International Investment Law and Policy in Africa


Book Description

This book studies the international investment law regime in Africa and provides a comprehensive analysis of the current treaty practices in Africa from global, regional and domestic perspectives. It develops a public interest regulation theory to highlight the role of investment regulation in sustainable development and the protection of human rights. In doing so, the book identifies seven factors that should be considered by arbitrators in resolving international investment disputes that affect the public interest. It considers how corporations can be held accountable through investment treaties in the absence of a global treaty on business and human rights while protecting the rights of investors and their investments. Furthermore, the book explores the current objectives and features of investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) as well as the deficiencies and its intersection with the rule of law. It identifies alternatives for ISDS and the extent to which these alternatives address the objectives of attracting investment, depoliticise investment disputes, promote the rule of law and offer remedies to investors. These solutions are offered in relation to the protection of human rights, the promotion of sustainable development and the right of states to introduce domestic public interest regulation. Finally, the book takes a prospective stance and discusses future trends for dispute settlement and investment rulemaking in Africa.




Exploring African approaches to international law: Essays in honour of Kéba Mbaye


Book Description

It is unfortunate that the idea that Africa contributes to international law, and has always done so, remains (in 2022) largely a side note, an auxiliary approach, rather than something widely accepted and deeply entrenched. It is cause for pause that this is also true in Africa itself. Exploring African approaches to international law: Essays in honour of Kéba Mbaye is a volume of essays that aims to contribute to a larger effort of imagining what possible approaches to international law Africa has adopted in the decades since the 1960s. It also recognises the legacy of the great Senegalese jurist Kéba Mbaye. Edited by Frans Viljoen, Humphrey Sipalla and Foluso Adegalu, the volume is divided into five broad thematic parts, and comprises eleven chapters. It covers the following themes: ‘Kéba Mbaye in African approaches to international law’, ‘international legal theory’, ‘international human rights law’, ‘international environmental and criminal law’ and ‘teaching of international law’. This publication finds its origins in the 2017 Roundtable on African approaches to international law, held at the Centre for Human Rights, University of Pretoria. The explorations at the Roundtable on the concept of an ‘African approach’ to international law were taken further at the Kéba Mbaye Conference on African approaches to international law, held at the Senate Hall, University of Pretoria, in December 2018. This conference brought together around 80 students, academics, and members of civil society to address the many questions left unanswered by the death of Judge Mbaye, arguably Africa’s greatest international law jurist of his generation. It provided a forum to continue discussions on ‘African approaches to international (human rights) law’, building on but rethinking and ‘vernacularising’ the Third World Approaches to International Law (TWAIL) approach. The contributions to this publication flow from papers presented at the conference. However, the reflections in the book extend beyond Kéba Mbaye as central figure. The result is a broad treatment of various aspects of African approaches to international law by thirteen authors (and co-authors), covering a wide range of generational, geographic and thematic backgrounds and perspectives.




Research Methods in International Law


Book Description

This timely Handbook contains a wide-ranging overview of the diverse research methods used within international law. Providing an insightful examination of how international legal knowledge is analysed and adopted, this Handbook offers the reader a deeper understanding on the role and place of research methods in international legal theory, reasoning and practice.




Exploring African Approaches to International Law


Book Description

It is unfortunate that the idea that Africa contributes to international law, and has always done so, remains (in 2022) largely a side note, an auxiliary approach, rather than something widely accepted and deeply entrenched. It is cause for pause that this is also true in Africa itself. Exploring African approaches to international law: Essays in honour of Kéba Mbaye is a volume of essays that aims to contribute to a larger effort of imagining what possible approaches to international law Africa has adopted in the decades since the 1960s. It also recognises the legacy of the great Senegalese jurist Kéba Mbaye. Edited by Frans Viljoen, Humphrey Sipalla and Foluso Adegalu, the volume is divided into five broad thematic parts, and comprises eleven chapters. It covers the following themes: 'Kéba Mbaye in African approaches to international law', 'international legal theory', 'international human rights law', 'international environmental and criminal law' and 'teaching of international law'. This publication finds its origins in the 2017 Roundtable on African approaches to international law, held at the Centre for Human Rights, University of Pretoria. The explorations at the Roundtable on the concept of an 'African approach' to international law were taken further at the Kéba Mbaye Conference on African approaches to international law, held at the Senate Hall, University of Pretoria, in December 2018. This conference brought together around 80 students, academics, and members of civil society to address the many questions left unanswered by the death of Judge Mbaye, arguably Africa's greatest international law jurist of his generation. It provided a forum to continue discussions on 'African approaches to international (human rights) law', building on but rethinking and 'vernacularising' the Third World Approaches to International Law (TWAIL) approach. The contributions to this publication flow from papers presented at the conference. However, the reflections in the book extend beyond Kéba Mbaye as central figure. The result is a broad treatment of various aspects of African approaches to international law by thirteen authors (and co-authors), covering a wide range of generational, geographic and thematic backgrounds and perspectives.




