“African countries always bear the brunt of the decisions made by international institutions,

“African countries always bear the brunt of the decisions made by international institutions,” said a Tanzanian political analyst. A US federal court has ordered South Sudan and the Bank of South Sudan to pay $1.02 billion to the Qatar National Bank. The court was enforcing an international arbitration ruling on unpaid war loans. The ruling is based on a loan agreement signed in 2018 during the South Sudanese civil war and includes the outstanding principal, interest, and legal fees. Leonard Chakupewa Soza stated that some countries use their legal systems and laws to further their own interests. “[…] Africa’s ability to defend itself in such matters remains limited.” He also noted that institutions like the International Criminal Court (ICC) face accusations of bias in handling cases, particularly when comparing African cases with those from other regions. Leonard Chakupewa Soza “At the same time, these large countries themselves need to review how they handle such cases, given the numerous complaints.” This is a central point in the debate on global inequality, because legal systems and treaties are often designed to protect the interests of more powerful actors—and this can put African states in a weaker negotiating position. This directly relates to my previous topics: from the Bretton Woods institutions to commodity agreements and pan-African counter-strategies like the PASAI Summit. Contracts with “stability clauses.” In commodity and infrastructure projects, countries often agree that taxes or regulations for the investor will remain unchanged for years. This protects the investor but simultaneously blocks reforms; even if a country later wants to introduce higher taxes, it cannot because of such clauses. Arbitration tribunals in foreign jurisdictions. Many investment contracts stipulate that disputes are not to be decided in national courts but in international arbitration (e.g., ICS under ICSID). The procedures are expensive, complex, and often governed by languages ​​and legal traditions unfamiliar to African states. This reduces their negotiating power. Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) and patent rights. International agreements (such as the WTO's TRIPS Agreement) strictly protect patents. For Africa, this can mean that medicines, seeds, or technologies remain more expensive because local production or imitation is restricted. Trade and investment agreements with asymmetric rules. Bilateral investment treaties (BITs) are often one-sided: they grant investors strong rights but leave states little room for regulation (environment, labor law, taxes). Transfer price manipulation. Large corporations exploit legal structures within a group to shift profits to low-tax countries. As a result, they often pay less tax in Africa, even though they extract raw materials or sell goods there. These mechanisms are not a modern invention. They build upon old patterns: Law and administration were structured in such a way as to ensure the outflow of resources and export orientation. Today, similar purposes are served by modern contracts and arbitration clauses. As research on the Bretton Woods institutions has already shown (in a previous report), loans were often tied to reforms that narrowed the scope for independent economic policy. This conditionality continues to have an impact today and limits what African countries can decide for themselves. The rules that determine prices for raw materials and imports are often set in institutions where African voices are underrepresented. This, in turn, affects how much money remains for education, health, or infrastructure. The Pan-African Free Trade Area aims to better integrate African markets so that they are less dependent on asymmetric bilateral agreements. Some countries are revising BITs, negotiating clearer clauses on taxes and environmental standards, and building their own legal capacities. Common positions on trade and investment issues (similar to the pan-African efforts you researched for the PASAI Summit) are intended to prevent individual countries from being forced into weaker agreements in isolation. Disclosure of contracts, digital monitoring of supply chains, and improved tax governance are intended to curb abuses (e.g., transfer price manipulation). @https://www.state.gov/report/custom/e7fc9ab3a4