Global South

This blog piece is a reflection on the core arguments from Professor Gonzalez’s lecture. Notably, Professor Gonzalez explored the relationship between environmental degradation and human economic activity. Within this general theme, Professor Gonzalez discussed the link between human economic activity, climate change, capitalism, colonialism and its aftermath, and modernity. This piece will also evaluate Professor Gonzalez’s thoughts on how the actions adopted to combat climate change marginalise the Global South and perpetuate further exploitation of fragile ecosystems across the world. Finally, this piece will outline and analyse Professor Gonzalez’s arguments on the current technological advancements to address climate change and their impact in the Global South.

Even though Africa has proven to be a fertile ground for testing international legal regimes, most scholarly accounts remain pessimistic in assessing these experiments. This book seeks to counter these depictions in a manner consistent with epistemologies of the Global South - arguing that theories and concepts developed in the Global North do not transfer with ease to other regional settings and prompts scholars to identify alternative ways of knowing

Membership of the Forum is for one year, after which active members will be given an opportunity to renew their membership. The Southern African Regional Board is committed to providing an equal opportunity to all the applicants.

Members of the Academic Forum are called ‘Regional Representatives’. There are three major ‘streams’ or ‘departments’ within the Forum; namely, the editorial stream, the partnerships stream and the general Stream. However, and for efficiency purposes, one must first join the general Stream and, where slot later opens up in either of the editorial or partnerships stream, he/she/they may apply for a position in the relevant Stream.

Although the Regulations commendably exempt ninety-two countries, their restrictions still apply to many upper-middle income countries, such as South Africa, which is not only relatively poor but is battling with one of the most contagious variants of the virus. The Regulations also do not exempt a country like Canada, which despite its relatively ample resources, does not yet manufacture its own vaccines and is home to particularly vulnerable indigenous peoples, especially in its Northern and polar regions.

The current century's threat to communities, including climate change and vast and deepening inequalities, may be aggravated by the Agreement. By limiting the power of governments to govern in the interests of the community and the environment, and bolstering a regulatory framework intended to advance the interest of multi-national corporations and only the wealthiest people, trade and investment agreements deepen issues of human rights. The RCEP may, as a consequence, advertently exclude marginalised groups, including women, indigenous peoples, migrants and essentially those without any capital or political power. 

This post-lecture reflection captures critical discussions from the 6th guest lecture of the Academic Forum delivered by Professor Mohsen al Attar, Dean of the University of West Indies Law School. The theme of the guest lecture was 'Decolonisation of International Economic Law'. Focusing on five tenets - capitalism, epistemology/knowledge, colonialism, international law and political economy – which Professor Mohsen used as a frame to foreground his analysis, this piece, explores the prospects and challenges of decolonising International Economic Law. In keeping with the Academic Forum's focus, it is argued that uncritical/Eurocentric approaches to teaching IEL in African universities hamper efforts to decolonise our epistemologies. In exploring alternate ways to re-frame, the global economic order, this piece also highlights the idea of 'social justice' as a valuable metric of development, i.e. socio-economic equity that raises the standard of living to the greatest extent relative to each of our circumstances.

Afronomicslaw established the Academic Forum to bring together undergraduate and graduate students as well as early career researchers from across the world interested in international economic law issues as they relate to Africa and the Global South.

The Afronomicslaw Academic Forum had a very active 2020/2021. This post includes a summary of the key projects undertaken by the Academic Forum during this period. One of the flagship activities was participation in the United Nations Policy Hackathon Competition.