From 2022 - 2023, the international trade agenda of the African continent was dominated by steps taken towards the operationalization of the African Continental Free Trade Area Agreement (AfCFTA), an agreement of huge significance for future trade relations both between African States and between Africa and the outside world. With the AfCFTA being negotiated in stages amidst the continued euphoria surrounding its adoption, the AfCFTA Protocols adopted between 2022 - 2023 constituted a vital component of the fleshing out of the trade objectives envisaged under the AfCFTA Agreement. Meanwhile the growing challenge of climate change, the consequences of global climate policy for Africa’s future industrial policies, a crisis in one of Africa’s most successful regional economic blocs – the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) – in the aftermath of the July 2023 military coup in Niger, the geopolitical and trade implications of the Russia-Ukraine war and the global backlash against Investor- State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) which reached a climax in 2022 with the mass withdrawal of many European Union (EU) member States from the Energy Charter Treaty were developments competing for the continent’s attention. African Practice in International Economic Law in the period under discussion demonstrated the continent’s measured assertiveness in charting its own course and seeking to speak with one voice at this pivotal transitional period in global economic relations and governance. The practice of the period equally demonstrates the continent’s leveraging of and contribution to the dividends of international economic cooperation.
Cite As: Annabel Nanjira and Nwamaka Okany, African Practice in International Economic Law 2022-2023, Volume 4, AfJIEL, (2024), 105-137