Welcome to the inaugural issue of the African Journal of International Economic Law(AfJIEL).Our goal is to fill a gap in journals covering international economic law relating to Africa and the Global South.This first issue fulfills our promise to launch the AfJIEL as announced at the 2019 African International Economic Law Network conference in Nairobi.
We thank our terrific group of authors who worked over the year and a half on the articles in this inaugural issue.Thanks too to the Editorial Board and the Advisory Board members for their support.We have put together the AfJIEL while continuing to nurture the burgeoning Afronomicslaw.org blog.The fact that contributors to Afronomics law provided a continuous flow of excellent content on international economic law in Africa and the Global South was a major inspiration for this new journal.
The AfJIEL will be freely available.This is made possible by the support of Sheria Publishing House – a publishing house committed to providing high quality, affordable and accessible materials on African and Third World scholarship and practice.Our goal in making the AfJIEL free and open access is at least twofold.First, to demonstrate that the voluntary efforts of a team of editors can produce a journal that fills a major gap in the production and publication of important scholarly and policy materials.Second, to inspire and engage with our audience particularly in under-resourced academic and policy environments in the geographical Third World in general, and in Africa in particular.Without this kind of a journal, a lot of the content that our authors have put together could very well be behind a publisher’s paywall.The AfJIEL is one small effort in trying to break down such paywalls that limit access to the kind of contextually relevant scholarship and policy analysis this Journal is committed to publishing.
Cite as: J.T. Gathii and O.D. Akinkugbe, Introduction to the Inaugural Issue of the African Journal of International Economic Law, Volume 1, AfJIEL, (2020), VI-XI.