EAC

The Kenya/US Strategic Trade Agreement Needs to Be Negotiated with Transparency Not Urgency

From September 16-27, 2024, U.S. and Kenyan negotiators held their eighth negotiating round of the US/Kenya Strategic Trade and Investment Partnership in Washington DC. The trade talks for a stand-alone Free Trade Agreement kicked off under the Trump and Kenyatta administrations following an August 2018 meeting of the two Presidents. The Biden administration relaunched the negotiations in July 2022. At the time, the Biden Administration identified protecting American firms in its new industrial policy of increasing manufacturing to counter China. It also sought access to the Kenyan market for American genetically modified crops and dealing with corruption to ensure transparency in public procurement for American businesses as key objectives. In the meantime, President William Ruto, who was elected as Kenya’s fifth President in August 2022, continued pursuing a trade deal with the U.S. with zeal.

Good Governance, People-Centeredness and Transparency on the Spot: Somalia's Mysterious Journey Towards EAC Membership

This analysis dives deep into the Somalia's admission to the East Africa Community (EAC), with the objective of dissecting the admission procedure and analyzing Somalia's Accession Treaty, while scrutinizing the EAC Verification Mission Report. It was noted that while the EAC Treaty declares key principles like good governance, people-centeredness, transparency, and democracy, the specific procedures and rules that it provides for, do not do justice to those principles. This blog therefore, calls for a reform of the EAC institutions by moving the institutions further away from elitism and bureaucracy and bring it closer to the people-centeredness envisaged by the Treaty.

NEWS: 06.07.2023

The News and Events category publishes the latest News and Events relating to International Economic Law relating to Africa and the Global South. Every week, Afronomicslaw.org receive the News and Events in their e-mail accounts. The News and Events published every week include conferences, major developments in the field of International Economic Law in Africa at the national, sub-regional and regional levels as well as relevant case law. News and Events with a Global South focus are also often included.

NEWS: 06.28.2023

The News and Events category publishes the latest News and Events relating to International Economic Law relating to Africa and the Global South. Every week, Afronomicslaw.org receive the News and Events in their e-mail accounts. The News and Events published every week include conferences, major developments in the field of International Economic Law in Africa at the national, sub-regional and regional levels as well as relevant case law. News and Events with a Global South focus are also often included.

The Video of the Afronomicslaw Webinar V is Live: Exploring Paths Toward an Ideal US/Kenya FTA for Kenya

This webinar focused on what possible directions what the ideal paths lie for a US/Kenya Free Trade Agreement that will benefit Kenya in all the areas it is negotiating with the United States. The experts panelists consider what constraints and possibilities the negotiating framework in the United States means for Kenya’s goals in the negotiations. In addition, the experts consider what lessons Kenya can learn from the United States, Mexico and Canada, (USMCA), Free Trade Agreement and how those lessons can translated into positive outcomes for Kenya.

FREE TRADE: A PIPE DREAM FOR AFRICA?

The AfCFTA seeks to change the manner in which African states trade with each other. The existence of the AfCFTA is what Roscoe Pound termed using the law as a tool of social engineering. The African Union in creating the AfCFTA intended to promote, facilitate and eventually experience free intra-African trade. This review appreciates the AfCFTA but seeks to criticize a loophole it has created

Reflections on Fox and Bakhoum’s Making Markets Work for Africa (OUP, 2019)

Fox and Bakhoum contextualize competition law by describing (in chapters 2 and 3) the structure and other key characteristic of markets in numerous African countries, including the economic and political history of those countries and their markets, as well as the legacies of colonization and decolonization – and by highlighting more broadly the economic challenges and needs of the people of Africa.

Devising Most Favored Nation (MFN) Clauses for the implementation of the AfCFTA in Economic Partnership Agreements

The effective implementation of the AfCFTA can only be achieved where state parties are assured of the stability of their local markets. This article notes that one of the key ways to safeguard these markets is through the development of a coordinated response to MFN clauses which can only be effectively attained through the Council of Ministers.