Analysis

The book 'Africa in the New Trade Environment; Market Access in Troubled Times' is a collection of articles edited by World Bank renowned economists; Souleymane Coulibaly, Woubet Kassa, and Albert G. Zeufack. The work builds on the expert panel discussions on the future of global trade and its impact on Africa, the theme explored at the World Bank Africa Knowledge Fest on February 22, 2017. The authors make it clear that their goal is ‘to present a strategy to bolster Sub-Saharan Africa’s market access in the current global environment’.

In the final post of the symposium on Judge Cançado Trindade, the guest editors interview judge Brant, from the International Court of Justice, to talk about the impact of Cançado’s scholarship in Brazil and in international law.

Micro, Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (MSMEs) play a fundamental role in job creation and economic development in many countries. MSMEs account for about 90% of businesses and generate more than 50% of employment worldwide, with formal Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (SMEs) contributing to about 40% of national income (gross domestic product (GDP)) in emerging economies. This article seeks to proffer action plans to be implemented at the national, regional and continental levels to assist MSMEs in realizing sustainable development and the underlying sustainable development goals (SDGs).

The COVID-19 pandemic has illuminated the stark inequities between the Global North and Global South in vaccine production and access. Such inequities are a continuation of asymmetrical power relations rooted in historical racialized processes such as slavery and colonialism and its post-colonial legacies, which led to the subordination of many countries in the Global South. This paper builds on racial capitalism scholarship within studies of the COVID-19 crisis, which critiqued the disproportionate mortality within populations and unequal labor relationships, presenting a novel contribution by thinking through the systemic impacts of racial capitalism on the production of essential medicines, and particularly COVID-19 vaccines, in global health. A deeper understanding of the systemic injustice in the international patent system enables us to center the experiences of the Global South through a re-examination of how international law sustains and encourages the geographic and racial stratification of vaccine manufacturing, which is now largely centralized in the Global North. The paper also calls for changing law and funding structures as mechanisms of reparative justice. While, on the one hand, law plays a role in sustaining racial-capitalist harms, it can also be used as a tool for facilitating reparative justice.

This blog illustrates how excessive trust in and unaccountability of technological systems runs against digital transformation aims and argues that as an uncanny fixation on gains to be realised from technology becomes a mainstay, certain workings of technological development should not be overlooked.

This piece considers how the Model Law on Electronic Transferable Records (MLETR) can serve as a model for the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) Protocol on Digital Trade with respect to Electronic Transferable Record (ETRs).

In this post, the author analyzes three individual opinions of judge Cançado Trindade as a judge of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights to assess the impact of his legal thought on the fight against impunity, the rights of Indigenous Peoples and social justice.

This article consider the concept of digital and data sovereignty in Africa. It focuses on how the development of the digital economy can be effectively established in the African context, in light of Africa’s reliance on partnerships with third countries for internet access, and reliance on multinational service providers for access to consumer services with the digital economy.

In this post, the author reflects on judge Cançado Trindade’s last separate opinion to an Order concerning the Armed Activities on the Territory of the Congo (Democratic Republic of the Congo v. Uganda), of September 2020. This opinion provides an example of his views on the role of International Law and his believe that jus gentium must be at the service of the people. As a former judicial fellow of the International Court of Justice, the author presents a personal and powerful testimony of judge Cançado Trindade.

In this post, the author highlights the main contributions of judge Cançado Trindade in academia and as a judge. The author highlights his concerns about putting a person at the centre of International Law and how, in his separate opinions at the Inter-American Court of Human Rights and the International Court of Justice, he advocated for the humanization of International Law.