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Chinese Resource-For-Infrastructure (Rfi) Investments In Sub-Saharan Africa And The Future Of The "Rules-Based" Framework For Sovereign Finance: The Sicomines Case Study, Jingwei Xu Aug 2020

Chinese Resource-For-Infrastructure (Rfi) Investments In Sub-Saharan Africa And The Future Of The "Rules-Based" Framework For Sovereign Finance: The Sicomines Case Study, Jingwei Xu

Michigan Journal of International Law

China has emerged as sub-Saharan Africa’s largest development financier over the past two decades. While commentators have observed novel, sui generis transactional structures in China’s financing arrangements, legal analysis of those contractual forms and their relationships to incumbent international economic governance regimes remains scant. This note addresses those scholarly lacunae, taking as its case study the 2008 Sicomines Agreement—a multi-billion USD investment financing agreement between the Democratic Republic of the Congo and various Chinese corporate entities that merges infrastructure investment with a mineral extraction joint-venture project. It demonstrates that the Sicomines Agreement selectively draws on and integrates pre-existing modes of …


Africa-China Bilateral Investment Treaties: A Critique, Uche Ewelukwa Ofodile Jan 2013

Africa-China Bilateral Investment Treaties: A Critique, Uche Ewelukwa Ofodile

Michigan Journal of International Law

The purpose of this Article is to draw attention to, raise questions about, and generate discussions regarding the emerging norms, legal context, and long-term development-implications of South-South foreign direct investment (“FDI”) and South-South bilateral investment treaties (“BIT”). This Article seeks to refocus the discourse about FDI and BITs on developing countries in their role as exporters of capital and in the context of the much-touted new geography of investment. Can South-South BITs play a positive role in promoting development in sub-Saharan Africa any more than the Africa-North BITs? Is China concluding development-focused BITs with countries in Africa? The Article identifies …


Migration, Development, And The Promise Of Cedaw For Rural Women, Lisa R. Pruitt Jan 2009

Migration, Development, And The Promise Of Cedaw For Rural Women, Lisa R. Pruitt

Michigan Journal of International Law

Part I of this Essay provides an overview of the rural-to-urban migration phenomenon, a trend the author calls the urban juggernaut. This Part includes a discussion of forces compelling the migration, and it also considers consequences for those who are left behind when their family members and neighbors migrate to cities. Part II explores women's roles in food production in the developing world, and it considers the extent to which international development efforts encourage or entail urbanization. Part III attends to the potential of human rights for this population, analyzing the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination …


What Have We Learned About Law And Development? Describing, Predicting, And Assessing Legal Reforms In China, Randall Peerenboom Jan 2006

What Have We Learned About Law And Development? Describing, Predicting, And Assessing Legal Reforms In China, Randall Peerenboom

Michigan Journal of International Law

This Article applies existing conceptual tools for describing, predicting, and assessing legal reforms to the efforts to establish rule of law in China, in the process shedding light on the various pathways and methodologies of reform so as to facilitate assessment of competing reform strategies. While drawing on China for concrete examples, the discussion involves issues that are generally applicable to comparative law and the new law and development movement, and thus it addresses


Supporting Sustained Economic Development, Steven Radelet Jan 2005

Supporting Sustained Economic Development, Steven Radelet

Michigan Journal of International Law

There is no magic formula for sustained economic development in poor countries. Strategies that succeed in one country may not be appropriate in another. Yet there are several broad similarities across the countries that have been most successful in achieving development over the past forty years. This Article takes a very broad overview of economic development in low-income countries over this period and makes three basic points.


What Can The Rule Of Law Variable Tell Us About Rule Of Law Reforms?, Kevin E. Davis Jan 2004

What Can The Rule Of Law Variable Tell Us About Rule Of Law Reforms?, Kevin E. Davis

Michigan Journal of International Law

In 2001 per capita income in Haiti was $480, the infant mortality rate was seventy-nine per 1000 live births and the illiteracy rate (age fifteen and over) hovered around fifty percent. By comparison, in the United States, less than two hours flying time away, the per capita income was $34,280, the infant mortality rate was seven per 1000 live births, and the illiteracy rate was negligible. Understanding the reasons why these sorts of disparities in important measures of development arise and persist is one of the greatest challenges in all of the social sciences.


Methods Of Power For Development: Weapons Of The Weak, Weapons Of The Strong, John Braithwaite Jan 2004

Methods Of Power For Development: Weapons Of The Weak, Weapons Of The Strong, John Braithwaite

Michigan Journal of International Law

Peter Drahos and John Braithwaite conducted a study during the 1990s on global business regulation, interviewing more than five hundred key players in approximately twenty globalizing business regulatory regimes. Results from that study are used in this paper to inform the identification of seven elements of American power in global governance. The paper then poses the question whether those elements can be acquired by developing countries.


Financing For Development, The Monterrey Consensus: Achievements And Prospects, Abdel Hamid Bouab Jan 2004

Financing For Development, The Monterrey Consensus: Achievements And Prospects, Abdel Hamid Bouab

Michigan Journal of International Law

The International Conference on Financing for Development, held in Monterrey, Mexico, in March 2002, marked the beginning of a new international approach to dealing with issues of development finance. It resulted from a unique process that broke new ground in bringing together all relevant stakeholders in a manner that was unprecedented in inclusiveness. Under the umbrella of the United Nations, all parties involved in the financing for development process contributed to creating a policy framework, the Monterrey Consensus of the International Conference on Financing for Development, to guide their respective future efforts to deal with issues of financing development at …


The Future Of Law And Development: Second Generation Reforms And The Incorporation Of The Social, Kerry Rittich Jan 2004

The Future Of Law And Development: Second Generation Reforms And The Incorporation Of The Social, Kerry Rittich

Michigan Journal of International Law

This paper probes the manner in which the IFIs are managing the incorporation of social justice and greater participation in the development agenda, and describes how the pursuit of social objectives, in turn, is affected by the governance agenda as a whole.


