Global South

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.

Sovereign debt is generated by a global financial and debt architecture that subordinates Global South countries for profit. The recurrent debt crisis that Global South countries experience from time to time is not an aberration but a systemic feature of the global financial and debt architecture. Similarly, the ad hoc, temporary, and non-binding ‘soft’ law approaches designed to address the chronic indebtedness of Global South countries are not incidental but are integral features of a global financial and debt architecture dominated by the interests of private capital.

Join us for the launch of Afronomics Law's latest quarterly report, "Sovereign Debt as Subordination to Global Finance", by Prof. James Gathii and Dr. Harrison Mbori.

The panelists in this inaugural webinar of the Canadian Yearbook of International Law will focus on some of these emerging questions. Comprising of academia, practice and policy experts, our panelists seek to shed light on some of the nagging issues of our day in search of a way forward.

Join us for the launch of Afronomicslaw’s latest quarterly report, "The Impact of IMF Recommended Consumption Tax Policy on Africa’s Rising Public Debt Levels" by Marie-Louise Aren. This report critically explores the IMF’s consumption tax policies and their adverse effects on borrower nations, particularly in Africa and the Global South. It examines how the IMF’s emphasis on consumption taxes like VAT, when used as a tool for revenue mobilization, often leads to regressive outcomes by exacerbating inequality, increasing poverty, and contributing to unsustainable public debt.

This report critically explores the IMF’s consumption tax policies and their adverse effects on borrower nations, particularly in Africa and the Global South. It examines how the IMF’s emphasis on consumption taxes like VAT, when used as a tool for revenue mobilization, often leads to regressive outcomes by exacerbating inequality, increasing poverty, and contributing to unsustainable public debt. Through an analysis of the global debt architecture evolution and a review of IMF-backed tax reforms across various regions, the report highlights the disconnect between the IMF’s policy prescriptions and the socio-economic realities of developing countries. The study underscores the need for reforming the international debt architecture to address the negative impacts of these policies and proposes recommendations for more equitable and sustainable debt and tax solutions.

My comments focus on Chapter II on Domestic and Financial Private Business and Finance. I will focus on the proposals relating to domestic financial sector, enabling environments and access to financing in paragraphs 31, 33 and 34 of the Zero Draft. My overall comment is that these proposals are a wish list for foreign investors not proven avenues of raising financings.

The GNLU Centre for Sports and Entertainment Law is please to host the 1st International Conference on Sports Law in the Global South in collaboration with the renowned T.M.C. Asser Instituut International Sports Law Centre, Netherlands.

I am very happy to introduce the symposium on my book, Sustainable Development, International Law, and a Turn to African Legal Cosmologies, by Cambridge University Press in May 2024. This symposium features four very thoughtful and critical reviews. These four reflections should be read as companion pieces together with my introduction. They address different aspects of the book, provide points of convergence and divergence, and foreshadow future research. I am grateful to these reviewers for their kind engagement with my book, for their constructive criticisms and positive feedback. I am equally grateful to the editors of AfronomicsLaw.org for curating this symposium.

In this analysis, migration and its relation with climate change and development are examined through Sen's (1999) capabilities framework for human mobility. Migration is a people-centric activity where one may want to reside in or relocate to a desired area. Discussions around the connection between climate change and migration are growing in academic and governance contexts. Scholars are increasingly recognising migration's role as a strategy for adaptation and development. The International Organisation for Migration (IOM) suggests that there is no direct relation between climate changes and migration decisions. Viewing migration as merely adaptation can understate the varied causes of forced migration, which include sociology, economics, politics, and ecology. Addressing climate migration effectively requires considering political and economic processes and their interrelations.