Investment agreements landscape in Africa

Abstract

This paper focuses on the investment agreements landscape in Africa at the ninth session of committee on regional cooperation and integration. The Agreement on Trade-Related Investment Measures continues to play an important role in today’s multilateral trading system, although its scope of application is limited to investment measures affecting trade in goods. Accordingly, any investment measure that may harm internal trade or trade in services is not covered by the agreement. In addition, investment made in the form of what is referred to as “commercial presence”and investors in the form of “presence of natural persons”are covered by the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS).