Symposium Posts

The aim of this piece is to contribute to the evolving debate around the AfCFTA and its relationship with the WTO. It considers whether the practice of African RTAs to rely on the Enabling Clause since 1979 should be replicated. Considering the ambition of the AfCFTA for a deep integration, aiming at liberalising trade in goods, services, investment, intellectual property, competition, etc, the Enabling Clause appears as a second-best option.

A new economic wisdom seems to be informing the development agenda of international economic institutions, including the World Trade Organisation’s (WTO). The argument is that, although global value chains (GVCs) have existed for a long time, the pace and intensity of global interactions is rapidly changing, consisting of ever more functional ‘fractionalization’ and geographical ‘dispersion’ of production, and so is the nature of trade, with the unprecedented increase in the exchange of components and tasks originating in different parts of the world.

Currently, the world finds itself at a crisis point. The global health pandemic caused by COVID-19 has drastically changed the way we live, how we run our economies and even, how we teach and research IEL. In the post-COVID world, old rules and games may not apply any more. The scholarly interventions presented in the IEL Collective symposia offers tools for a new, pragmatic internationalism – one based on critical reflection, methodological diversity and contributes towards the development of a more holistic landscape of scholarship on law and the governance of the global economy.

The Award in Oded Besserglik v. Republic of Mozambique, one of the very few publicly known intra African treaty-based investment arbitration cases, was issued 29th October 2019. The case started when in March 2014, a South African national (Mr. Besserglik) filed an application, before the International Center for the Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID), against the Mozambique (the Respondent) on the grounds that his shares and interests in a joint fishing venture with some Mozambican State-owned enterprises, as well as his vessels, were unlawfully and fraudulently appropriated by the Respondent.

Following the conclusion of the four-part Symposium on COVID-19 and International Economic Law in the Global South, Afronomicslaw.org is pleased to announce three follow-up webinars to continue the conversation

The debate to what extent the societies are willing to allow the relativization of human rights and the democratic mechanisms is essential to bring what Boaventura de Sousa Santos calls “a novel clarity” that according to him: “[…]pandemic clarity and the apparitions it brings to light. The things it allows us to see and the way in which they are interpreted and assessed will determine the future of the civilization in which we live”.

The main goal of the international HRWS is to prioritise universal access to safe, affordable, accessible, adequate water and sanitation, including hygiene services. The human rights framework also has procedural requirements to ensure non-discrimination, public participation, transparency and accountability and the extraterritorial obligation to do no harm in the governance of WASH services. Water is understood as having diverse characteristics being simultaneously an economic, social, cultural, political and ecological good. This multiplicity of framings complicates the localization and mainstreaming of the HRWS in relevant institutions at various levels of governance, from the international to the local.

The coronavirus reminds us of our shared humanity, but at the same time its fallout has increased our economic inequalities. It affects and infects people, regardless of class, socio-economic status, gender, and race. At the same time, however, it reinforces inequalities among people and nations by forcing developing countries into the arms of richer nations in the West.

Enforcement of socio-economic rights in Kenya, with minimal success rate, has proven quite problematic. In almost all petitions on socio-economic rights, the government always pleads progressive realization, inadequate resources and the doctrine of separation of powers. Enforcement of socio-economic rights such as the right to adequate housing requires allocation of resources for their realization.

International law constructed along the voluntarist orthodoxy doesn’t help in the time of pandemic. It leaves the poorer at the good will of the mighty, for it largely ignores the actual power relations between states. The inter-state deals struck “voluntarily” and the policy choices thus fixed reflect the bargaining power of the States. This being the case, the international law is likely to reinforce and perpetuate inequalities, rather than being a check against the use of political power. As the post-corona crisis is likely to strike the poorest nations hardest, the bright future for some may mean dim prospects for others.