scholarly journals The Role of African Regional Organizations in the Promotion and Protection of Foreign Investment

2017 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
pp. 449-492
Author(s):  
Erik Denters ◽  
Tarcisio Gazzini
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Foreign Investment ◽  
Corporate Responsibility ◽  
West African ◽  
Policy Space ◽  
Economic Community ◽  
Regional Organizations ◽  
Public Scrutiny ◽  
Bilateral Treaties

A complex, fragmented and heterogeneous network of domestic and international legal instruments promotes and protects foreign investment in Africa. While bilateral treaties seem to be increasingly unpopular, regionalism is clearly on the rise in the continent. The article examines how regional treaties have contributed to upgrade the current regulation of foreign investment. From this perspective, Africa can be seen as a normative laboratory. Regional treaties, most prominently those concluded within the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and the Southern African Development Community (SADC), contain several important novelties meant to rebalance the rights and obligations of the various stakeholders as well as to safeguard host State policy space. The content of these treaties has been brought more in line with the evolution of international law, especially with regard to the protection of the environment, social and human rights, transparency, corruption, public scrutiny, economic development, and corporate responsibility.

The ECOMOG Initiative in Liberia: A Liberian Perspective

1993 ◽  
Vol 21 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 74-83
Author(s):  
S. Byron Tarr
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
West African ◽  
Security System ◽  
Economic Community ◽  
Internal Conflicts ◽  
Cooperative Security ◽  
The Usa ◽  
Monitoring Group ◽  
Inter State

This is a Liberian perspective on the unique initiative by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) to resolve the Liberian conflict by organizing and deploying a Peace Monitoring Group in Liberia. It considers whether ECOWAS’ initiative can become a self-reliant security system that can end a civil war and institutionalize deterrence to subregional inter-state and internal conflicts. Can this self-generated, West African initiative set the stage for democratization? Is the initiative the start of an inter-African cooperative security system? Is the model of Nigerian leadership a harbinger of a regional hegemony in the making? Is the modest role of the USA constructive in resolving the conflict, in light of the fact that Liberia is a country with which the USA has had an historic relationship?

scholarly journals Ebola haemorrhagic fever in africa: a necessary highlight

2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
Samuel Adu-Gyamfi
Keyword(s):  
Health Professionals ◽  
International Community ◽  
West African ◽  
Haemorrhagic Fever ◽  
Economic Community ◽  
Border Health ◽  
The West ◽  
Global Threat ◽  
Scientific Facts

<p><span lang="EN-GB">The purpose of this commentary is to re-evaluate the historic and scientific facts on Ebola haemorrhagic fever and the role of the international community, especially Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) in stemming the tide. It rehashes the argument on causes and prevention and draws attention of readers to emphasize the need for establishment of airport, sea port and border health posts with well drilled and efficient health professionals to be able to test, detect and quarantine persons with Ebola and treat them to prevent the spread of the disease from infected persons to primary or first contacts and secondary contacts. Significantly, countries in the West African sub-region are alarmed by the potential spread of the disease to countries that have hitherto been free of the disease. The potential global threat of the disease has been analysed and measures to be taken by countries within the West-African sub-region have been emphasized. This notwithstanding, does the declaration of countries as Ebola-free suggest the last of it?</span></p>

The Economic Community of West African States

2020 ◽  
pp. 187-203
Author(s):  
Frank Schimmelfennig ◽  
Thomas Winzen ◽  
Tobias Lenz ◽  
Jofre Rocabert ◽  
Loriana Crasnic ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Community Building ◽  
West African ◽  
International Organization ◽  
Economic Community ◽  
Regional Organizations ◽  
Pan African ◽  
African Community ◽  
Treaty Reform

This chapter examines the international parliamentarization of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). ECOWAS was founded in 1975 without an international parliamentary institution (IPI). An IPI was only created in 1993 in the context of general treaty reform. In particular, the democratization process in the region, the promotion of pan-African community building and the example of other successful regional organizations motivated the initiative for an ECOWAS Parliament. Moreover, the ECOWAS Parliament represents an attempt by elites to strengthen the links between the international organization and the citizens. However, the ECOWAS Parliament took until 2001 to become operational and did not have legislative functions until 2017.

The Economic Community of West African States and International Law

1989 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 233-250 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sunday Babalola Ajulo
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
International Law ◽  
Sierra Leone ◽  
West African ◽  
Cape Verde ◽  
Economic Community ◽  
World War ◽  
International Organisations ◽  
Legal Personality ◽  
Heads Of State

The Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas) was established by the Treaty signed in Lagos on 25 May 1975 by the Heads of State and Government (or their representatives) from Benin, Burkina Faso, Côte d'Ivoire, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, and Togo. They were joined a few months later by Cape Verde, thereby increasing the number of member-states to 16. Following the post-World War II convention whereby international organisations formally insert in their constitutive instruments a declaratory statement concerning their status, it is not surprising that Article 60(1) stipulated that the Community ‘shall enjoy legal personality’. Although such organisations may be similar they are never identical, and this is why the nature and scope of the legal personality of each needs to be ascertained and discussed.

