pdf (reporting that Yoruba women can take by inheritance).
37. Béatrice Humarau, Les marchés d'Ibadan, pivots de la construction d'une identité féminine et de son rapport au politique, 49 INSTITUT d'ETUDES POLITQUES DE BORDEAUX 10 (1996), available at http://cean.sciencespobordeaux.fr/page%20perso/td49.pdf (reporting that Yoruba husbands are to give some capital to women, but that the women keep profits).
38. See also Ewa Wojkowska, Doing Justice: How informal justice systems can contribute, U.N. Dev. Programme-Oslo Governance Centre, 21 (Dec. 2006), available at http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTLAWJUSTINST/Resources/ EwaWojkowska.pdf (downloaded Apr. 20, 2008), at 21 (discussing inheritance, and woman's ability to own property).
39. Linda E. Lucas, Locating Women: Structure and Work in the Ugandan Macroeconomy, in UNPACKING GLOBALIZATION: MARKETS, GENDER, AND WORK 101, 104 (Linda E. Lucas ed., 2007) (noting that in 1994, women had higher participation rates than men in Uganda's urban regions: 80.6% versus 67.6%);
40. KINUTHIA MACHARIA, SOCIAL AND POLITICAL DYNAMICS OF THE INFORMAL ECONOMY IN AFRICAN CITIES: NAIROBI AND HARARE 33 (1997) (noting that in the 1980s, women made up roughly two-thirds of the informal economy of Zimbabwe, "especially in Harare").
41. David Hemson, CBD Durban with Special Emphasis on Warwick Junction, Human Sciences Research Council 15 (May 2003) [hereinafter Warwick Jct.], available at http://www.sarpn.org/documents/d0000875/docs/ CBD%20DurbanWithSpecialEmphasisOnWarwickJunction.pdf.
42. See, e.g., Claire Moore Dickerson, The Cameroonian Experience under OHADA: Business Organizations in a Developing Economy, 112:2 Bus. & Soc. REV. 191, 205-06 (2007);
43. see also F.J.A. Bouman, ROSCA and ASCRA: Beyond the Financial Landscape, in FINANCIAL LANDSCAPES RECONSTRUCTED: THE FINE ART OF MAPPING DEVELOPMENT 375, 379-80 (F.J.A. Bouman & Otto Hospes eds., 1994) (describing tontines generically).
44. Djibril Abarchi, l'Introduction du ←ctolmé→ ou ←djinguina→ dans le nouveau code de commerce nigérien: une tentative de valorisation d'une sûreté traditionnelle aux suites incertaines, 4 REVUE NIGERIENNE DE DROIT 55 (2001) [available as OHADATA 03-11 at http://www.ohada.com/bibliographie.php?categorie=&auteur=&ohadata= 731&q=&q-boolean=or&inmotscles=on&action=rechercher&type= doctrine, at 10-11].
45. National governments, however, and not OHADA, determine the fees and details regarding procedures, and are responsible for computerizing the registry. OHADA, Uniform Act Relating to General Commercial Law, arts. 19-68, J.O. Ohada No 1 du 1er Octobre 1997, at 1 (1997,) available at http://www.ohada.com/textes.php?categorie=18 (concerning creation of registry).
46. If the tolmé survives OHADA, filing with the official registry is still not necessary so long as the collateral is a movable (personalty) placed in the creditor's possession, and national law permits oral arrangements. OHADA, Uniform Act Organizing Securities [Secured Transactions], art. 49 (1997) [hereinafter OHADA Securities], available at http://www.ohada.com/textes.Pnp? categorie=458. On the other hand, an interest in assets that cannot be placed in the creditor's possession, such as an interest in immovables or in the entire business, creates a greater problem. Because the notice inherent in transfer to the creditor is not available, these interests are subject to more formalities, including in particular a filing with the official registry, before the creditor is protected as against third-party interests. See, e.g., id., arts. 69 et seq., 117 et seq.
47. See Neo Mooko & L.O. Aina, Information Environment of Artisans in Botswana, 57 LIBRI 27, 30 (2007), available at http://www.ubrijournal.org/pdf/ 2007-1pp27-33.pdf (referring to the delay in computerization).
