Climate Change

This webinar was a collaboration between Afronomicslaw and the South Centre, Geneva, to mark the 25th anniversary of the South Centre. Both the South Centre and Afronomicslaw share a commitment to discuss the protection and promotion of the development interests of countries of the Global South.

I am proud to present this book symposium on my book titled, Energy Poverty and Access Challenges in Sub-Saharan Africa: The role of Regionalism (Palgrave, 2019).  With the increasing role of regionalism and globalism, this book discusses the various energy challenges in Africa, and how these can be addressed through regional cooperation.

This webinar is a collaboration between Afronomicslaw and the South Centre, Geneva, to mark the 25th anniversary of the South Centre. Both the South Centre and Afronomicslaw share a commitment to discuss the protection and promotion of the development interests of countries of the Global South.

It is time for international economic law to start paying serious attention. Law and politics have a complementary role in addressing the growing climate change crisis. Law has to pay attention to its antecedent: politics.

While it may appear that most of the most prominent wildfires that have generated media attention are recorded in countries with climate denialism as their default climate strategy, climate change is fueling figurative and actual wildfires, and its effects are felt in different corners of the world. Developing countries—especially African countries—are, however, affected the most, despite contributing the least to global emissions. Unlike rich and insured countries, weak disaster management strategies will render developing countries unable to adapt lives and livelihoods to the impending devastation. Collective climate action at the global level must involve consistency in the mobilization of resources to facilitate urgent transition needs in the global South.

The main finding of this contribution is that most universities offer enough courses on international aspects of law but do not ensure all their students get the minimum necessary, i.e., a sound introduction to the principles of public and private international law as well as ideally the skills to compare legal solutions in various jurisdictions (comparative law).

Through our analysis of the course outlines of the above subjects, we have arrived at the conclusion that the LL.M program at SAU has the potential to make a significant contribution to the development of South Asian perspective of IL. All the compulsory courses taught at SAU address issues of international law relevant to South Asia, scholarly works focussing on South-Asian issues have been given due consideration, as have the works of South Asian and TWAIL scholars.

International trade is not free of costs; the dominant view is that the benefits outweigh these costs. Following Ricardo and other free trade enthusiasts, the premise inbuilt in international economic law is that trade is a win-win social activity. Everybody would be better off in the long-run. Meanwhile, the immediate losers could perhaps expect that international economic rules would take their interests seriously, as in making their vulnerability visible or ensuring they receive compensation, particularly when the long-run takes too long to arrive.

COVID-19 generated a new buzz around our work and renewed interest in the study of vulnerability. Since then, we have reappraised our initial piece, with the intention of moving beyond its conceptual foundations toward a more practical and concrete application of the work. We realized however, that for many, there is curiosity around the TVI project, and ultimately what we are trying to achieve through it. In this reflective piece, we present briefly the TVI in a nutshell – its aims, methodology and conceptual premises – and then provide  initial thoughts on the way forward under our TVI project.

How States proceed with building consensus to create a social contract that facilitates effective taxation, especially in the light of the massive disruptions caused by the pandemic will require continuous engagement by all parties. Success will perhaps depend on how proactively and quickly countries and the international taxation system unlearn old habits and begin to ascribe to the new normal way of doing things.