International Development Law

Le Code panafricain d’investissements, adopté fin 2016 par un comité d’experts de l’Union africaine, constitue un modèle intéressant de ces nouveaux textes internationaux visant à concilier le droit des investissements étrangers, le développement durable et la responsabilité sociale des entreprises. L’instrument est original et son potentiel est important pour les progrès de la Responsabilité sociétale des entreprises ou des organisations (RSE/RSO) dans les pays d’Afrique subsaharienne, et particulièrement dans les pays francophones qui ont une tradition de droit codifié. La force juridique de ce Code est néanmoins à construire, et demande une action volontaire de toutes les parties prenantes.

This paper was submitted at the university of Melbourne as part of my LL.M degree program. It assess corruption in Africa and its impacts to the ordinary African people. The work was greatly influenced by the work of Professor Coulier, The Bottom Billion.

One cannot deny that the access to energy facilitates. From employment creation to human development, from security interests to the empowerment of women; energy remains at the heart of all countries’ core interests. However, the statistics are quite alarming. Twenty percent of the world’s population is still without access to electricity; and almost three billion people still rely on wood, coal, charcoal or animal waste for cooking and heating.1 A major discussion point that stems from these statistics is that the lack of access to modern energy is a major barrier to addressing basic human rights and building shared prosperity; more specifically, a hindrance to achieving the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

Observers view the expansion of China’s relationship with African countries not only from its perspective as a multifaceted endeavour but also from the nuances extant in the academic and non-academic professional circles. The factors underlying the relationship have created debates across diverse academic disciplines including trade and finance, development, Peacekeeping and global security, diplomacy as well as in the areas of geopolitics and technology transfer. These discussions and debates emerged after China’s aid and investments in Africa increased with incredible annual surges; thus
attracting global attention. Drawing on the background of those discussions, this study aims to contribute to the ongoing debate by producing the perceptions (pros and cons) of individuals unrelated to official voices and state policies with regard to China’s exploitations of African resources and the oft cited Chinese policy of ‘no strings’ attached.
Keywords: China-Africa relations, development, FDI, ‘no strings’, US, West

Le projet de Convention des Nations Unies sur le droit au développement (2020) est peut-être le prologue d'un renouveau du droit international du développement, fondé sur une approche par les droits de l'homme et promu par le Mouvement des Non-Alignés (M.N.A.). Le texte met l'accent sur un devoir général de coopération au développement, entre les Etats et les organisations internationales, avec des mesures spéciales. Cependant, sa relation avec les autres traités relatifs aux droits de l'homme du système des Nations Unies interroge. /
The draft U.N. Convention on the right to development (2020) is maybe the prologue of a renewed international development law, based on a human rights' approach and promoted by the Non-Aligned Movement (N.A.M.). It emphasizes a general duty of cooperation for development, between States and international organizations, with special measures. However, there are questions about its relationship to other human rights treaties

The relationship between resource-rich developing countries and foreign investors has always been underscored by the former's desire to maintain control over their natural assets and the latter's quest to protect their profit-making enterprises. It is for this reason that home governments of foreign investors enter into bilateral investment treaties as a means of protecting their nationals' enterprises against detrimental host countries' policies. There are concerns, however, about the impacts of bilateral investment treaties on developing countries' right of permanent sovereignty over natural resources under international law. Therefore, this paper analyzes bilateral investment treaties with a view to explaining how they chip away at host countries' exercise of sovereignty over their natural resources. To achieve this, the paper examines the nature of foreign investment in developing countries. It analyzes the international law principle of permanent sovereignty over natural resources and its impact on international economic relationships. The paper goes further to analyze the origin, nature and utility of bilateral investment treaties in relation to developed and developing nations. It finds that bilateral investment treaties are in many respects inimical to developing countries' control over their resources, and by implication, to their environmental and socioeconomic interests. The paper recommends a rethink of signing bilateral investment treaties and adopting alternatives to them.