48. See generally infra note 63 (describing OHADA's precedence over any member-state's internal law covering the same subject matter). OHADA's General Commercial Law does provide for a registry of, inter alia, secured interests. If the tolmé survives OHADA, filing with the official registry is not necessary if the collateral is a movable (personalty) placed in the creditor's possession and national law permits oral arrangements. OHADA Securities, supra note 60, art. 49. The granting of an interest in assets that cannot be placed in the creditor's possession, such as an interest in immovables or in the entire business, creates a greater problem. Because the notice inherent in transfer to the creditor is not available, these interests are subject to more formalities, including in particular a filing with the official registry, before the creditor is protected against third-party interests. See, e.g., id., arts. 69, 117 et seq. Because the registry is a potentially invaluable tool, it would be extremely useful if the national governments were to computerize the registries, lower the fees for filing, and simplify the procedures, in which case even the nano-entrepreneurs could benefit from a cost of borrowing reduced commensurate with reduction of the creditor's risk. All of these conditions are unlikely to be present even in the medium term, although donors are helping OHADA and certain of its members to computerize its OHADA registry. See Appel à Manifestations d'Intérêt - Informatisation du Registre de Commerce et du Crédit Mobilier régional de l'OHADA, Lettre d'information OHADA.com, Oct. 10, 2009, available at http://www.ohada.com/newsletter.php?news= 29102009-749
49. (requesting proposals for the registry's computerization and noting the availability of donor funds). 63. Avis No. 001/2001/EP, Request for Opinion No. 002/2000/EP of October 19, 2000 Republic of Côte d'Ivoire (Nov. 14, 2008), available at http://www.ohada.org/jurisprudence3/actes/publish/0,0/5678,avis-n- 0012001ep.pdf.;
50. Abarchi, supra note 56, at [OHADATA 03-11 at 6-8] (arguing that the tolmé continues to exist for the most part). See also id. [OHADATA 03-11 at 12] (distinguishing between the personalty as security, where the formalities are within the OHADA uniform act's scope, and realty as security, where they are not). See also Joseph Issa-Sayegh, Réflexions et suggestions sur la mise en conformité du droit interne des Etats Parties avec les Actes Uniformes de l'OHADA et réciproquement, 850 PENANT 8 (Jan.-Mar. 2005) (preferring the narrow interpretation that only specifically inconsistent, or identical, provisions of national law are abrogated), available at http://www.ohada.com/doctrine/ohadata/D-02-14;
51. Parfait Diédhiou, L'article 10 du Traité de l'OHADA- quelle portée abrogatoire et supranationale?, REVUE DU DROIT UNIFORME 265, available at http://www.ohada.com/doctrine/ohadata/D-08-05.
52. Alain Durand-Lasserve, Michael Mattingly & Thomas Mogale, La nouvelle coutume urbaine: évolution comparée des filières coutumières de la gestion foncière urbaine dans les pays d'Afrique subsaharienne, 7, avouable at http://www.gemdev.Org/prud/rapports/rapport19-3. pdf (last visited June 10, 2010).
53. See Mitullah, supra note 14, at 7. The website for Women in Informal Employment: Globalizing and Organizing (WIEGO) is www.wiego.org (last visited June 30, 2010).
54. Mitullah, supra note 14, at 17; see also Kivutha Kibwana, Critical Aspects Regarding the Legal Regulation of the Informal Sector, 5:2 LESOTHO L.J. 357, 375-77 (1989).
55. Cameroon, for example, has on paper a quite liberal labor law. See J. Mbendang Ebongue, Libres propos sur la loi no 92/007 du 14 août 1992 portant Code travail du Cameroun, 820 RECUEIL PENANT, REVUE DE DROIT DES PAYS d'AFRIQUE (EDIENA), Jan.-Apr. 1996, at 46.
56. See generally ARLIE HOCHSCHILD & ANNE MACHUNG, THE SECOND SHIFT: WORKING PARENTS AND THE REVOLUTION AT HOME (1989) (discussing a particular type of unpaid work, as manifested in the developed world).
57. Soulève Kanté, Le Secteur informel en Afrique subsaharienne francophone: vers la promotion d'un travail décent, Bureau International du Travail, 40 (2002), Qvailable at http://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/- ed-emp/documents/publication/wcms-122219.pdf.
