This article examines the EU’s Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (Directive) and its proposed amendment, especially from a Third World view. It establishes that, practically, the Directive has a limited value for Africans because it cannot stop corporate human rights abuses and economic exploitation in Africa. In contrast, the Directive entrenches neocolonial norms in the Business and Human Rights (BHR) field. This article also argues that it is futile for Third World Peoples to look to international law, given its capitalist history and the growing EU dominance in the BHR treaty discussions. Instead of looking to Europe or international law to save Africans from corporate abuses and economic exploitation, African states must look inward to create subsidiary norms that challenge and resist neocolonialism in the BHR field. To achieve this, it discusses the normative agency of the African Union in leading an Africanization agenda.

This paper presents an alternative epistemic worldview of the corporate responsibility to respect human rights (CR2R) as a norm. It examines how an Afrocentric interpretation of the CR2R norm can contribute to a relational system where corporations promote human rights in African host communities. It uses an African norm - Ubuntu - to reframe and reinterpret Pillar II in Afrocentric terms. It argues that this reframing is important for three reasons. First, Ubuntu reframing increases the CR2R norm's intelligibility in Africa because it clarifies and contextualizes the term 'respect' used in Pillar II. Second, reframing the CR2R norm through Ubuntu fills the ethical gap in the interpretation of the CR2Rnorm. Third, an Ubuntu-inspired interpretation insulates the CR2R norm from some scholars' critique that the CR2R norm's scope is narrow because it only encourages MNCs to avoid infringing on the human rights of others without prescribing positive obligations. This paper then examines channels through which Ubuntu can influence the CR2R norm.

This article focuses on the proposal to adapt international arbitration to business disputes involving human rights. The Business and Human Rights arbitration (BHR arbitration) proposal seeks to give local communities who are victims of multinational corporations' human rights and environmental abuses access to justice in a specialized international BHR arbitration tribunal. Through a comparison between investor-state arbitration (ISA) and BHR arbitration, this article contends that it would be more efficient to reform ISA than to create a BHR arbitration tribunal. Reforming ISA would avoid the possible parallel arbitration systems that may arise from the duplication of international governance efforts. It would also reduce local communities' need to resort to transnational litigation, which is procedurally complex and often unsuccessful. Therefore, the possibility of ISA reform makes the BHR arbitration proposal superfluous or, at best, limited in its potential application. Creating a new arbitral structure that is untested and fraught with procedural and substantive complexities may not be worth the trouble. Considering the parallels between the ISA and proposed BHR arbitration, and the prospect of creating a one-stop shop for business and human rights abuse, this article suggests that BHR arbitration is an unnecessary governance effort in international arbitration and a distraction from necessary ISA reform.

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This article focuses on the arbitrability of disputes. It examines the recent global trend of delimiting the role of public policy in determining matters that should be subject to arbitration. The evaluation shows that the application of doctrines of separability and kompetenz-kompentenz plays a vital role in the delimitation process. However, notwithstanding the global trend to restrict the role of public policy in determining arbitrability, some countries in Africa still widely interpret public policy to revoke arbitral clause, stay arbitral proceedings, or refuse enforcement of foreign arbitral awards. They justify this approach on the basis that public policy is a means to protect national economic interest against foreign manipulation or exploitation. Anchored on Morgan’s theoretical approach, this article criticizes the excessive role of public policy in determining the arbitrability of disputes in Africa. It calls for a change to reflect the global trend through judicial activism and legislative reform. Although protecting national economic interest is an important goal, restricting matters that are arbitrable will not promote foreign investment. Therefore, countries in Africa must fashion arbitration practices that reflect their socio-economic background as well as contemporary arbitral trends around the world.Keywords: Arbitration; Africa; Party Autonomy; Public Policy