International investment law (IIL) is contested. Contestation is not new to this area of international law given the “colonial origins” of IIL and the challenge to the international economic system that the Third World marshalled in the 1960s-1970s and before those decades. In the turn to economic development as a postcolonial and neoliberal concept and the promise that foreign investment presented, African and other Third World states appeared to embrace the IIL regime in what has emerged as an ambivalent relationship. A direct connection between IIL and socioeconomic wellbeing is, however, also contested. Amidst ongoing contestations, African states are incorporating some limited changes in recent intra-African investment instruments. Dr. Dominic Dagbanja’s book, The Investment Treaty Regime and Public Interest Regulation in Africa, emerges in this climate of contestation and calls for change in IIL. It presents a uniquely African constitutional challenge to IIL while being global in potential impact.
Cite As: Ibironke T. Odumosu-Ayanu, Book Review: The Investment Treaty Regime and Public Interest Regulation in Africa By Dominic Npoanlari Dagbanja, Oxford University Press, 2022, Volume 4, AfJIEL, (2024), 138-144.