58. Léonce Ndikumana & Sher Verick, The Linkages between FDI and Domestic factor Markets: Unravelling the Developmental Impact of Foreign Investment 12-13 (2007), available at http://www.unidep.org/Release3/ Conferences/Afea-2007/IDEPAFEA-07-18.pdf; Akinbote Conversation, supra note 64 (explaining that relationships are at best apprenticeships).
59. PETER KIMUYU, INSTITUTIONS RELEVANT TO COMMERCE AND INDUSTRY: MORAL NORMS, SOCIAL CAPITAL, THE STATE AND THE LAW (2000).
60. PETER L. BERNSTEIN, AGAINST THE GODS: THE REMARKABLE STORY OF RISK 133, 219 (1996) (discussing the distinction between uncertainty and risk, and stating that "uncertainty means unknown probabilities," while risk is measurable).
61. Carlos Maldonado et al., Méthodes et Instruments d'Appui au Secteur Informel en Afrique Francophone, Genève, Bureau international du Travail, 123 (2004), available at http://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/-ed- emp/-emp-ent/-ifp-seed/documents/publication/wcms-117713.pdf (discussing Mali's Mutelle des artisans du Mali [←MUTAM→], and its efforts to provide medical support).
62. ILO-Strategies and Tools against Social Exclusion and Poverty Programme, Health Micro-insurance, 47-48 (Sept. 2000), available at http://www.gdrc.org/ icm/step.pdf. CFA stands for "Communauté financière d'Afrique." One-thousand FCFA are worth $2.19 in U.S. dollars on January 17, 2010; eight years earlier, they would have been worth $1.39 in U.S. dollars.
63. See, e.g., Simeon Djankov, A Response to "Is Doing Business Damaging Business", The World Bank, 10-12 (Jan. 2008), available at http://www.doingbusiness.org/documents/Response-to-Arrunada-JCE.pdf (with respect to formation of business).
64. See Xavier Forneris, Harmonising Commercial Law in Africa: The OHADA, 46 JURIS PERIODIQUE 77 (2001), available at http://www.ohada.com/drctrine/ohadata/ D-05-21.
65. OHADA, Uniform Act Organizing Collective Proceedings for Wiping Off Debts (UACP), JURIS INTERNATIONAL (Apr. 10, 1998), available at http://wwwjurisint. org/ohada/text/text. 06.en.html (last visited June 18, 2010). See generally supra note 35 (introducing OHADA).
66. Gilbert Mangin, Quelques points de repère dans l'histoire de la justice en Afrique francophone, 156: 4 AFRIQUE CONTEMPORAINE 26 (1990) (referring to SubSaharan, Francophone countries plus Madagascar).
67. See also Wojkowska, supra note 51 (noting that the so-called "traditional" or "customary" law in Sub-Saharan Africa is not truly either, having been contaminated during the colonial era). The North West and South West Regions of Cameroon were former British colonies. See Jean Alain Penda Matipé. The History of the Harmonization of Laws in Africa, in UNIFIED BUSINESS LAWS FOR AFRICA: COMMON LAW PERSPECTIVES ON OHADA 7, 13-17 (Claire Moore Dickerson ed., 2009) (discussing pre- and immediately post-independence Cameroon).
68. See supra note 35, OHADA Treaty, Art. 10; OHADA Uniform Act on Arbitration, Art. 1 (May 15, 1999), available at http://www.ohada.com/textes. php?categorie=658.
69. Chidi Anselm Odinkalu, Pluralism and the Fulfillment of Justice Needs in Africa, 2005 Open Society Institute 2, available at http://www.afrimap.org/ english/unages/paper/Odinkalu-Pluralism-Justice-ENfin.pdf.
70. George Elombi, Customary Arbitration: A Ghanaian Trend Reversed in Nigeria, 5 AFRICAN J. INT'L & COMP. L. 803, 822-23 (1993).
71. See also Inock D. Kom, Customary Arbitration, 16 REV. GHANA L. 148, 148-70 (1987-88);
72. Virtus Chitoo Igbokwe, The Law and Practice of Customary Arbitration in Nigeria: Agu v. Ikewibe and Applicable Law Issues Revisited, 41 J. AFRICAN L. 201 (1997).
73. See generally supra Part H.A. See also Marcel Fafchamps, Ethnicity and Networks in African Trade, 2 CONTRIBUTIONS TO ECON. ANALYSIS & POL'Y 14 (2003) (Oxford economist writing an article on extralegal network restraints in the informal sector).
