Sustainable Development

The question of a regulatory framework for this type of CSR at the African Union level is paramount. Such regulatory frameworks could be meta-regulatory in nature and thus embrace a mix of soft law and hard law rules with incentives. This need for policy and regulation is recognised in the African Union Agenda 2063 framework document both in order to effectively finance development objectives and to enable full exploitation of the partnership capabilities in the interest of Africa. The African Union has also pursued this set goal for agribusiness as a result of the Malabo declaration on accelerated agricultural growth commitments

Currently, the world finds itself at a crisis point. The global health pandemic caused by COVID-19 has drastically changed the way we live, how we run our economies and even, how we teach and research IEL. In the post-COVID world, old rules and games may not apply any more. The scholarly interventions presented in the IEL Collective symposia offers tools for a new, pragmatic internationalism – one based on critical reflection, methodological diversity and contributes towards the development of a more holistic landscape of scholarship on law and the governance of the global economy.

Financial institutions should focus on the positive opportunities and learning experiences from this pandemic and plan how they will help their member states adjust to the effects of COVID-19 and attain sustainable development thereafter. This step will be in line with the World Bank’s advice on planning for the economic recovery from COVID-19, in the bid for nations to restart their economic engines and build back stronger and better in the short term and longer term.

LDCs are inadequately equipped to manage the socio-economic impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic; these countries have not even effectively curbed environmental pollution yet. The sustainable development goals strategies did not envisage such a pandemic and this is causing many governments to lose sight of how to manage their economic regressions. The national governments and international community therefore have to be more vigilant and proactive in ensuring that the battered global economy stabilizes after the pandemic.

To the extent that measures taken to combat Covid-19 intersect with existing trade and investment obligations for countries in the global south, and reveals the embedded tensions,  we wonder whether regional governance can or should serve as a framework to create equitable and just South-South cooperation, especially in times of crises. Regional and sub-regional organisations, if operationalised effectively, have the capabilities to pool together the financial, human, and intellectual resources that will be needed to identify interventions and responses to measures that threaten the foundations of solidarity, self-reliance and equality underpinning South-South relations.

Without losing sight of the gaps in the PAIC, it is submitted that, even though it is not yet officially adopted as a binding instrument (given the uncertainty surrounding its official adoption), the PAIC can be important for African states. Primarily, as envisaged in its Article 2 (1), it can serve as a guideline for preparing model BITs as well as negotiating BITs with African and non-African states.

To finalise our International Women’s Day symposium on scholarship by women, this post highlights some women working on International Economic Law (IEL) that the editorial team put together in the last couple of days. This post is therefore by no means intended to be exhaustive. We encourage our readers to add to our list. Next year with more time, we hope to have an even more extensive list of women working in IEL.

One group of women should be celebrated for their contributions to shaping the emancipation narratives and processes on the continent. This is the group of African female scholars such as Professor Celestine Nyamu-Musembi, Professor Sylvia Tamale, Professor Patricia Kameri-Mbote, Professor Ambreena Manji and Professor Sylvia Kang’ara. The perspectives of these scholars play a crucial role in shaping interventions targeted at women in Africa. As the English saying goes, only the wearer of the shoe knows where it pinches. International organizations seeking to emancipate women must pay close attention to the scholarship of these women. Their rich body of scholarship provides useful insights that intervention documents drawn up in the development cities of Geneva and New York may lack.

The present state of international economic law leaves much to be desired. Anchored by the multilateral General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, which led to the creation of the World Trade Organization, and complemented by a vast network of bilateral and multilateral investment treaties and free trade agreements, international economic law is drawn from diffuse sources. Additionally, the WTO Dispute Settlement Body and Appellate Body, which interpret the GATT provisions, and arbitral tribunals, which interpret investment protection agreement provisions, shape the content of international economic law. However, the patchwork of treaty text and dispute settlement rulings into a body of law is unraveling.

A consideration of how Africa can fit into a global system of recognising and enforcing foreign judgments is important. However, it is also important for African countries to consider the extent to which their local jurisprudence can support an external system subject to domestic ratification. If African countries need a convention to improve their local jurisprudence in any significant manner, then sustainable development in this area of law may be more challenging than necessary.