The Purpose Of Development, Kamal Malhotra Jan 2004

The Purpose Of Development, Kamal Malhotra

Michigan Journal of International Law

Paper and presentation by Kamal Malhotra, Senior Adviser, Inclusive Globalization, Bureau for Development Policy, United Nations Development Programme, New York, at the "Globalization, Law, and Development" conference at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, April 16-18, 2004. This paper covers the topic of defining human development, human poverty, recently neglected human development despite a long history, and measuring human development.


Development, Globalization, And Law, Robert L. Kuttner Jan 2004

Development, Globalization, And Law, Robert L. Kuttner

Michigan Journal of International Law

Is global commerce under essentially laissez-faire rules optimal for economic development? In this era of liberated and deregulated markets, and after the final collapse of communism, a great many commentators would consider that a self-evident question. Of course free global commerce is good for economic development, because we know that the freest possible markets produce the most efficient use of resources and the highest available rates of economic growth. And growth benefits development. How could it be otherwise? And what is the role of law in facilitating commerce and in contouring a particular regime of domestic and transnational commerce and …


The Importance Of Core Labor Rights In World Development, Jonathan P. Hiatt, Deborah Greenfield Jan 2004

The Importance Of Core Labor Rights In World Development, Jonathan P. Hiatt, Deborah Greenfield

Michigan Journal of International Law

This Article discusses the meaning and significance of core labor standards and the importance of linking them to trade agreements. It explains why the "protectionist" label often attributed to such linkage efforts by their detractors is misleading, as the example of China illustrates, repression of labor rights constitutes a form of unfair competition which undermines efforts to create a more just and stable world economy.


Development: Domestic Constraints And External Opportunities From Glabalization, T. N. Srinivasan Jan 2004

Development: Domestic Constraints And External Opportunities From Glabalization, T. N. Srinivasan

Michigan Journal of International Law

In what follows, this Article first discusses the process of development in Section II. Section III is devoted to the external aspects of development, namely international trade, finance, and intergovernmental organizations. Section IV is concerned with the domestic dimensions and legal reform, drawing on the debate on legal reforms in India. The author offers a few concluding remarks in Section V.


The Political Economy Of Rule Of Law Reform In Developing Countries, Ronald J. Daniels, Michael Trebilcock Jan 2004

The Political Economy Of Rule Of Law Reform In Developing Countries, Ronald J. Daniels, Michael Trebilcock

Michigan Journal of International Law

In this paper, the authors briefly review the recent experience with rule of law reform initiatives in Latin America, Africa, and Central and Eastern Europe, drawing on more detailed case studies by the authors. The authors are currently working on a similar case study on rule of law reform experiences in Asia.


Development Finance: Beyond Budgetary "Official Development Assistance", Anthony Clunies-Ross Jan 2004

Development Finance: Beyond Budgetary "Official Development Assistance", Anthony Clunies-Ross

Michigan Journal of International Law

Budgetary appropriations by rich-country governments constitute the standard method of providing external funds for welfare and growth in developing countries. This source seems likely, however, to prove inadequate to meet the estimated external finance needed to contribute to the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals.


Inordinate Chill: Bits, Non-Nafta Mits, And Host-State Regulatory Freedom- An Indonesian Case Study, Stuart G. Gross Jan 2003

Inordinate Chill: Bits, Non-Nafta Mits, And Host-State Regulatory Freedom- An Indonesian Case Study, Stuart G. Gross

Michigan Journal of International Law

A number of structural factors, which are beyond the immediate scope of this Note, may influence less wealthy countries to cave in to investor threats of arbitration, as Indonesia appears to have done here. However, their hesitancy to fight may also be based, in part, on an inadequate understanding of the applicable law, which allows investors to inordinately influence host-State decisions through threats of arbitration that have little or no chance of success. In regard to the mining companies' threat, this at least appears to be the case. As this Note will demonstrate, the GOI could have likely beaten the …


Controlling The Environmental Consequences Of Power Development In The People's Republic Of China, Homer Sun Jan 1996

Controlling The Environmental Consequences Of Power Development In The People's Republic Of China, Homer Sun

Michigan Journal of International Law

This Note proposes a strategy to mitigate the environmental degradation resulting from China's power development. Part I introduces China's power industry - its excessive dependence on coal, its antiquated and inefficient infrastructure, its pollutive effects, and its projected expansion. Part II appraises the ways in which China's environmental laws, macroeconomic controls, and foreign investment restrictions influence the growth of power development and its corresponding effect on the environment. Part III assesses the role that governments, development banks, and international organizations can play in curbing the environmental impact of Chinese power projects. Considering the problems associated with current Chinese and international …


Debt, Development, And Human Rights: Lessons From South Africa, Daniel D. Bradlow Jan 1991

Debt, Development, And Human Rights: Lessons From South Africa, Daniel D. Bradlow

Michigan Journal of International Law

This paper, through a case study of financial sanctions against South Africa, demonstrates that it is possible to design a development-oriented financial sanctions strategy against any country that violates the human rights of its citizens and in which government regulations, including exchange controls, result in foreign-owned financial assets being trapped in the target country. This strategy will both deprive the perpetrators of the human rights violations of new funds and will help redirect the blocked funds into activities that are designed to promote the political and socioeconomic development of the victims of the human rights abuses. The means for identifying …