74. David Kennedy, The Mystery of Global Governance, 34 OHIO N.U. L. REV. 827, 829 (2008);
75. see Gonzalez, supra note 4; Schneider, supra note 3 (noting existence & size of developed-world informal sector); see also RUSSELL MEARES, THE METAPHOR OF PLAY: ORIGIN AND BREAKDOWN OF PERSONAL BEING 80 (2005) (discussing familiarity).
76. One of the few to attack it directly in the context of Africa is Lisa Pruitt. See, e.g., Lisa Pruitt, Migration, Development, and the Promise of CEDAW for Rural Women, 30 MICH. J. INT'L L 707 (2009).
77. There is a broader literature relating to the informal sector in Latin America, perhaps because of the influence of Portuguese sociologist Boaventura de Sousa Santos who studied the Brazilian favelas. E.g., BOAVENTURA DE SOUSA SANTOS, TOWARD A NEW LEGAL COMMON SENSE: LAW, GLOBALIZATION, AND EMANCIPATION (2002). The study of extra-legal constraints in disaggregated Coasian firms also generated scholarship on the informal sector, but not generally focusing on that aspect.
78. Claire Moore Dickerson, Corporations as Cities: Targeting the Nodes in Overlapping Networks, 29 J. CORP. L. 533 (2004);
79. Teemu Ruskola, Conceptualizing Corporations and Kinship: Comparative Law and Development Theory in a Chinese Perspective, 52 STAN. L. REV. 1599 (1999-2000).
80. For a review of prior, post-World War II, law and development theories, see, eg., Davis & Trebilcock, supra note 8; see also David M. Trubek & Marc Galanter, Scholars in Self-Estrangement: Some Reflections on the Crisis in Law and Development Studies in the United States, 1974 WISE. L. REV. 1062 (1974).
81. See, e.g., Rafael La Porta, Florencio Lopez-de-Silanes, Andrei Shleifer & Robert W. Vishny, Law and Finance, 106 J. POL. ECON. 1113 (1998) (discussing the centrality to development of investor protection).
82. Id. See University of Ottowa, Research Group, JuriGlobe-World Legal Systems, Map of Africa, http://www.juriglobe.ca/eng/rep-geo/cajtes/afrique.php (last updated Dec. 15, 2009);
83. English family of laws in Africa available at University of Ottowa, JuriGlobe-World Legal, Common Law Systems and Mixed Systems with Common Law, http://www.juriglobe.ca/eng/langues/classification/claw.php; civil law family (last updated Dec. 15, 2009),
84. with evidence of French subgroup from languages, available at University of Ottowa, JuriGlobe-World Legal, Civil Law Systems and Mixed Systems with Civil Law, http://www.juriglobe.ca/eng/langues/classification/dcivil.php (last updated Dec. 15, 2009).
85. See generally Vernon Valentine Palmer, Quebec and Her Sisters in the Third Legal Family, 54 MCGILL L.J. 321 (2009) (discussing, inter alia, common law and civil law mixtures with customary and Islamic law); Penda, supra note 94, at 6-19 (discussing historical antecedents of OHADA). See also Martha Simo Tumnde, Née Njikam, OHADA as Experienced in Cameroon: Addressing Areas of Particular Concern to Common Law Jurists, in UNIFIED BUSINESS LAWS FOB AFRICA: COMMON LAW PERSPECTIVES ON OHADA 69, 71-74 (Claire Moore Dickerson ed., 2009) (offering the perspective of an Anglophone Cameroonian jurist concerning the French-law influence on OHADA uniform acts).
86. Compare WORLD BANK GROUP, DOING BUSINESS IN 2004: UNDERSTANDING REGULATION xi-xii (2004) [hereinafter WB DOING BUSINESS 2004], available at http://www.doingbusiness.org/Documents/DB2004-full-report.pdf (last visited Feb. 22, 2009) (asserting that cumbersome regulation limits productivity),
87. with WORLD BANK GROUP, DOING BUSINESS IN 2009: COMPARING REGULATION IN 181 ECONOMIES 2 (2009) [hereinafter WB DOING BUSINESS 2009], available at http://www.doingbusiness.org/Documents/FullReport/2009/DB-2009-English.pdf (emphasizing, yet more generically, focus on "ease of doing business").
