Paper/Proposal Title
Challenges of Using Human Rights to Foster a More Just African Continental Free Trade Area
Location
Virtual
Start Date
November 2023
End Date
November 2023
Keywords
African Continental Free Trade Area, human rights, just trade
Abstract
Skepticism towards free trade is often rooted in the perception that its proponents tend to pursue it at the expense of many of the very people whose lives it is meant to improve. Critiques often leveraged against free trade include its uneven distribution of gains among winners and losers, its undemocratic nature, and its prioritization of trade liberalization over other social values such as human rights. However, Article 3(e) of the Agreement establishing the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) provides that it seeks “promote and attain sustainable and inclusive socio-economic development, gender equality and structural transformation”. Seemingly portending a different approach to free trade, the Preamble to the AfCFTA Agreement alludes to the “importance” of human rights in this endeavor. Nevertheless, the relationship between human rights and the AfCFTA is unclear, and the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights recently called for a “human rights-based approach” to the AfCFTA in Resolution 551 (LXXIV). After considering the trade-human rights relationship within the AfCFTA, this paper draws on critical legal scholarship and legal anthropology to reflect on three related challenges of using human rights discourse and practice in an effort to promote a more just AfCFTA. The first challenge is the ideological challenge reflected in debates about the trade-human rights nexus which significantly predate but are nonetheless relevant to the AfCFTA. The second stems from the existing AfCFTA legal architecture which is largely modeled after that of the World Trade Organization. The third challenge has to do with human rights itself, and addressing it requires taking seriously some of the critiques of human rights discourse. Although human rights might be an important tool in efforts to foster a more just AfCFTA, I contend that human rights actors should also leave space for other vocabularies and practices of social justice.
Author/Speaker Biographical Statement(s)
Brenda K. Kombo is a sociocultural anthropologist and human rights lawyer with broad interests in legal anthropology, human rights, and international law. She is a research fellow at the Institute for Global Law and Policy at Harvard Law School. She was recently a Norbert Elias Fellow at the University of Bielefeld’s Center for Interdisciplinary Research and previously held postdoctoral fellowships at the Free State Centre for Human Rights and New York University’s Center for the Study of Africa and the African Diaspora. These fellowships followed several years of work with non-governmental organizations in the human rights field. She also held research fellowships at the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa as well as the Institut d’Études Politiques de Paris through the Yale Fox International Fellow Program. Brenda holds a PhD and MPhil in Anthropology from Yale University, JD from Northeastern University School of Law, and BA from Hampshire College.
Challenges of Using Human Rights to Foster a More Just African Continental Free Trade Area
Virtual
Skepticism towards free trade is often rooted in the perception that its proponents tend to pursue it at the expense of many of the very people whose lives it is meant to improve. Critiques often leveraged against free trade include its uneven distribution of gains among winners and losers, its undemocratic nature, and its prioritization of trade liberalization over other social values such as human rights. However, Article 3(e) of the Agreement establishing the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) provides that it seeks “promote and attain sustainable and inclusive socio-economic development, gender equality and structural transformation”. Seemingly portending a different approach to free trade, the Preamble to the AfCFTA Agreement alludes to the “importance” of human rights in this endeavor. Nevertheless, the relationship between human rights and the AfCFTA is unclear, and the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights recently called for a “human rights-based approach” to the AfCFTA in Resolution 551 (LXXIV). After considering the trade-human rights relationship within the AfCFTA, this paper draws on critical legal scholarship and legal anthropology to reflect on three related challenges of using human rights discourse and practice in an effort to promote a more just AfCFTA. The first challenge is the ideological challenge reflected in debates about the trade-human rights nexus which significantly predate but are nonetheless relevant to the AfCFTA. The second stems from the existing AfCFTA legal architecture which is largely modeled after that of the World Trade Organization. The third challenge has to do with human rights itself, and addressing it requires taking seriously some of the critiques of human rights discourse. Although human rights might be an important tool in efforts to foster a more just AfCFTA, I contend that human rights actors should also leave space for other vocabularies and practices of social justice.
