Human Rights, Natural Resource and Investment Law in a Globalised World : Shades of Grey in the Shadow of the Law

This book explores how the law protects the different and competing interests that are brought into contact by foreign investment projects in Africa. It draws on international investment and human rights law, on the national law of selected jurisdictions and on the contracts concluded for a large investment project to consider the legal frameworks regulating the growing investment flows to Africa. The book relates the findings of this legal analysis to an analysis of negotiating power between different holders of legally protected rights (investors, local people affected by the investment), exploring whether any differences in legal protection tend to counter, or reinforce, asymmetries in negotiating power. The outcome is a thorough legal analysis that is directly anchored to social processes and that provides insights into the relationship between law and power in a globalised world.

In the world’s developing countries, foreign investment in natural resources brings into contact competing interests that are often characterised by unequal balances of negotiating power – from multinational corporations and host governments, through to the local people affected by the influx of foreign investment.

The growing integration of the world economy has been accompanied by rapid and extensive developments in the national and international norms that regulate investment and its impact – including investment law, natural resource law and human rights law. These legal developments affect the ‘shadow’ that the law casts over the multiple negotiations that characterise international investment projects in the developing world.

Drawing on international law, the national law of selected jurisdictions and the contracts concluded in a large investment project, Human Rights, Natural Resource and Investment Law in a Globalised World explores the ways in which the law protects the varied property rights that are at play in foreign investment projects in developing countries, with a focus on Africa. Through an integrated analysis of seemingly disparate fields of law, this book sheds new light on how the law mediates the competing interests that come into contact as a result of economic globalisation, whilst also providing new insights on the changing nature of state sovereignty and on the relationship between law and power in a globalised world.

This book will be of interest to scholars, students and informed practitioners working in the fields of international investment and human rights law, comparative law, socio-legal studies, and development studies.