Poverty, Agency, and Resistance in the Future of International Law: An African Perspective in a Time of Global Ferment

The lecture will discuss the likely posture of future international law with respect to African peoples. It will do so by focusing on three of the most important issues that have defined, and are likely to continue to define, international law’s engagement with Africans: the poverty in which most Africans live, the question of agency in their historical search for dignity, and the extent to which these African peoples can effectively resist externally imposed frameworks and measures that have negative effects on their social, economic and political experience.

International law’s future posture in these respects is considered through an examination of concrete debates relating to agricultural subsidies, debt usury and relief there from, the relocation of framework socio-economic governance of almost every African state to external institutions. Insights about what the future holds for the effectiveness of third world resistance are derived from a consideration of the broad lessons that can be learned from the successes or failures of some past third struggles.

About the speaker

Professor Obiora C. Okafor is the Edward B. Burling Chair in International Law and Institutions at John Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies in Washington DC, USA. He is the immediate past UN Independent Expert on Human Rights and International Solidarity and a former Chairperson of the UN Human Rights Council Advisory Committee.