Analysis

The Analysis Section of Afronomicslaw.org publishes two types of content on issues of international economic law and public international law, and related subject matter, relating to Africa and the Global South. First, individual blog submissions which readers are encouraged to submit for consideration. Second, feature symposia, on discrete themes and book reviews that fall within the scope of the subject matter focus of Afronomicslaw.org. 

Tanzania Hit by Second ICSID Dispute Related to Mining Retention Licenses

A request for the institution of arbitration proceedings against the United Republic of Tanzania (“Respondent”) was registered by the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) Secretary General on October 5, 2020. This request was made by Nachingwea U.K. Limited (UK), Ntaka Nickel Holdings Limited (UK) and Nachingwea Nickel Limited (Tanzania) (“Claimants”). The claimants invoked the 1994 Bilateral Investment Treaty (BIT) between United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, on the one hand, and Tanzania, on the other.

Digital Taxes, Transactions Costs and Heterogeneity

As long as national tax systems develop in response to unique social and administrative pressures, jurisdictions will continue to rely on tax systems that exhibit at least as many differences as similarities. Tax harmonization represents the traditional answer to that entropic pressure, reflecting a confidence that nations can avoid international tax conflicts by becoming more like one another. Unfortunately, in part because many of the jurisdictions that populate today's international tax landscape have little in common, it seems that harmonization is no longer equal to the task. This Part introduces the concept of deharmonization, an alternative to harmonization that may be more robust.

Diamonds are forever: law, conflict theories, and natural resource governance in Africa

Over the past few decades, the term ‘resource curse’ has entered the policy domain and has been used to describe how countries in Africa, and the Global South more generally, which are endowed with natural wealth, are unable to develop and cannot avoid declining into violent conflict. In the collective imaginary, wars in different African countries, such as Angola, Sierra Leone, Ivory Coast, and Liberia have been associated with brutal conflict waged by rebels driven by the lust for 'blood diamonds.'

Development, Climate and Economic Policy: The Need for Narrative Shift

Development, particularly in developing countries, in the current context requires thinking about how multiple global crises are interlinked, their impact on development prospects, and the narrative framing needed to generate positive and progressive systemic policy change.

Free Trade Agreements and Global Labour Governance – The European Union’s Trade-Labour Linkage in a Value Chain World

Exploring the contentious relationship between trade and labour, my recently published co-authored book looks at the impact of the EU’s ‘new generation’ Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) on workers. Drawing upon extensive original research, which includes over 200 interviews with key actors across the EU and its trading partners, the book considers the effectiveness of the trade-labour linkage in an era of global value chains (GVCs).

Beyond GVCs as clockworks: The constitutive role of law, power and the way(s) ahead

Global Value Chains (GVCs) are the main form of contemporary transnational capitalism. They are complex legal and financial structures that challenge traditional international-national and public-private dichotomies. They shape and define the speed of work and extraction, build bridges, raise walls, and transform lives and nature in each place where they touch base around the globe. Covid-19, a biological shock that has triggered a legal and economic reconsideration of global markets, has revealed the ecological backbone of value chains and highlighted the need to rethink the premises of competitiveness and cheapness around which they are imagined.

Accountability within GVCs as part of post COVID-19 transformative agenda

Global value chains (GVCs), as a dominant form of capitalism today, have been a vehicle for entrenching the concentration of economic resources and power in the hands of multinational corporations. While COVID-19 compounded health and economic crisis, reports emerged that suppliers in the garment industry value chains have been facing mounting challenges as a result of unreasonable demands from big clients, mainly corporations in the United States and the United Kingdom.

South Sudan Faced with Debt Restructuring Dispute at ICSID

South Sudan - Africa’s latest independent country – is facing its second ICSID claim brought by Qatar National Bank, a Qatari State-owned entity (“SOE”). It was reported that the dispute is related to default by the BSS (which is the Central Bank of South Sudan) on the payment of a US$ 700 million loan it borrowed during the civil war.

Commodity Dependency, GVC development and Industrial Policy in Sub-Saharan Africa

The brief discussions in this blog post highlight critical aspects of the contemporary dynamics of commodity dependence that challenge the optimism of the GVCD approach as espoused by multilateral development agencies and the WTO. Moreover, it raises further questions on the political economy of commodity dependency and industrial policy in SSA that deserve attention.

The Time and Gender of GVCs: 3 Critical Points on the GVC & Development Report 2019

In this short commentary I briefly raise three critical points against the assumptions at the basis of this report. I discuss the temporality of employment in GVCs; the gendered construction of skills and employment disadvantage; and the need to move the debate from individual wages to social wages in order to truly assess the ‘reproductive’ - or more simply, livelihood - implications of GVCs employment on labouring classes.