This article revisits Ibrahim Shihata’s role in developing the financial aid policies of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) after the formal inauguration of the New International Economic Order project (NIEO) in 1974. As director of the OPEC Special Fund, subsequently the OPEC Fund for International Development, after its establishment in 1976, Shihata spearheaded the development of the organization’s aid policies. He also defended the NIEO as a set of sensible reform measures for redistributing wealth, resources, and technology. This article contends that Shihata’s vigorous defence of OPEC’s aid record aimed to demonstrate that the NIEO—an enterprise OPEC supported—involved not simply structural reform of the inter-state system but direct engagement with questions of intra-state distribution, and that OPEC aid was designed partly to keep the "Third World bloc" from disintegrating due to the growing distance between oil-producing and non-oil-producing countries.

The environmental costs of economic development have received increasing attention during the recent years. According to the World Energy Outlook 2009 today´s energy policies have a severe impact on climate change, since energy accounts for 75% of the greenhouse-gas emissions.
In this context, the European Union is working for a global agreement to control climate change though the implementation of energy efficiency measures and emissions reduction. Therefore, this paper attempts to explain the impact of economic growth in the evolution of CO2 emissions within the European Union. With this aim we estimate the so called Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) using panel data models.
Since energy is at the heart of the environmental problem it should also form the core of the solution. Therefore we also propose some extensions by including renewable energy sources as explanatory variables in our model.
Our data sets are referred to the 27 countries of the European Union during the period 1950-2007. With this information, our empirical results show some interesting evidence about the significance of the European Environmental Kuznets Curve and the impact of renewable energies in CO2 emissions.

On 24 November 2017, the Department of International Law of the University of Groningen is organizing its second Workshop in a series that explores "International Law for the Sustainable Development Goals".

The theme of interactive Workshop 2 is "Financing and the Right to Science in Knowledge and Technology Sharing  (SDG 17).

The deadline for abstracts is 15 September 2017. More information about this event and the workshop series as a whole, here: http://www.rug.nl/rechten/congressen/il4sdgs/workshop-2.

We also warmly welcome further thoughts on the series as a whole, and the event in specific, so as to build up a broad community of scholars engaging with relevant themes broadly. Also non-legal scholars are invited.

There is no doubt that there exists a strong connection between environment and human rights. Vice President Weeramantry, in a separate opinion in Gabcikovo-Nagymaros, 1 pointed out this connection thus: [t]he protection of the environment is... a vital part of contemporary human rights doctrine, for it is a sine qua non for numerous human rights such as the right to health and the right to life itself. 2 This nexus notwithstanding, questions have arisen as to whether or not there exists a universally recognized right to healthy environment. 3 Even if it does exist, there is need to determine at what point an environmental wrong could be taken as an infringement of the right to healthy environment. 4 A relevant question is the extent to which international law in general and international environmental law in particular advance and protect this right. The effect of sustainable development as a principle of international law is also important in any discussion on the right to healthy environment. Therefore, this paper discusses the legal regime for right to healthy environment under international law and under Nigerian law. It analyzes the impact of the principle of sustainable development on the right to healthy environment. It concludes with an examination of major findings based on an examination of issues emanating from the subject matter of the research.

This piece gives an overview of different forms of the use of the term ownership at the time of the transformation from the planed into a market economy. It argues that, whilst the reformers had a clear understanding of what they found desirable which put a key focus on distribution of property and its changes, they never even really thought about how to achieve this result nor paid much attention to the consequences of the lack of a concept in this regard. As a consequence, lawmaking was delegated to people thinking relatively technically lawyerly, and without much understanding of the overwhelming consequences of the demands of the transformation of the legal system more broadly. Whilst much attention has been directed at the need of the rule of law no consistent theory on how such rule of law is to be achieved, and where keywords such like "Legitimation durch Verfahren" (becoming legitimate through appropriate procedure) or herrschaftsfreier Dialog (dialogue without dominance) are being used for quality debates no useful detail appears to be available to determine how such legitimacy is to be reached.

