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The Perspectives of African Countries on International Commercial Arbitration

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 July 2009

Samuel K.B. Asante
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Extract

The participation of developing countries in the international legal system poses a perennial dilemma. On the one hand the brutal facts of international economic and commercial interdependence make such participation inevitable. On the other hand, developing countries, for various reasons and with varying degrees of intensity, have articulated their reservations, or indeed experienced considerable difficulties, with respect to such participation. This article considers this dilemma with special reference to the experience of Sub-Saharan African countries in international commercial arbitration.

Type
Articles
Information
Leiden Journal of International Law , Volume 6 , Issue 2: Special Issue 1993: THE FLAME REKINDLED: New Hopes for International Arbitration , August 1993 , pp. 331 - 356
Copyright
Copyright © Foundation of the Leiden Journal of International Law 1993

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References

1. Sempasa, S. L., Obstacles to International Commercial Arbitration, 41 ICLQ 473 (1992).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2. F.S. Nariman, International Arbitration and Developed Countries; Unpublished paper presented to ICSID's Seminar on International Arbitration and Developing Countries in 1991.

3. AALCC Report of The Seventeenth, Eighteenth and Nineteenth Sessions held in Kuala Lumpur (1976), Baghdad (1977) and Doha (1978), at 131–138.

4. Grigera Naon, H. A., Arbitration in Latin America: Overcoming Traditional Hostility, 5 Arbitration International 137 (No. 2, 1989).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

5. Id..

6. The Permanent Court of Arbitration – New Directions, Report by the Working Group on Improving the Functioning of the Court, May 13 1991, at 9.

7. F.S. Nariman, supra note 2.

8. Paulsson, J., Third World Participation in International Investment Arbitration, 2 ICSID Review-Foreign Investment Law Journal 19 (1987).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

9. See Craig, Park and Paulsson, International Chamber of Commerce Arbitration, Table 5, Appendix 1 (2nd ed. 1990).

10. ICSID Cases: Document ICSID/16/Rev.2, November 15,1991.

11. See supra note 9.

12. Source Conversation with ICSID Secretariat, Washington D.C..

13. See supra note 9, Table 7.

14. Osinbajo, Y., Sovereign Immunity in International Commercial Arbitration: the Nigerian Experience and Emerging State Practice, 4 African Journal of Int. and Comp. Law Quarterly 1 (1992).Google Scholar

15. Sornarajah, M., UNCITRAL Model Law: a Third World Viewpoint, 6 Journal of International Arbitration 7 (1989).Google Scholar

16. S.K.B. Asante, International Law and Foreign Investment: A Reappraisal 37 ICLQ at 588–627(1988).

17. See S.K.B. Asante, Commentary, in Rubin and Nelson (eds.). International Investment Disputes: Avoidance and Settlement (American Society of International Law 1984); Asante & Agyemang, The Suitability of Arbitration for Settling ‘Political’ Investment Disputes Involving African States, 22 Journal of World Trade 123–127 (6th Issue, 1988).

18. ICS1D Case No. ARB/76/1. Source ICSID Cases 4.

19. ICSID Case No. ARB/78/1. Source ICSID Cases 6.

20. ISCID Case No. CONC/82/1. Source ICSID Cases 11.

21. Agbosu, L.K., Arbitration Under Customary Law, XV Review of Ghana Law 204 (1983–1989).Google Scholar

22. S.K.B. Asante, Stability of Contractual Relations in the Transnational Investment Process, 28 ICLQ 401–404(1979).

23. See Westberg, John A., The Applicable Law Issue in International Business Transactions with Government Parties – Rulings of the Iran-United States Claims Tribunal, 2 Foreign Investment Law Journal-ICSID Review 473 (1987).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

24. Armfelt, A., Avoiding the Arbitration Trap, Financial Times, 10 27, 1992, at 17.Google Scholar

25. The beginnings of such expertise and practice are to be found in Nig

26. The Section on Business Law of the IBA recently awarded 31 scholarships to enable young lawyers from Europe and French-speaking African countries to attend the IBA's 24th Biennial Conference in Cannes (International Bar News, November/December 1992, at 11).

27. In a workshop held in Accra, Ghana in May 1992, the faculty consisted of Sir Ian Percival, former Solicitor-General of the U.K., Dr. Biswanath Sen, former Secretary-General of the Asian-African Legal Consultative Committee and Senior Advocate in India, Mr. Robert Layton, Senior Partner, Jones, Day, Reavis & Pogue of New York and the author. There were some 50 participants – lawyers from the public service and private Bar in Ghana.

28. The ICC's Institute of International Business Law and Practice and The Institute for Transnational Arbitration of the South Western Legal Foundation could play a critical role in directing special training programmes to Africa.

29. See S.K.B. Asante, Transnational Investment Law and National Development (1981). See also by the same author, supra note 16 and Somarajah, M., The Climate of International Arbitration, 8 Journal of International Arbitration 69 (2nd Issue 1991).Google Scholar

30. See World Bank Group, Legal Framework for the Treatment of Foreign Investment, II Report to the Development Committee and Guidelines on the Treatment of Foreign Direct Investment (1992).