Stand-Alone Posts

The Mandela Institute is a leading university centre undertaking research, policy development, and capacity building at the intersection between economics and law. Its mandate is to advance the field of economic regulation.

In response to the COVID-19 crisis, the American Journal of International Law (AJIL) is issuing a worldwide call for papers for an Agora symposium to be published in the October 2020 issue of the Journal.  The topic – “The International Legal Order and the Global Pandemic” – recognizes that the present crisis raises foundational questions for the international legal order that extend beyond the immediate challenges to public health and economic stability.

The Potchefstroom Electronic Law Journal (PER/PELJ) invites contributions from authors with regard to the impact of the COVID-19 on the future regulation of foreign investment in developing states.

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.

It is trite to mention that the benefits and costs from trade expansion may never be evenly distributed across ACs. However, the estimated revenue loss should not be considered as an absolute loss for ACs as the long-term benefits, facilitated by adjustment support remain significant. It will allow comparative advantage to thrive, thereby granting customers and firms access to cheaper products/raw materials in the continent.

States could rely on secondary rules on State responsibility to defend preventative measures relating to COVID-19, yet their successful invocation depends on satisfying several conditions set out in the ILC’s Draft Articles on the Responsibility of States for Internationally Wrongful Acts, a discussion of which is beyond the scope of this post. Meanwhile, the applicability of the doctrine of margin of appreciation, developed by the European Court of Human Rights, to the claims arising under BITs has been accepted, justifying why investment tribunals should pay deference to governmental judgments of national requirements in the protection of public health when the “discretionary exercise of sovereign power, [is] not made irrationally and not exercised in bad faith”

This special issue of the International Criminal Law Review particularly welcomes submissions that critically reflect on these questions in the context of transitional justice and resurgent authoritarianism and ongoing conflict.

The American University in Cairo (AUC) and the Department of Law in the School of Global Affairs and Public Policy (GAPP) invite applications for a one-year visiting position at the Assistant, Associate, or Full Professor level, beginning Fall 2020.

Since Kenya had made commitments, it is not far fetched to argue that non observance of these commitments especially regarding trade in legal services offends the EAC Treaty. This brings in the issue of remedies available at the East African Court of Justice. It is time this issue was addressed by the  East African Court of Justice (EACJ).

In light of the evolving situation regarding the COVID-19 crisis, the SIEL Executive Council has decided to postpone the 2020 SIEL Conference, which was scheduled to take place in July 2020 at Bocconi University in Milan.