Africanization of International Investment Law and Sustainable Development: Conceptualizing Sustainable Development Within the Framework of Africa’s Investment Law Reforms

Africanization of international investment law (IIL) refers to efforts by African States to reform the international investment regime to suit Africa’s interests. Innovative international investment agreements, like the draft investment protocol of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), exemplify this trend. These agreements aim to promote investments that support the sustainable development of African States. However, sustainable development remains obscure within both scholarly literature and in the context of the African IIL reforms. While most of the innovative African agreements foreground sustainable development, its meaning and scope are unclear in those agreements. Consequently, this paper advances a conceptualization of sustainable development that is consistent with the principles underlying the International Law Association’s 2002 New Delhi Declaration, and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), particularly SDGs 12 and 13. While sustainable development should not be understood as a fixed concept, but rather as a dynamic and contextual process, the principles underlying the International Law Association (ILA) Declaration and the SDGs provide a clear, flexible, and adaptable framework for clarifying the meaning of sustainable development in the Africanized instruments and creating opportunities to combat climate change. They also facilitate coherence in the integration and implementation of sustainable development in African IIL reforms. However, the paper does not suggest that the ILA Declaration and the SDGs offer a conclusive set of standards and principles.