International Law and Foreign Investment in Hydroelectric Industry: A Multidimensional Analysis

2016 ◽  
Vol 18 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 183-222
Author(s):  
Attila Tanzi
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Foreign Investment ◽  
Dispute Settlement ◽  
International Investment ◽  
Multidimensional Analysis ◽  
Private International Law ◽  
International Investment Law ◽  
Investment Law ◽  
Domestic Law

The main focus of the present article is on the entanglement between four bodies of international law sensitive to foreign investment in the creation and/or operation hydroelectric industry: i.e. international investment law, human rights law, international water law and private international law to the extent that public international law rules on conflict of laws on civil liability for transboundary damage are concerned. This horizontal approach to the analysis is supplemented by a vertical one looking at the interactions between international and domestic law. Consideration of the different bodies of international law in question is associated to that of the adjudicative, and non-adjudicative, means of dispute settlement available under each such bodies of law. On that score, the role of the foreign investor in a litigation scenery will be considered, primarily as claimant, but also, prospectively, in relation to the situation in the State hosting the investment is, or may become, respondent in inter-State litigation.

scholarly journals Does Foreign Aid Promote Financial Development in the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS)?

2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. p39
Author(s):  
W. Jean Marie Kébré
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Aid ◽  
Financial Development ◽  
Developed Countries ◽  
Ordinary Least Squares ◽  
West African ◽  
International Financial Institutions ◽  
Economic Community ◽  
Development Indicators ◽  
Negative Effect

This article analyzes relationship between foreign aid and financial development in ECOWAS countries. These countries receive aid flows from developed countries and from international financial institutions. The article’s idea is to evaluate this aid effects on financial development and to assess role of governance on this relationship. The analysis uses panel data from ECOWAS countries over the period 1984-2016. The estimations’ results, based on Dynamic ordinary least squares (DOLS) estimator, show that aid is negatively and significantly linked with financial development indicators used. These results suggest that aid is an obstacle to financial development. Governance role tests do not change the negative effect of aid on financial development. However, the magnitude of the negative effect of interactive variables (with governance variables) is less than aid direct effect on financial development. These results suggest that an additional effort to improve governance in these countries would reduce aid negative effect on financial development, or even reverse this effect.

scholarly journals Interpretation of International Law by National Judges: Opportunities and Challenges. The Case of International Investment Law in Latin America

2018 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 128
Author(s):  
Marcelo Lozada Gómez ◽  
Paola Acosta Alvarado
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
International Law ◽  
Foreign Investment ◽  
Subject Matter ◽  
International Investment ◽  
International Investment Law ◽  
Domestic Courts ◽  
Investment Law ◽  
Fragmentation Of International Law

The role of national judges in international law is still an undecided subject matter. Most scholars consider the decisions from national judges merely as acts of States, denying the possibility that those judgments constitute an autonomous source of international law. This position is grounded in the idea that national judges do not regularly employ sources of international law, and therefore, their opinion about them is not quite important. Nevertheless, recent phenomena have highlighted and triggered the intervention of national judges regarding the interpretation and enforcement of international law. The growing scope of international rules, which now regulate intra-states issues, as well as the fragmentation of international law, and the internationalisation of national orders, inter alia, have demanded domestic courts’ intervention in order to face these changes and avoid undesirable consequences. In this context, this article aims to: 1. bring an outlook on the evolution of the role assigned to national judges; 2. explore the phenomena that triggered their intervention; 3. analyse the outcomes of this increasing participation, namely how national judges change the usual dynamics of interpretation and evolution of international law; 4. apply these ideas to explain the intervention of national judges in Latin America regarding the enforcement of foreign investment law; and 5. conclude with some remarks about the future of this relationship between national and international law as well as the importance of a better understanding of the role of national judges.

The Role of Economic Community for West African States (ECOWAS) in Post-Conflict Rehabilitation: Lessons from Liberia

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chris Kwaja
Keyword(s):  
Content Analysis ◽  
Rehabilitation Program ◽  
West African ◽  
Violent Conflict ◽  
Economic Community ◽  
Center Stage ◽  
Post Conflict ◽  
Lessons Learnt ◽  
Violent Conflicts

In the aftermath of the violent conflict in Liberia, the issue of post- conflict rehabilitation took center stage, with the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) deeply involved in an elaborate post-conflict rehabilitation program in the country. Through the use of content analysis, this paper explores the involvement of ECOWAS in post-conflict rehabilitation in Liberia in the context of the devastating consequences of violent conflicts that the country experienced. In specific terms, it highlights key lessons learnt from the ECOWAS intervention in Liberia, as part of its mandate for peace, security and stability in the region.

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