International Investment Law

Call for Papers: Lillehammer Workshop: International Investment Contracts

The workshop aims to gather scholars and practitioners interested in exploring - theoretically, doctrinally, empirically, comparatively, critically, and otherwise - the nature of international investment contracts in different contexts and its implications for elaborating transnational standards.

Harmonising International Investment Law with International Law Through the Framework of the Multilateral Investment Court (MIC)

The aim of this post is to illustrate how the MIC can be used as a tool for harmonising international investment law (IIL) with general international law and other branches of international law. The increase in investor state arbitrations has led to a growing increase in the overlap between investment obligations and environmental, human rights and other international obligations. This may cause conflicts between the different branches of international law where more than one branch of international law is implicated in the investment dispute. This has led to the fragmentation of international law with calls to rebalance the system to allow for the consideration of broader public international law in the settlement of investor-state disputes.

Webinar Invitation: The Future of International Investment Law in Africa - A Conversation on Two New Books

The webinar brings two together the authors of two new books on the subject of international investment law in Africa and three expert panelists to interrogate thematic issues that arise from the books; their implication for contemporary practices of international investment law in Africa and beyond; and what insights we may draw on them for the future of the regimes on investment law in Africa.

NEW OPEN ACCESS BOOK: Sixty years after independence, Africa and international law: Views from a generation / Soixante ans apres les independances, l’Afrique et le droit international: Regards d’une generation, Apollin Koagne Zouapet (Ed), PULP 2023

This book emerged from the observation that in international law scholarship, few studies have been done on Africa as both object and subject of international law despite the involvement of African states and Africans in the international arena and their active participation in many debates. To fill this gap by examining, sixty years after the independence of African states, the place of Africa in international law and the way international law looks at Africa is the challenge that the contributors to this book, all internationalists of the 1980-1990 generation, have taken up. The book highlights the specificity of a particular African law and examines the African experience in this fi eld from an international law perspective.

Call for Papers (International Conference): The African Renaissance in the Age of Globalization - What Role for International Investment Law?

Can the ambitious dream of the African Renaissance be brought to fruition? Can peace and prosperity be fulfilled? What role can international investment law play in helping African peoples tackle the challenges to Africa’s growth and prosperity? The conference aims to address these questions seeing Africa as a continent of hope and emancipation. It constitutes a platform to critically assess the promises and pitfalls of existing investment treaties and build momentum for dialogue on the future of Africa.

Invitation: Trade, Investment and Debt in United States-Africa Relations - Afronomicslaw and Open Society Policy Center Side Event

This public event is hosted by Afronomicslaw.org – the leading forum on international economic law issues relating to Africa, and Open Society Policy Center. This hybrid event will be streamed live on YouTube, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter handles of Afronomicslaw.org.

Investment for Sustainable Development: Opportunities and Challenges for the African Continental Free Trade Area Investment Protocol

The African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) aims to achieve the expansion of intra- African trade through the harmonisation and coordination of trade liberalisation and facilitation across Regional Economic Communities (RECs) and Africa in general and "enhance competitiveness at the industry and enterprise level through exploiting opportunities for scale production, continental market access and better reallocation of resources". Negotiations for the Phase II Protocols of the AfCFTA are ongoing. Of particular importance to this paper will be the Protocol on Investment which is currently under negotiation. This paper will focus on how the Investment Protocol can contribute to promoting sustainable development on the African continent.

Locating Fragmentation in the 'Africanization' of International Investment Law

Contemporary scholarship on international investment law (IIL) in Africa has emphasised the 'Africanization' of IIL. This article argues that the presence of a cross-cutting policy vision in the Africanization of IIL should not be viewed as its conceptual sine qua non but as a significant challenge to its end goals.

AfCFTA Investment Protocol Negotiations and the Case of Namibia: A Call for Regional Regulatory Harmonization vis-à-vis Investment Policy in Africa

There is a growing tendency among States to defy, terminate and/or replace their international investment agreements with domestic laws as a reclamation of national sovereignty vis-à-vis international institutions. Thus, international investment law and its reform needs to be informed by research into domestic systems of governance in order to conceptualize better how regional and international law principles are implemented alongside and through the use of domestic legal instruments, but also in order to reform policies within the international investment law or national law context

Symposium Introduction: Critical and Contextual Perspectives on International Economic Law: Amplifying the Voices of African Students and Early-Career Researcher

We hope the papers in this symposium will contribute to the ongoing efforts worldwide to achieve epistemological and methodological diversity in the IEL discipline. As a new Forum, we aim to remain flexible, experimental and responsive to the changing landscape in IEL. We will like to take this opportunity to thank the academics who have supported the Academic Forum over the last two years. We hope we can continue to count on your support as we devise robust and practical ways to decolonise and pluralise IEL research, scholarship and practice as a counterpoint to the dominant Western-centric IEL imagination.