China-Africa Dispute Settlement: The Law, Culture and Economics of Arbitration

The nature and magnitude of the growth in China-Africa economic relations in recent years is unprecedented and extraordinary. According to recent estimates, the value of China’s trade with African nations grew from a mere USD 10 million in the 1980s to USD 55 billion in 2006, and to more than USD 100 billion by the end of 2009, at which time nearly 1,600 Chinese companies were doing business in Africa with a direct stock investment of about USD 7.8 billion. The accelerating impetus of China-Africa trade has overtaken some crucially important features of an effective trade regime, most notably a fully trustworthy dispute resolution system. It is the current and potential future efficacy of such a system that is taken up in this book with great understanding and skill. The author evaluates existing mechanisms of dispute resolution in all aspects of China-Africa economic relations in light of the parties’ economic and cultural profiles and their evolving legal traditions, and goes on to propose a comprehensive institutional model of dispute resolution that takes full account of the economic needs and legal cultures of both China and the various African countries.

• suitability of the WTO’s dispute resolution mechanism for China-Africa trade relations;
• domestic, bilateral, regional, and multilateral law sources affecting China-Africa commerce;
• the role of intra-Africa bilateral investment treaties;
• competing interests that underpin international investment law;
• relevant legal, economic, and political challenges and cultural barriers;
• permissible scope of regional trade regimes;
• national treatment versus duty to compensate; and
• harmonization initiatives—model laws, incoterms, restatements.