International Economic Law

In this blog article, building on the findings of the TRILA Project Report, and using AfronomicsLaw blog as a case example, I focus on the role of academic blogging as one of the digital tools that has great potential in shaping scholarly development in international economic law in the Global South. The AfronomicsLaw blog, launched less than two years ago, has exponentially grown, and therefore this blog article provides scholars, legal practitioners, policy makers, law students and readers and followers of the blog in general with an opportunity to assess the benefits of academic blogging through its lens.

This blog post focuses on the Agreement for the establishment of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) and the implications for the evolution of lex mercatoria in Africa. This blog post is primarily based on a recent paper by Chisa Onyejekwe and Eghosa Ekhator titled ‘AfCFTA and Lex Mercatoria: Reconceptualizing International Trade Law in Africa’. The paper argues that some of the major innovations embedded in the AfCFTA (such as variable geometry and dispute settlement amongst others) form the crux of an emerging African practice of lex mercatoria. Consequently, the creation of AfCFTA has engendered what can be termed as an emerging concept of ‘Lex Mercatoria Africana’. In the context of the AfCFTA, this is exemplified by the notion that the AfCFTA explicitly promotes African trade principles.

So far, we have found that an uncritical Western perspective is favored in the teaching of international law in the region. In many cases, international law is generally presented as a single and objective law that must be applied uniformly in any part of the world and, therefore, leaving no place for regional contextualization or for questioning its premises. Likewise, it is widely preferred to teach it using a bibliography originated in the Global North, despite the substantive contributions of Latin American scholars in International Law and in the Humanities and Social Sciences. These contributions have been made invisible by the colonial past and globalization processes based on asymmetrical power-knowledge relationships.

Legal education has begun in Myanmar since 1878 under the administration of British Colonial Government. Rangoon (Yangon) College was founded as an affiliation of Calcutta University (CU), India in 1884-1885. British Government passed the University of Rangoon Act in 1920 through which the University of Rangoon was founded and has come into existence.

The Central Asian States should learn to rely on international law, more proactively and consistently, as a tool for advancing their lawful interests, and for maintaining regional and international peace and security. Kazakhstan’s recent membership in the UN Security Council (2017-2018) was an excellent occasion to promote respect for international law at the regional level. Other recent examples of such reliance include the adoption of a Convention on the Legal Status of the Caspian Sea in 2018, or an ongoing reform of criminal law and procedure in Uzbekistan.

We are excited about our forthcoming symposium which centres the voices of amazing scholars from the Global South on the Investor-State Dispute Settlement Reform.

This article will briefly examine this dynamic across three interconnected dimensions:  (1) flexibility and innovation in IEL agreement models, with a focus on trade agreements, that better integrate economic and social development goals and allow parties to adapt to new circumstances or phase in commitments on a more incremental basis; (2) flexibility in implementation of trade disciplines and agreements; and (3) legal and regulatory innovation that can both define and flow from IEL agreements.  These three dimensions take into account both treaties themselves and how they relate to changes in law and regulation in practice, drawing a link between international agreements and their operation that is particularly important in times of change or uncertainty.  In assessing dimension three, legal and regulatory innovation, which has been a focus of my work over the past decade,

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.

In this symposium on vulnerabilities in international economic law (IEL), the contributors focus on the disruptive effects of the COVID-19 pandemic for trade and investment regimes in the global south. The contributors offer a diverse range of perspectives from the Caribbean, Latin America, the United States and Africa to demonstrate how the pandemic has intensified existing vulnerabilities and created new forms of inequalities in trade and investment. Each contribution offers a reflection on how the pandemic intersects with an aspect of IEL and presents concrete policy steps that have been, or could be, taken to redress the negative and harmful effects of the pandemic, be them intentional or unintended. Common to all contributions is the question of how we - an international community of scholars, activists and policymakers – can make trade and investment regimes more resilient, inclusive and sustainable.

Welcome to the first Afronomicslaw.org Indaba. Indaba is a Zulu and Xhosa word that refers to a meeting to discuss a serious topic – it also refers to a discussion on a matter of concern or for discussion. This occasional series will discuss issues relating to international economic law relating to Africa, the developing world and the Global South.