88. CURTIS J. MILHAUPT & KATHARINA PISTOR, LAW AND CAPITALISM: WHAT CORPORATE CRISES REVEAL ABOUT LEGAL SYSTEMS AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT AROUND THE WORLD 45-46 (2008) (explaining institutional autopsies generally); the revelatory nature of discontinuities was pointed out by Trubek and Galanter as well. Trubek & Galanter, supra note 111, at 1069.
89. The least developed are China and Russia, which are typically included in the so-called BRIC group of emerging economies, the other two being India and Brazil. Dominic Wilson & Roopa Purushothaman, Dreaming With BRJCs: The Path to 2050 3 (Goldman Sachs, Paper No. 99, 2003) available at http://www2. goldmansachs.com/ideas/brics/book/99-dreaming.pdf. Two of the developed countries are considered to be, comparatively anyway, sources of legal systems: the UK (and US) and Germany; the others are treated at least in part as recipients of transplanted systems (Japan, China, Korea; Russia is more complicated). See, e.g., MILHAUPT & PISTOR, supra note 119, at 200-02 (noting that Russia is not mentioned same way).
90. U.N. Development Programme, Comm'n on Legal Empowerment of the Poor, Volume II: Report of the Commission on Legal Empowerment of the Poor 17 (2008) [hereinafter UNDP Report v. 2] (citation omitted) available at http://www.undp.org/legalempowerment/docs/ReportVoliuneII/making-the-law-work- II.pdf. Id. at 205-06 (human rights as well as the market are necessary to protect the vulnerable); see Kanté, supra note 77, at 25, 28-29 (referring to ILO fundamental norms and conventions).
91. See International Convention on Civil and Political Rights, Treaty Status, Dec. 16, 1966, 999 U.N.T.S IV-4 (2010), available at http://treaties.un.org/doc/Publication/MTDSG/Volume%20I/Chapter%20rV/IV-4.en. pdf.
92. See International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, Treaty Status, Dec. 16,1966, 993 U.N.T.S. IV-3 (2010), available at http://treaties.un.org/doc/Publication/MTDSG/Volume%20I/Chapter%20IV/IV-3.en. pdf.
93. See Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, Treaty Status, Dec. 18, 1979, 1249 U.N.T.S. IV-8, available at http://treaties.un.org/doc/Publication/MTDSG/Volume%20I/Chapter%20IV/IV-8.en. pdf.
94. See, e.g., ILO, Convention Concerning the Prohibition and Immediate Action for the Elimination of the Worst Forms of Child Labour, June 17, 1999, No. 182, available at http://webfusion.ilo.org/pubUc/db/standards/normes/appl/ appl-byConv.cfm7hdroff=l&conv=C182&Lang=EN.
95. See, e.g., S. AFRICA CONST. 1996, ch. 2, available at http://www.info.gov.za/documents/constitution/1996/96cons2.htm (last updated Aug. 19, 2009).
96. See, e.g., CONSTITUTION OF THE REPUBLIC OF CAMEROON, Jan. 18, 1996, art. 45, available at http://confinder.richmond.edu/admin/docs/Cameroon.pdf.
97. 400 Market Stalls Demolished, LUSAKA TIMES (June 21, 2008), available at http://www.lusakatimes.com/?p=3074 (describing the destruction of market stalls by the Lusaka City Council, Zambia).
98. Entrepreneurship is emphasized not because it is valued, but because relatively safe salaried jobs, whether in government or out, are simply not available. Abhyit V. Banerjee & Esther Duflo, What is Middle Class about the Middle Classes Around the World 21 (Mass. Inst, of Tech., Dep't of Econ. Dec. 2007), available at http://econ-www.mit.edu/files/2081.
99. W. PAATII OFOSU-AMAAH, REFORMING BUSINESS-RELATED LAWS TO PROMOTE PRIVATE SECTOR DEVELOPMENT: THE WORLD BANK EXPERIENCE IN AFRICA 18 (2000); & at 1-66 (questioning the functionality of legal transplants).
