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The African Perspective: The Development of Investment Laws, the Pan-African Investment Code (PAIC), and the African Continental Free Trade Area in the “New Economic World Order”

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 March 2021

Rose Rameau
Rose Rameau*
Affiliation:
FCIArb, Partner at the RAMEAU INTERNATIONAL LAW, Former Fulbright Scholar Visiting Professor at the University of Ghana Faculty of Law, International Arbitrator, CEDR Accredited International Mediator, Appointed Member of the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA).
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Extract

Bilateral investment treaties (BITs) containing traditional clauses such as Most Favorite Nation (MFN), National Treatment (NT), and Free and Equitable Treatment (FET) have been used as old tools to protect Foreign Direct Investments (FDI) throughout the African continent. African states have formed different economic blocks in order to facilitate intra-Africa investment trades and FDI protection. However, investment laws in the continent remain very fragmented. In 2005, African states enacted the Pan-African Investment Code (PAIC), which did not include provisions for traditional Investor State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) but included exceptions to MFN and NT while omitting FET. The PAIC is a classic example of the African perspective in using old tools in new ways to promote more economic nationalism and sustainable development in Africa while maintaining a balance between investors’ protection and states’ sovereign right to regulate.

Type
Using Old Tools in New Ways: The New Economic World Order
Information
Proceedings of the ASIL Annual Meeting , Volume 114 , 2020 , pp. 62 - 67
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of The American Society of International Law.

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References

1 Sylvanus Kwaku Afesorgbor, The Impact of Regional Economic Integration on Bilateral Trade in West and Southern Africa: A Comparative Study of ECOWAS, SADC and EU Preferential Trade Agreement 20 (International Institute of Social Studies Research Paper, Nov. 2010), available at http://hdl.handle.net/2105/8665.

2 Id.

3 Union Monétaire Ouest Africaine (UMOA) became Union Economique et Monétaire Ouest Africaine (UEMOA), at http://www.uemoa.int/en.

4 Kwame Nkrumah, Neo-colonialism: The Last Stage of Imperialism (1966).

5 Makane M. Mbengue & Stefanie Schacherer, The “Africanization” of International Investment Law: The Pan-African Investment Code and the Reform of the International Investment Regime, 18 J. World Invest. Trade 414, 416 (2017).

6 See Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, May 23, 1969, 1155 UNTS 331, 340.

7 See Draft Pan-African Investment Code (PAIC), pmbl., 3 (2016).

8 See id.

9 Salini v. Morocco, ICSID Case No. ARB/00/4, Decision on Jurisdiction, para. 52 (July 31, 2001).

10 See PAIC, supra note 7, Art. 8.2.

11 Id.

12 See Energy Charter Treaty, Art. 17, Dec. 17, 1994, 2080 UNTS 95, 114.

13 See Regional Economic Communities (REC), African Union Website, at https://au.int/en/organs/recs.

14 Id.

15 Brock R. Williams & Nicolas Cook, African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), Cong. Res. Servs. (Feb. 7, 2020), at https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IF/IF11423.

16 Id.

17 Mbengue & Schacherer, supra note 5, at 416.

18 Slowakische Republik (Slovak Republic) v. Achmea BV, C-284/16 (Eur. Ct. Just. 2018).

19 The USMCA has no indirect expropriation if measures taken for public health and safety of the environment. The Japan-Korea BIT (2002) does not afford investors protections where a state takes any measure necessary for the maintenance of public order.