Towards a Pan-African Approach to Trade and the Resolution of Trade

Abstract

In a bid to drive change and development especially in respect to the third world continents and their engagement within the international sphere, there is a growing body of scholarship that highlights the inherent inequity faced by third world countries and stresses the need to cater to their peculiar needs within the context of the current international trade law regime. For such changes to be transformative and sustainable, they must be engaged on a normative parlance. Essentially, they must transcend a mere backlash against the ineffaceable prints of history to a proposition of alternative norms that represent their peculiar interests and voices. With a focus on Africa, I attempt in this article to propose a potentially plausible alternative normative narrative that is characteristic of the region and which may be of some utility in conceiving how trade disputes might be effectively resolved both within the continent and in its relationship with the outside world.