Consolidated Text Of The Treaty Of The Southern African Development Community As Ammended

This book analyses whether the design of the institutions of Southern African Development Community (SADC) reflects the community’s treaty objectives and principles of democracy and the rule of law. The author provides a detailed analysis of the policy making and oversight institutions of SADC. Additionally, the project looks at institutional and legal frameworks of similar organisations (the East African Community, the Economic Community of West African States and the European Union) for comparative purposes. This work is written largely from a legal perspective, specifically international institutional law; however, it carries cross-disciplinary themes, including governance, and especially the subject of public policy making at the international level.

This book, published in July 2006, significantly complements the burgeoning literature on regional integration in Africa. It is the most up-to-date guide to SADC's history and institutions, its policies and programmes, legal underpinnings and position in unfolding continental and global affairs. It offers a frank analysis of SADC's shortcomings, achievements and prospects and reviews its extensive restructuring.

Compendium of African sub-regional human rights documentsEdited by Solomon Ebobrah and Armand Tanoh2010ISBN: 978-0-9814420-9-9Pages: vii 510Print version: AvailableElectronic version: Free PDF available.

The nature and magnitude of the growth in China-Africa economic relations in recent years is unprecedented and extraordinary. According to recent estimates, the value of China’s trade with African nations grew from a mere USD 10 million in the 1980s to USD 55 billion in 2006, and to more than USD 100 billion by the end of 2009, at which time nearly 1,600 Chinese companies were doing business in Africa with a direct stock investment of about USD 7.8 billion. The accelerating impetus of China-Africa trade has overtaken some crucially important features of an effective trade regime, most notably a fully trustworthy dispute resolution system. It is the current and potential future efficacy of such a system that is taken up in this book with great understanding and skill. The author evaluates existing mechanisms of dispute resolution in all aspects of China-Africa economic relations in light of the parties’ economic and cultural profiles and their evolving legal traditions, and goes on to propose a comprehensive institutional model of dispute resolution that takes full account of the economic needs and legal cultures of both China and the various African countries. Among the topics and issues that arise in the course of the book are the following: suitability of the WTO’s dispute resolution mechanism for China-Africa trade relations; domestic, bilateral, regional, and multilateral law sources affecting China-Africa commerce; the role of intra-Africa bilateral investment treaties; competing interests that underpin international investment law; relevant legal, economic, and political challenges and cultural barriers; permissible scope of regional trade regimes; national treatment versus duty to compensate; and harmonization initiatives—model laws, incoterms, restatements. The author includes in-depth analysis of how China-Africa economic relations fare in the varieties of dispute resolution methods available at the major arbitral European and American institutions—ICSID, AAA, ICC, LCIA, PCA—as well as under the rules of the China International Economic and Trade Arbitration Commission (CIETAC) and the important arbitral fora in Cairo, Kuala Lumpur, and Lagos. Endorsing institutional arbitration as the most appropriate form of resolving trade, investment, and commercial disputes arising between China and African countries, this ground-breaking analysis outlines the obstacles and shortcomings of the available means of dispute settlement, both in international and domestic contexts, and offers deeply informed recommendations for improvement of the existing system. Although the book will be welcomed by interested scholars and practitioners for its detailed discussion of how China-Africa trade relations are situated within the global trade regime, its most enduring value lies in its thorough evaluation of the available options and its proposals for structuring a legal framework within which future disputes will be effectively resolved.