Balaam Wamukota2026-09-052026-09-052026-06-08https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12311/3634UndergraduateThis dissertation examines the effectiveness of the EAC Common Market in promoting the free movement of goods and services, with a case study focus on Uganda, Kenya, and Rwanda. This study thus investigates whether the legal provisions under the EAC treaty and Common Market Protocol have been effectively implemented to facilitate cross border trade and service provision. The Research adopts qualitative, legal doctrinal approach, through analyzing relevant treaties, statutes and case law supplemented by empirical insights from the EAC secretariat report on trade data. It examines both the legal framework and its practical implementation by member states, of the EAC regional bloc, while assessing challenges that impede that impede the free movement of goods and services. The findings indicate that the Common Market Protocol is the second pillar to regional integration established in 2010, by the EAC summit, upon establishment of the Customs Union in 2006. The Common Market Protocol provides a comprehensive legal structure to achieve the objectives of The Treaty Establishing the East African Community. It is analyzed that the effectiveness is limited by Non-Tariff Barriers, inconsistent enforcement of rules, for example Buy Uganda Build Uganda that favors only Ugandan goods and services, complex rules of origin for example goods in the Northern Corridor Transit Route that has a lot of restrictions through the fragmented licenses. Uganda incorporates the provisions of the EAC and Common Market Protocol through the East African Act of 2002, Cap 187, Kenya does so through the Treaty for the Establishment of the East African Community Act Cap. 4C, and Rwanda has Treaty of Accession of the Republic of Rwanda into the East African Community. This reflects the countries’ compliance with the Act though partial reflects administrative and institutional constraints that hinder the realization of a fully integrated regional market. The study concludes that the Common Market is advanced stage in achieving The African Continental Free Trade Area that intends to attain Africa as a single regional bloc through the regional blocs and an actual path to the realization of Agenda 2063, of the African Union. Therefore there are so many written laws that law lack implementation due to multiple membership of several African states belonging to regional blocs with similar goals, lack of sensitization amongst people leading insufficient participation, and weak institutions like the East African Court of Justice that lacks an enforcement mechanism and lacks defined jurisdiction, through express legal provisions.enDissertation