Contingency in International Law


Book Description

This book poses a question that is deceptive in its simplicity: could international law have been otherwise? Today, there is hardly a serious account left that would consider the path of international law to be necessary, and that would refute the possibility of a different law altogether. But behind every possibility of the past stands a reason why the law developed as it did. Only with a keen sense of why things turned out the way they did is it possible to argue about how the law could plausibly have turned out differently. The search for contingency in international law is often motivated, as it is in this volume, by a refusal to resign to the present state of affairs. By recovering past possibilities, this volume aims to inform projects of transformative legal change for the future. The book situates that search for contingency theoretically and carries it into practice across many fields, with chapters discussing human rights and armed conflict, migrants and refugees, the sea and natural resources, foreign investments and trade. In doing so, it shows how politically charged questions about contingency have always been.




Exploring African Approaches to International Law


Book Description

It is unfortunate that the idea that Africa contributes to international law, and has always done so, remains (in 2022) largely a side note, an auxiliary approach, rather than something widely accepted and deeply entrenched. It is cause for pause that this is also true in Africa itself. Exploring African approaches to international law: Essays in honour of Kéba Mbaye is a volume of essays that aims to contribute to a larger effort of imagining what possible approaches to international law Africa has adopted in the decades since the 1960s. It also recognises the legacy of the great Senegalese jurist Kéba Mbaye."




A Theory of African Constitutionalism


Book Description

A Theory of African Constitutionalism asks and seeks to answer why we need a new theoretical framework for African constitutionalism and how this could offer us better theoretical and practical tools with which to understand, improve, and assess African constitutionalism on its own terms. By locating constitutional studies in Africa within the experiences, interactions, and contestations of power and governance beginning in precolonial times, the book presents the development and transformation of African constitutional systems across time and place, along with the attendant constitutional designs and practices ranging from the nature and operation of the African state to its vertical and horizontal government structures, to its constitutional rights regime. This title offers both a theoretically and comparatively rich, historically and contextually informed, and temporally and spatially extensive account of the nature, travails, and incremental successes of African constitutionalism with detailed case studies from Nigeria, Ethiopia, and South Africa. A Theory of African Constitutionalism provides scholars, policymakers, governments, and constitution builders in Africa and beyond with new insights for reimagining the purpose, substance, and scope of constitutions and constitutionalism.




Transnational Constitutionalism


Book Description

An interdisciplinary perspective is adopted to examine international and European models of constitutionalism. In particular the book reflects critically on a number of constitutional themes, such as the nature of European and international constitutional models and their underlying principles; the telos behind international and European constitutionalism; the role of the state and of central courts; and the relationships between composite orders. Transnational Constitutionalism brings together a group of European and international law scholars, whose thought-provoking contributions provide the necessary intellectual insight that will assist the reader in understanding the political and legal phenomena that take place beyond the state. This edited collection represents an original and pioneering contribution to the international and European constitutional discourse.




Human Rights and the Environment under African Union Law


Book Description

This book brings together original and novel perspectives on major developments in human rights law and the environment in Africa. Focusing on African Union law, the book explores the core concepts and principles, theory and practice, accountability mechanisms and key issues challenging human rights law in the era of global environmental change. It, thus, extend the frontier of understanding in this fundamental area by building on existing scholarship on African human rights law and the protection of the environment, divulging concerns on redressing environmental and human rights protection issues in the context of economic growth and sustainable development. It further offers unique insight into the development, domestication and implementation challenges relating to human rights law and environmental governance in Africa. This long overdue interdisciplinary exploration of human rights law and the environment from an African perspective will be an indispensable reference point for academics, policymakers, practitioners and advocates of international human rights and environmental law in particular and international law, environmental politics and philosophy, and African studies in general. It is clear that there is much to do, study and share on this timely subject in the African context.




Humanitarian Law in Action Within Africa


Book Description

In this book, Jennifer Moore studies the role and application of humanitarian law by considering the experiences of African countries that are emerging from civil wars. Moore first offers an overview of international law, including its essential vocabulary, and then describes four particular subfields of international law: international humanitarian law, international human rights law, international criminal law, and international refugee law. After offering readers this important backdrop, Moore turns to practical mechanisms necessary to implement international humanitarian law, focusing specifically on the experiences of Uganda, Sierra Leone, and Burundi. This study of humanitarian law, despite its focus on Africa's experience, is important to conflict resolution and reconstruction throughout the world.