International Investment Law

It is a special day when open scepticism by some African states towards investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) is likened to hegemony. This characterization suggests that critical voices, once banished to the outskirts of ongoing discourse tabling reforms to ISDS in particular and to international investment law (IIL) more generally, now occupy the center of action and claim the mantle of thought leaders. But instead of cherishing this potential turning point for international law development by African states, we are urged to deny and disregard the views from Africa.

We are excited about our forthcoming symposium which centres the voices of amazing scholars from the Global South on the Investor-State Dispute Settlement Reform.

We are excited about our forthcoming symposium which centres the voices of amazing scholars from the Global South on the Investor-State Dispute Settlement Reform. The written symposium will run from September 7th  2020.

In this symposium on vulnerabilities in international economic law (IEL), the contributors focus on the disruptive effects of the COVID-19 pandemic for trade and investment regimes in the global south. The contributors offer a diverse range of perspectives from the Caribbean, Latin America, the United States and Africa to demonstrate how the pandemic has intensified existing vulnerabilities and created new forms of inequalities in trade and investment. Each contribution offers a reflection on how the pandemic intersects with an aspect of IEL and presents concrete policy steps that have been, or could be, taken to redress the negative and harmful effects of the pandemic, be them intentional or unintended. Common to all contributions is the question of how we - an international community of scholars, activists and policymakers – can make trade and investment regimes more resilient, inclusive and sustainable.

There are many great things to say about the volume including the discussion about Africanization of international investment law and finding Africa's voice in it. Much of what one would have expected to see about Africa and ICSID is in there.

Afronomicslaw.org is delighted to announce that Dr. Nicolás M. Perrone has joined the Afronomicslaw team as a Contributing Editor.

The Award in Oded Besserglik v. Republic of Mozambique, one of the very few publicly known intra African treaty-based investment arbitration cases, was issued 29th October 2019. The case started when in March 2014, a South African national (Mr. Besserglik) filed an application, before the International Center for the Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID), against the Mozambique (the Respondent) on the grounds that his shares and interests in a joint fishing venture with some Mozambican State-owned enterprises, as well as his vessels, were unlawfully and fraudulently appropriated by the Respondent.

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

In this brief post, I want to make sense of Prabhash Ranjan’s brief critique of TWAIL perspectives on international investment law. My main aim is not to mount a defense of TWAIL project(s) on investment law because that might be done more eloquently by others. Instead, I want to make some brief comments about the political valence of, and the assumptions behind, the reservations that Professor Ranjan articulated in this post, and which also appear in his recent book on India and Bilateral Investment Treaties.

Without losing sight of the gaps in the PAIC, it is submitted that, even though it is not yet officially adopted as a binding instrument (given the uncertainty surrounding its official adoption), the PAIC can be important for African states. Primarily, as envisaged in its Article 2 (1), it can serve as a guideline for preparing model BITs as well as negotiating BITs with African and non-African states.