100. On the Transparency International's Corruption Perceptions Index 0-10 scale, the West and Central African states range from 1.6 to 3.9, where Botswana is at 5.6, the United States is at 7.5, Canada at 8.7, and New Zealand at 9.4. (Somalia came in at 1.1.) Transparency International, Corruption Perceptions Index 2009, available at http://www.transparency.org/policy-research/surveys- indices/cpi/2009/cpi-2009-table (last visited Jan. 18, 2010).
101. See Edgardo Buscaglia & Paul B. Stephan III, An Empirical Assessment of the Impact of Formal Versus Informal Dispute Resolution on Poverty: A Governance-Based Approach, 25 INT'L REV. L. & ECON. 89 (2005).
102. OHADA Uniform Act on Commercial Companies and Economic Interest groups (CC & EIG), art. 869 et seq.; art. 871, available at http://www.ohada.com/ textes.php?categorie=98&AU=english-AUSCGIE.pdf (last visited July 7, 2010) (ownership shares of an EIG are not negotiable).
103. The laws governing public offerings exist already at least in most Sub-Saharan jurisdictions. See, e.g., id., arts. 81-96 (concerning public offering). Among the common law jurisdictions, Kenya, for example, has experience with public offerings. See generally Grace W. Kibuthu, Capital Markets in Emerging Economies: A Case Study of the Nairobi Stock Exchange 18 (Apr. 2005) (Master of Arts in Law & Diplomacy Thesis, Tufts Inst.), available at http://fletcher.tufts.edu/research/20057Kibuthu.pdf.
104. UNDP Report v. 2, supra note 129, at 252. See also Divine Chocolate, The Divine Story, http://www.divmechocolate.com/about/story.aspx (last visited June 30, 2010) (explaining current and past reality of the Ghanaian cocoa farmers' coordinative move up the supply chain).
105. Abigail M. Barr, Enterprise Performance and the Functional Diversity of Social Capital, 65 CTR. FOR THE STUDY OF AFR. ECONS. WORKING PAPER SERIES 2, 9 (1998), available at http://www.bepre88.com/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article= 1065&context=csae.
106. Kanté, supra note 77, at 51. See also John Gravois, The De Soto Delusion: Peruvian Econmist Hernando de Soto's idea for helping the poor have made him a global celebrity. Now, if only those ideas worked.... SLATE (Jan. 29, 2005), http://www.slate.com/ioV2112792/ (describing the titling scandal in Cambodia).
107. Within the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) a collective of collectives, la Confédération des artisans de l'Afrique de l'Ouest (CAAO)" that very much crosses borders has been attempted. See Initiatives Mali Gateway, Présentation de la Fédération Nationale des Artisans du Mali, (June 3, 2004), http://74.125.95.132/search?q=cache:eaps4IJApzIJ:initiatives-mali.info/spip. php%3Farticle9+ conf%C3%A9d%C3%A9ration+des+artisans+de+l%27Afrique+de+l%270uest&cd= 4&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=firefox-a.
108. It or its successor may now exist only in one of the former member countries. See Mbolo, Businesses & Services: Crafts & Decorating, http://www.mbolo.com/afnque-burkina-faso-12000-entreprises-services-entreprises- 8jti8anat-decoration-sr-2000706.htm (last updated June 30, 2010). Nevertheless, it is worth noting that seven of the eight countries involved are members of OHADA and thus already participate in a business- and law-related undertaking that is transnational.
109. This unified insurance law is called Conference Interafricaine des Marchés d'Assurances (CIMA). See BORIS MATOR, NANETTE PILKINGTON, DAVID S. SELLERS & SEBASTIEN THOUVENOT, BUSINESS LAW IN AFRICA AND THE OHADA AND THE HARMONISATION PROCESS 299 (2d ed. 2007).
110. Judy Baker & Iwona Reichardt, A Review of Urban Development Issues in Poverty Reduction Strategies 22 (World Bank Group Urban Paper No. UP-3, June, 2007), available at http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTURBANPOVERTY/ Resources/up-3-Urban-PRS.pdf.
111. Groupement de Recherche Internationale [GDRI], Gouverner les villes d'Afrique: lois, institutions locales et identités urbaines depuis 1945 13-14, available at http://www.gdri-africancities.org/uploads/documents/GDRI- french-proposal.pdf (last visited June 22, 2010); Hamarau, supra note 50, at 14; Warwick Jet., supra note 53, at 19.