Non-State Actors

Despite the increasing popularity of MSIs, it is clear that self-regulation through this governance model is not the answer to driving corporate accountability for matters of public concern such as human rights protection. In a report released in July 2020 by MSI Integrity, a non-profit originally dedicated to understanding the human rights impact and value of MSIs, it was found that MSIs are not effective tools for holding corporations accountable for abuses, protecting rights holders against human rights violations, or providing survivors and victims’ with access to remedy. The report showed that we need to rethink the role of MSIs and the presence of an MSI in an industry should not be a substitute for public regulation.

This online symposium is the outcome of a workshop on ‘GVCs, Trade and Development’ hosted by the Kent Law School and IEL collective in July 2020 and supported by the British Academy (Grant no. MD19\190020). The workshop engaged with the policy research literature produced by the World Trade Organisation and World Bank since 2013, in particular their Global Value Chain Development (GVCD) reports of 2017 and 2019.

I am delighted to introduce the book symposium on my new monograph titled Sovereign Debt Restructuring: The Role and Limits of Public International Law. Unfortunately, the time could not be riper to discuss the role played by international law in sovereign debt restructuring. In fact, as a consequence of the ongoing economic recession caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, the world is facing a new systemic sovereign debt crisis.

The ongoing negotiation of a business and human rights treaty represents without a doubt a complex political and legal challenge, where diverse aspects – economic, diplomatic and juridical– must be agreed upon between negotiating States with very different geopolitical positions. Despite the realpolitik involved, this process presents an opportunity to refineand reinforce State obligations vis-à-vis the domestic regulation of business activities, as well as to improve access to justice for victims of transnational corporate human rights abuses.

Due diligence can be required under both legal and extra-legal understandings. It has had a long presence in international law, under different regimes, offering a flexible approach that demands reasonable responses in light of the concrete circumstances. However, because of its actual demands depending on primary law, how it is and will be made operative in business and human rights law cases will depend much on its understanding, negotiations and law-making. Thus, it is important to identify risks of a “weak” multi-level adoption due to potential “corporate or economic capture” and other dynamics.

The rapid development and spread of ICT are providing great opportunity to accelerate governmental response to the Covid-19 health crisis. At the same time, this development has exposed the weak enforcement of digital rights and freedoms. The emerging technologies have turned governmental control upside down . It has given a unique opportunity to the ICT platforms not only to govern themselves but also perform governmental functions of maintaining law and order albeit in the cyberspace. It has become double-edge sword for developing countries like India.

The International Women’s Day is an opportune time to recognise and celebrate female scholars. This post spotlights five female scholars of African descent, Professor Ruth Okediji, Professor Olufunmilayo Arewa, Professor Caroline Ncube, Dr Amaka Vanni and Dr Chijioke Okorie, for their outstanding contributions to the multifaceted and often esoteric intellectual property rights (IPRs) debates

Narratives are stories that get embedded in the general understanding of why and how a phenomenon takes place. Many narratives exist within International Investment Law (IIL) concerning its role in the international legal order, particularly in development. However, what if these narratives were to get turned on their head?

There is no single ‘correct’ approach to legal scholarship. The beauty of international economic law research and study lies in the availability of diverse theories and methods of other non-legal disciplines that can be carefully deployed to effectively engage in debates arising in today’s complex social, political and economic environment.

Many mainstream discussions on African regional integration focus on the role of the executive, bureaucrats and state institutions (hereafter referred to as state-actors) in facilitating regional integration. While state-actors play crucial roles in enabling regional integration from a “top-down” perspective, concentration on these state-actors inadvertently means that less focus is paid to the non-state actors involved in the process. This article explains that while state-actors do facilitate regional integration from a top-down perspective, non-state actors have the potential to (and in some cases, already do) facilitate regional integration using a “bottom-up” approach.