International Law

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.

Third world approaches to international law (TWAIL) is part of the critical branch of international legal scholarship and an intellectual and political movement. It is not easy to engage with TWAIL because of its heterogeneity. TWAIL serves as a kind of umbrella category that includes different theoretical and often conflicting ideological traditions. However, at the cost of oversimplification, it may be argued that TWAIL represents an endeavour to comprehend the history, structure, and process of international law from the perspective of third world countries that includes both third world governments and third world people

As social movements and civil society continues to seek support within international law in their claims for justice, the reflection on the absence of international corporate accountability mechanisms is an open field for human rights discourse dispute.

Narratives are stories that get embedded in the general understanding of why and how a phenomenon takes place. Many narratives exist within International Investment Law (IIL) concerning its role in the international legal order, particularly in development. However, what if these narratives were to get turned on their head?

The newly-formed International Economic Law Collective has already brought something new to how we understand economic thought in international law. Compared to other groups in international law, the Collective is distinct because it places the concept of equality as both an analytical focal point in the work its members produce and as a main feature of how the group organizes itself.

The successful International Schulich Law Visiting Scholar will spend a minimum of 4 weeks and a maximum of one term in residence at the Schulich School of Law, Dalhousie University.

The past three decades have seen a growing scholarship on international law addressing legal and policy discussions on investment, trade, financial services and regulation, intellectual property right, tax, energy, competition law and even the environment. Despite this growth in the teaching and scholarly research of IEL, there remains question over the plurality and diversity of methodologies, voices and viewpoints in the discipline.

We have an outstanding opportunity for an Adviser, Trade Competitiveness Section in our Trade, Oceans and Natural Resources Directorate

TWAIL scholarship share three central themes. First, it engages in historical analysis to disinter partial narratives of international law. Second, the historical analysis exposes avenues through which particular aspects of international law are unjust to everyday realities of Third World peoples. Third, some TWAIL scholarship attempt to reform or transform unjust international law to suit the needs and realities of Third World peoples.

Critical perspectives can be both distinct from and form part of the broadly defined ‘socio-legal’ approach to social inquiry. To adopt a critical perspective is to commit to the project of demystifying and disrupting dominant narratives, interpretations and ways of both knowing and understanding legal phenomena. It represents a quest for truth and offers alternative ways of seeing the world around us. As such, critical perspectives encompass doctrinal, empirical and interdisciplinary approaches to the study of law. In short, it is the purpose of critical approaches to challenge and disrupt that which has been taken to be a ‘given’ in mainstream discourses and narratives