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It has generally appeared in the international development legal regime that Law has been approached as 'a tool for development itself'. In this sense, experts sometimes assume that Law is both distinctively placed and uniquely suited as a mechanism for development programmes and projects because a key function of Law is to engineer, attain or enhance the social and economic changes necessary to achieve the goals of development. From this perspective, it is expected that Law will provide the infrastructural mechanism required for development, and that Law has the capacity to bring about the social, economic, and political changes needed, as well as necessary cultural attitudinal tenets conducive to development. The paper examines the approaches to the Role of Law and the importance of Rule of Law in economic development process. It critics the current approach which sees Law as a 'tool or mechanism for development itself'. It argues that Law and the Rule of Law should have better roles to play in the international development process in order to improve the development stance of the third world countries within the global plane. In order to make the international development law agenda 'functional', the strategy would be to approach Law as a 'facilitator of development reform' in developing countries, rather than as 'a tool for development itself.' It suggests that this approach of seeing Law as a facilitator will equally help take into consideration indigenous needs and distinctiveness, thereby remove disagreements over reform priorities and improve efficiency and accountability. This is a new direction which highlights the importance or necessity of focusing the international system's approach to Law, as a 'means to facilitate' local empowerment, social cohesion and justice that is, as an approach to development consistent with the life choices and development goals of indigenous populations, rather than as it has generally appeared as an 'end in itself'. The paper uses the well-being and structural-functional legal theoretical approaches, interdisciplinary and critical-analytical perspective within the framework of (international) law and development. It employs qualitative empirical evidence from developed and developing countries.

The main mandate of the World bank is to promote and foster economic development of its members. in the 80s , the World Bank has taken steps to deal with governance issues in its member countries. That was seen as a political move criticized by many observers. However, in the 90s and since then governance is no more a taboo and the World bank has found ways to promote good governance strategies and invest in related implementation.

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International Development Law or the legal regime relating to international development is one of the aspects of international law that is of greatest interest to developing countries. When the international law and development movement began in the early 1960s, the aim was to reform the existing legal system in developing countries in order to pave the way for economic freedom, social welfare and cohesion. This brought about many hopes and aspirations in developing countries; however, these hopes and aspirations faded after a short period when international law and development movement appeared to fail. This paper examines the international law and development movement/regime since the 1960s and why it came to be seen as a weak, dysfunctional and/or collapsed instrument. The paper argues that the international law and development movement collapsed because; (i) the goals of developing countries are not identical to those of developed countries and/ or imperial powers that piloted the movement; (ii) the people of developing countries, where it was envisaged the movement would develop, were not involved along with those that headed the implementation of international law and development agenda; and (iii) that the current international law and development regime has put more emphasis on militarisation than on socio-economic development. The failure, though it did not come as a surprise to many, continues to impact negatively on developing countries. This paper uses structural-functionalist legal theory (often paraphrased as ‘functionalism’) and an interdisciplinary and critical-analytical approach within the framework of international law and development. It employs qualitative empirical evidence from developing countries for illustrative analysis.

Keywords: International Law and Development Movement,  Public International Law,  Liberal Economic Internationalisation,  Developed countries,  Developing Countries,  International Financial Institutions, Structural-Functionalist Legal Theory.
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viewed as an integrated process of change that involves economic, social, cultural, political and environmental dimensions. The differences between these views revolve around a few key issues. These key issues are whether the state should have the primary role in decision-making relating to development policies and projects; the scope and nature of the responsibilities of the various actors involved in the planning, construction and operation of development projects and the design and implementation of development policies; and the relationship between international and national regulation in the development process. Each of these views leads to a different understanding of the contents of international development law. The "traditional" and "modern" views of international development law differ in their understanding of the substantive content of development law, the importance they attach to the principle of sovereignty and in their view of the relationship between national and international law in the law applicable to the development process. During this period the special needs of developing countries were recognized in other ways. For example, Part IV of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT),

L’interdépendance entre la paix et le développement est un principe théorique affirmé de longue date par les Nations Unies. Elle a pour conséquence pratique l’insertion plus ou moins explicite de véritables compétences de développement local dans le mandat assigné aux missions internationales de maintien de la paix. Ces nouvelles attributions ne vont pas sans difficulté, non seulement dans leur mise en oeuvre ardue sur un terrain conflictuel, mais aussi parce qu’elles remettent en cause les classifications doctrinales classiques. L’étude comparée des deux missions soudanaises de l’ONU (MINUAD & MINUSS) en est l’illustration.