The sovereignty illusion: freedom to set one’s own rules has a high price

As the clock ticks down to 31 December 2020, the UK government has repeatedly invoked the concept of ‘sovereignty’ to explain the UK’s reluctance to enter into an FTA with the EU. In this blog, Clair Gammage and Phil Syrpis (University of Bristol Law School) explore the contradictions of navigating the post-Brexit world as a ‘sovereign’ state for the UK

Symposium Introduction: Vulnerabilities in the Trade and Investment Regimes in the Age of COVID-19

This Symposium is one of the follow-up publications to the Afronomicslaw.org Webinar III on “Vulnerability in the Trade and Investment Regime in the Age of COVID-19” ‘Vulnerability’ in trade and investment regimes is not a new phenomenon. Nor, is the concept of ‘crisis’. While IEL scholarship has acknowledged some of the way(s) in which the formalisation of international legal rules in trade and investment can act like a ‘straightjacket’ on global south states, sustaining and creating forms of dependencies that are difficult to escape, there is a notable lack of meaningful engagement with the contours and manifestations of concepts like precarities, inequalities, and crisis that the narrative of vulnerabilities encompasses. As Clair Gammage and Olabisi D. Akinkugbe argue in their forthcoming paper, “the analysis of the vulnerability status of the marginalized groups in international economic law is not a consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic. While those issues and the vocabulary of the vulnerable have been subjected to the periphery of IEL analysis, the pandemic has only brought to the fore and made more realistic, and quite unfortunately, the plight of the marginalized in our largely unequal multilateral trading regime.” We hope the essays in this symposium shed some light on the modest steps that could be taken to untangle the complexity that has come with this crisis

A critique of the extraterritorial obligations of the EU in relation to human rights clauses and social norms in EU-Free Trade Agreements

This article examines the nature of the EU’s obligations in relation to human rights and social norms in its free trade agreements (FTAs) with a view to problematising the extent to which such clauses are justiciable and enforceable. While human rights do not fall within the area of exclusive EU competence,it is widely accepted that the EU may be liable for contributing to human rights violations in the context of trade agreements under international law and EU law. Conversely, it will be shown that social norms, including labour standards and principles such as sustainable development and environmental protection, which are increasingly set out in the Trade and Sustainable Development (TSD) chapters of FTAs, raise more complex questions regarding the territorial reach of EU law. It is submitted that EU FTAs are constructed in such a way as to exclude rights with the effect that the extraterritorial obligations of the EU in relation to human rights clauses and social norms are unlikely to be judicially enforceable in practice. However, in spite of the territorial limitations of EU law in relation to human rights clause and social norms, recent developments in the case law of the Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU) suggest that the EU is nevertheless under an obligation to ensure its trade agreements with developing countries are conducted in a ‘development-friendly’ manner. To conclude, this article advances the argument that the obligation to engage in ‘development-friendly’ trade may serve to extend the territorial reach of EU further, albeit within the confines of trade and cooperation agreements

COVID-19 and South-South Trade & Investment Cooperation: Three Emerging Narratives

The COVID-19 pandemic has revealed the frailties of economic relations across different aspects of the globalized network. From the national, through the sub-regional, to the regional to the international levels, questions have arisen regarding the seemingly interconnected, yet fractured socio-economic relationships in our modern societies. In this essay we shall focus on the trade and investment dimension of South-South relations that have been affected by the pandemic. In doing so, we shall reveal the (often overlooked or taken for granted) linkages with race in South-South relations. We identify the way(s) in which the Covid-19 pandemic has made obvious the latent tensions, hostilities and structural inequalities that exist in South-South cooperation. We argue that three possible narratives may emerge in a post-COVID-19 era for South-South trade and investment cooperation and explore what each narrative might mean for the future of South-South relations

Combating torture and other ill-treatment: a manual for action [2nd edition]

This manual seeks to support the global efforts to prevent and eradicate torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment (other ill-treatment). It is the second edition of Amnesty International’s Combating torture: A manual for action, first published in 2003. It updates the first edition by including recent developments in international law such as new treaties, standards, jurisprudence, findings and observations of human rights bodies, and expert opinions. It is designed to be a practical guide to international and regional standards that prohibit and seek to prevent torture and other ill-treatment worldwide. The manual provides advice on the implementation of these standards, drawing upon the ideas, activities and achievements of anti-torture activists and experts around the world. Amnesty International’s positions on specific issues are also provided. It is hoped that the manual will be of use not only to Amnesty International staff but to anyone working to expose and combat torture and other ill-treatment, including other human rights defenders, lawyers, judges, law enforcement officers and other public officials, legislators, health professionals and the media