From Eurocentrism to Afrocentrism: Redefining the future of Africa's investment policy through the Pan-African Investment Code

The main challenge facing Africa since the start of mercantilism in the fifteenth century is the need to find their own voice and a cultural anchor for their endeavour to shape their development prospects. Centuries marked by slavery, colonialism and imperialism produced a continent dependent on the Europeans to define their values, rules and institutions. As a result of this engrained Eurocentrism, African development discourse has long accepted the idea of the ‘catch-up thesis’, in seeking to achieve industrialisation and modernisation from an African perspective. Within international investment law, one such Afrocentric initiative is the PanAfrican Investment Code (PAIC). Launched in 2016, the PAIC is a classic example of the African perspective in using old tools in new ways to promote more economic nationalism and sustainable development, while maintaining a balance between investors’ protection and States’ right to regulate. This chapter interrogates the historical dominance of the Eurocentric perspective on development of international investment law. The role of the PAIC in shaping a new Afrocentric path is explained with recommendations on how it should be utilised effectively by African countries. In the end, the authors call on African leaders to imagine development from the perspective of their own history and cultural experiences and therefore conclude International Investment Agreements (IIAs) that reflect their national interests, while refraining from viewing the European project as the sole model that should define what the modern investment treaty regime should look like.