United Nations

There is no room for experts from affluent countries to swoop in and tell less affluent countries what they ought to do to reform their tax systems. Instead, experts from wealthy countries need to take tax policy spillovers seriously and correct the systemic flaws in the international tax regime that make it hard for some countries to tax effectively. This is, in my view, crucial to forming an acceptable international social contract going forward.

This symposium addresses issues such as the low tax to GDP ratio in developing states, the broken social contract in these countries and the reforms needed to repair the social contract. The convener, in accepting the invitation of Afronomicslaw to host the tax symposium, called upon tax practitioners, academics, policy experts, philosophers, administrators, to offer insights on the relationship between taxation and the social contract

Traditional medicines have an equally important role as vaccines, therapeutics and medical devices protected through classical IPRs such as patents. For this reason, it is important to include traditional medicines within the scope of IPR protection, including within the WTO’s TRIPS Agreement. Doing so would go beyond the classical debate of protecting medicines, vaccines and therapeutics mainly through patents as currently understood within the TRIPS Agreement.

In addition to BITs and IP laws, the Nigerian government can rely on the international law principle of necessity to justify taking measures such as compulsory licencing, yet the successful use of this principle depends on satisfying various conditions. Meanwhile, applicability of the customary doctrine of police powers to the claims arising under BITs has been accepted. This means that ISDS tribunals should thus attach normative propriety to state regulation in an epidemic.

Corruption takes many shapes in times of crisis, improper procurement decisions is one of them. In corona times, emerging corruption trends in the health care sector are taking advantage of the greater demand for medical goods and the resource deficit. If not addressed properly, the possible consequences of corruption might echo louder than the pandemic itself in the most unequal regions of the globe, such as the Americas and Africa, particularly in countries where corruption networks had already permeated into the health care system.

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.

Afronomicslaw.org is pleased to introduce the Afronomicslaw Academic Forum and to welcome a New Editor and three contributing editors effective immediately.

To the extent that a shift toward personal liability improves compliance with human rights, tort litigation may play a role in furthering the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Specifically, it may help ensure the basic conditions necessary for the inclusiveness of the economic development associated with TNCs.

Evidence from Nigeria’s 2017 NVR indicates that the strategic framework for operationalising the SDG goals are far from localised. This top-down approach for designing SDG policies in Nigeria does not encourage SNGs to ‘foster actual ownership of the goals and embody their vision of the future in concrete actions and initiatives. Localising the SDGs is not a magic bullet solution to development problems in Nigeria; however, the involvement of SNGs as collaborators and co-designers of rules is crucial to the successful attainment of the SDGs. Especially, as funding is a significant impediment to the actualisation of the SDG goals, the federal government and SNGs must work in tandem to create innovative solutions.

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.