Developing Countries

I credit this book with providing an extremely thorough analysis of the relationship between pharmaceutical patents and human rights and moving us forward to an understanding that will undoubtedly improve access to medicines if applied. It will no doubt prove invaluable to policy makers, judges, legislators, activists, governments, students, and the general public.

The African Sovereign Debt Justice Network brings to you an update of African sovereign debt news and updates on events and happenings on and about Africa that reveal how sovereign debt issues are engaged by the various stakeholders.

This roundtable will ask what insights or productive questions can be advanced to make sense of the changing ground in international economic law, and whether these ongoing shifts can be leveraged towards progressive and equitable distributive outcomes. Our areas of inquiry include: the US and domestic trade policy; developing countries' concerns vis-à-vis global distribution; distributional consequences within developing countries; and effects of race and gender.

March 22, 2022

Introduction

September 15, 2021

The Global South Dialogue on Economic Crimes (GSDEC) is pleased to announce its Call for Paper on Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorist Financing (AML/CFT) standards, transplantation errors and unintended consequences.

There are numerous regional agreements among developing countries. They aim to tear down the trade and investment barriers between and among their members. Moreover, they adopt competition policy and free movement policy to free their internal markets of private and state restraints to achieve market integration, efficiency, opportunity, competitiveness, and a higher standard of living. But most of these regional arrangements do not live up to their potential. Competition policy lags. Why? Reasons commonly given include asymmetry of the member states and their interests, lack of funding and sources for it, large informal markets, governance not sympathetic to competition, and corrupt leadership of nations set on retaining power and privilege. But two critical elements are virtually always overlooked, and unless they are recognized and prioritized, the hope of the regional agreements will never be realized.

Whatever their level of evolution in competition regulation, developing countries, particularly African countries except for a few rare success stories such as South Africa, need to interrogate their RCRs and national competition laws. Countries without a competition regime or law have the advantage of avoiding the Washington Consensus trap and forging a national competition law tailored to their development goals

The report has been commissioned by Fairtrade Germany and Fairtrade Austria with the purpose to gather food for thought for a policy position of Fairtrade on trade policy by looking critically into presumptions, theories and ideologies and glean some ideas off the mainstream. It is conducted by combining legal expertise in the area of international economic law with the expertise, knowledges, visions, opinions and aspirations of multiple actors who are active in the Fair Trade movement or have been reflecting on how to transform international trade and investment in light of the multiple social and environmental crises. The views expressed in this report do not represent the current thinking or attitudes of Fairtrade and are in the sole responsibility of its authors.

To address the idea of sustainability in the allocation of profits, two aspects are required: on the one hand, there is a need for a sustainability index, and on the other hand, there is a need for standardised sustainability indicators that are determined and published by companies worldwide. For developing countries, this should mean to be a frontrunner in this development and push forward the idea, always keeping in mind the risks but also chances of a sustainability in substance approach.

To mark the 2021 International Women’s Day themed #Choose to Challenge, Afronomicslaw.org celebrates Dr Dilini Pathirana’s brilliant contributions to International Investment Law. Dr Pathirana is a Senior Lecturer at University of Colombo, a founding committee member of South Asia International Economic Law Network (SAIELN), an editorial board member of Sri Lanka Journal of International Law (SLJIL) and a contributing editor on Afronomicslaw.org.