Sustainable Development

Food security is at the very core of human existence. Agriculture is thus a critical part of sustainable development. It is estimated that Agriculture contributes about 33% of the world’s gross-domestic product. A significant number of countries with the most arable land belong to the categorization of low to middle income nations, while a significant number of the high-income nations are dependent on food imports from the former. As a result, domestic and foreign agricultural land investment contracts are common as countries seek to achieve food security. The UNIDROIT/FAO/IFAD Legal Guide to Agricultural Land Investment Contracts (ALIC) is thus a welcome framework for ensuring that these investments contribute to the sustainable development goals. On the overall, the legal guide provides comprehensive instrument that effectively highlights the critical components of such agricultural land contracts and is thus commendable.

This essay highlights the traditional, hybrid and private regulation-inspired approaches through which the private sector arguably facilitates the achievement of the SDGs. Private regulation is not a silver bullet in the global quest for sustainable development, considering the inherent legal, administrative, institutional and political concerns. However, seeing the private sector as a partner in rule making and enforcement opens a realm of possibility in terms of possible collaborative models among stakeholders towards achieving the SDGs.

This contribution focuses on the inequalities that result within countries as a result of the activities of the oil and gas industry and which endure in spite of the local content policies that are adopted. Without endorsing local content as a legal/policy option that captures the position of local communities regarding the oil and gas industry, it argues that it is necessary to clarify the definition of local content because if the scope of local content is unknown, there is a likelihood that it will remain difficult to determine whether goals are being met especially with regard to host and impacted communities.

In short, the SDGs and its interesting set of targets are a fertile ground not only to reimagine past UN led decade themed goals and their implications for (sustainable) development, but, to also situate them in contemporary discourse of the activities of nations, transnational corporations and other non-state actors. As part of the 2019 Purdy Crawford Workshop, the contributions to the symposium on “Sustainable Development Goals, Trade, Investment, and Inequality” critically examine these goals from the vantage point of each contributor’s scholarly expertise.

The blog posts presented in this symposium indicate that Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in the renewable energy (RE) sector is desirable to support decarbonisation and clean energy transformation in developing countries such as Nigeria. Despite the enormous potential for RE based on the natural conditions in Nigeria, there is high level of energy poverty and low level of investments in RE sector by both government and private investors.

It is important to ensure that such grievance mechanisms are robust with a clear mandate to hold corporations accountable to internationally recognised human and labour rights. The threat is that such processes will amount to no more than a PR campaign used by corporations in order to project that they act responsibly. The evidence so far is that most non-binding grievance mechanisms used by corporations have not delivered human rights compatible solutions to victims or communities. At least their use is not widely documented and has not been transparent or a source of continuous learning as per the requirements of Principle 31 of the UNGP.

We are pleased to announce that the 9th PEPA/SIEL conference will take place on 17-19 May 2020 at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem Faculty of Law, in Jerusalem.

A common African position could also facilitate a strong African influence in the international IIA and ISDS reform discussions that are paralysed by diametrically opposed positions of the different players. A prerequisite is to coordinate and put into effect the African reforms in African REIOs – ideally through the AU-, and to speak with one voice in international for a such as the UNCITRAL Working Group III. While the US, EU, and China are caught up in trade wars, this could be an opportunity for Africa to become a rule-maker rather than a rule-taker in making international investment law more sustainable - an opportunity that should be used

In July 2019, the African International Economic Law Network (AfIELN), held its Fourth Biennial Conference under the theme “Africa and International Economic Law in the 21st Century” at the Strathmore University Law School (Nairobi, Kenya). This symposium contains some of the papers presented at this conference in their abridged forms. Before introducing the authors’ views on this Conference’s broader theme, we provide the important context under which the Conference took place.

Illicit Financial Flows (IFFs) are one of several impediments to achieving sustainable development in developing countries across the world. While there is no globally accepted definition of IFFs, there is global acceptance that IFFs undermine the efforts of developing countries to generate domestic revenues to finance their national development agendas. According to the United Nations (UN), developing countries face an estimated annual funding gap of $2.5 trillion to deliver on Agenda 2030. In Africa, the continent loses approximately $100 billion annually through IFFs that are generated in and moved from the continent to tax havens.