Economic Development

Officer and Director Liability in Transnational Human Rights Litigation

To the extent that a shift toward personal liability improves compliance with human rights, tort litigation may play a role in furthering the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Specifically, it may help ensure the basic conditions necessary for the inclusiveness of the economic development associated with TNCs.

Sustainable Development and Community Content in the Oil and Gas Industry

This contribution focuses on the inequalities that result within countries as a result of the activities of the oil and gas industry and which endure in spite of the local content policies that are adopted. Without endorsing local content as a legal/policy option that captures the position of local communities regarding the oil and gas industry, it argues that it is necessary to clarify the definition of local content because if the scope of local content is unknown, there is a likelihood that it will remain difficult to determine whether goals are being met especially with regard to host and impacted communities.

Redefining the role for international environmental law in addressing climate change

There is a need for the international community to be circumspect in eliciting commitments for greenhouse gas emissions and other forms of climate change adaptation and mitigation targets from African countries, without a holistic assessment of how the process of achieving these commitments will affect the development trajectory of the continent. In addition to galvanising greater international support for FDI in renewables for country’s such as Nigeria with significant potential for renewable energy generation for domestic consumption, it is imperative that the proposed energy mix is affordable and suited to the local development needs.

Diversification of the Nigerian economy as a de-carbonisation pathway: opportunities and challenges

This contribution aims to examine Nigeria’s use of Green Bonds as an example of an innovative policy initiative which has the potential to promote economic development while simultaneously reducing Nigeria’s carbon emission levels.

Increasing the Benefits, Reducing the Costs: Adding Competitiveness to the Theory and Practice of Free Trade Agreements and Regional Integration in Africa

With an increase in the spread and impact of independent regulatory agencies, Africa now has a nascent but significant network of competition authorities and other economic regulators. This growth in African regulatory practice and influence contribute to the value of adding competitiveness to the theory and practice of African regional integration. To add competitiveness may well increase the total benefits and speed of these developments of multinational agreements and regional integration. A competition policy for Africa consistent with developmental integration should attend to enforcement institutions (courts and authorities) and be flexible regarding its national/supranational balance.

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.

The Treaty Establishing the African Economic Community and the Agreement establishing the African Continental Free Trade Area: Some Relational Aspects and Concerns

While the establishment of a free trade area is categorically provided for as one of precursor stages to the AEC, it is appears to have been envisioned as being established primarily at the regional level (article 2 (d)), and not necessarily at the continental level. This was very much in line with the strategy to build the AEC through the RECs. The AEC Treaty did not get into the modalities of the establishment of the prospective free trade area, neither did it mention a further protocol in that regard. Whether this omission was deliberate, is subject to speculation, but perhaps it may have been based on the belief that RECs would be the drivers of free trade areas as opposed to a focused continental framework or mechanism.

The AfIELN Biennial Conference - Diversity of Scholarship and Representation

As the AfIELN celebrates 11 years and its 4th conference, there is a good reason for optimism that the coming years will see the network play a critical role in shaping the implementation of the AfCFTA. The AfIELN is well positioned to provide a support system for the AfCFTA and the broader African economic system. The  AfIELN is in this enviable position for several reasons most notably because it has become an incubator for the growth and development of early career researchers working in the area of International Economic Law both within and outside the African continent through strategic partnerships with relevant organisations and the organisation of research and networking events.

Accountability in sustainable development: Pipe dream or necessity for global transformation?

Attracting foreign investment while holding transnational corporations to account for any human rights transgressions is by no means an easy feat. It will require that a careful balance be struck between the interests of the host State and its people, and that of private actors expecting good risk-return ratios in pursuit of the bottom line. Although international mechanisms such as the United Nations Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights have long endorsed accountability for transnational corporations, a zero draft international convention to regulate this issue has only recently been developed.