The true nature of BITs (at least as I see it…)

On February 19-20 a conference which dealt with recent developments in the field of international investment law took place at Sydney University.[1] About sixty speakers from all around the world gathered for two intensive days of exchanging ideas, debating pressing issues and discussing what seems to be an emerging sub-field of international law. One important trend that was highly emphasised during this conference was the recognition that international investment law is far more public in nature than it was considered to be in the past. The effects of foreign investment on public interests such as the environment, human rights and labour standards are now obvious and the tension between the protection of investments on the one hand, and the governments’ interests in regulating these sensitive fields on the other, is often emphasised in academic writings and arbitration awards.

The conceptual change that international investment law seems to have gone  through has not however reached one very fundamental point. To my great surprise, speakers continually repeated the same old mantra concerning the main objective of investment treaties: the objective of investment treaties, so it was argued, is the protection of investors. This, I would argue, carries the same amount of logic as claiming that the objective of preparing a salad is cutting tomatoes. While it is true that Bilateral Investment Treaties (BITs) are designed to provide…

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A Primer to Economic Regional Integration in Africa

“Africa could rightly be described as the major theatre of contemporary cases of shared sovereignty.”[1]

It is the hope of many African leaders that greater cohesion in African trade will lead to more firm patterns of national development. Formalizing the international trade sector within Africa could lead to greater national tax revenues, a freer exchange of ideas, labour and technology across borders, the stabilization of regional agricultural and natural resource markets, and greater cooperation over shared infrastructure projects such as the creation of highways, waterways development, and even the deployment of green technology such as wind energy projects.[2]

While more flamboyant African leaders such as Muammar Gaddafi stress the need for pan-African unity (Gaddafi even calling for a United States of Africa), smaller regional unification bodies are already active. Most Westerners might be surprised that much of West Africa, the nations of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), already has a unified currency between fifteen nations. Since its creation by treaty in 1993, ECOWAS trade commissioners from a diverse array of fields attempt to integrate trans-national policies on social affairs, water resources, energy, and security matters. Just as NATO intervenes in foreign conflicts, when civil unrest unfolds in member states, such as recently in Guinea, ECOWAS applies strong diplomatic and military pressure to uphold the rule of law.

The East African Community…

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Bill C-300 – A National Law with International Ramifications

Scarborough-Guildwood Liberal MP John McKay has introduced a private members bill to Parliament that has been stirring up controversy in the global mining and natural resource sector. Bill C-300 asks mining companies that seek financing from Canadian markets to disclose to Export Development Canada (EDC) a wide array of information having to do with their human rights practices, labour standards, and environmental policies. If they fail to meet this requirement, or if their standards do not conform with pre-established norms, these companies will not be eligible to receive public pension plan investment dollars and other public monies from EDC. Perhaps this does not sound like a major deal, but 85% of international extractive projects seek financing at the Vancouver and Toronto stock exchanges. This is a case where a domestic law could have a very international reach.

McKay has brought the bill forward in the hopes that it will alter what he sees as an inexcusable state of affairs concerning the global mining industry’s effects on the populations of developing nations.[1] Detractors of the bill note that the extractive sector of Canada has already enacted very stringent Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) guidelines after the National Roundtables on Corporate Social Responsibility of 2006. For them, more regulation simply re-invents the wheel.[2]…

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