Professor
Relevant Thesis-Based Degree Programs
If this is your researcher profile you can log in to the Faculty & Staff portal to update your details and provide recruitment preferences.
Membership Status
Member of G+PS
Dissertations completed in 2010 or later are listed below. Please note that there is a 6-12 month delay to add the latest dissertations.
At the core of this dissertation is the argument that Africa seems to be taking the lead in constructing new generation international investment agreements (IIAs) that synergize the conflicting foreign investment, climate action, and sustainable development objectives. Although several investment instruments regulate foreign investment in Africa, the past few years have witnessed significant developments in investment law regulation at the bilateral and regional levels in Africa, described as the “Africanization” of international investment law (IIL). The inquiry underlying my research therefore is: What does the “Africanization” of IIL reveal about the prospects for reformulating international investment law in a way that supports the integrated pursuit of sustainable development, climate action, and foreign investment in the Global South? I draw theoretical insights from Third World Approaches to International Law (TWAIL), and from works of counterhegemonic globalization scholars. To provide an overall framework for my research, I conduct a review of critical IIL literature, along with the literature on hegemony, colonialism, and imperialism. I also conduct extensive interviews of 19 experts comprising international investment lawyers and academics, investment policymakers at the global level, and investment policymakers at the African level. While the interviews principally support my case study presented in Chapter Four of the dissertation, I also elicit information that is relevant to the history and critique of the international investment regime, as well as information that is germane to the counterhegemonic but politically feasible reconstruction of the regime. I argue that the successful integration of sustainable development into IIL can help strengthen climate action in the Global South. To facilitate this integration, I develop a coherent/fairly balanced framework that draws on emerging African initiatives such as the Draft Pan African Investment Code, and the investment protocol of the African Continental Free Trade Area, and shifts international investment regime to focus on elements of sustainable development, and climate action. The originality of my research lies both in its examination of African reform approaches, and its proposal for a fair and coherent framework that integrates IIL, sustainable development, and climate action in the Global South.
View record
The full abstract for this thesis is available in the body of the thesis, and will be available when the embargo expires.
View record
Theses completed in 2010 or later are listed below. Please note that there is a 6-12 month delay to add the latest theses.
The Access to Information Act, Canada’s law for the public accessibility and secrecy of government records, came into force in 1983. The Species at Risk Act, Canada’s law for endangered species protection came into force in 2003. Neither of the two laws have fulfilled their intended goals. This thesis investigates the causes of the ‘slippage’ between these laws as written and as implemented.This thesis compares the decades of implementation of these two laws to the texts of the laws and the intentions of the legislators who wrote them and finds deliberate and routine executive branch noncompliance has been a major cause of the failures of the laws to achieve their intended goals.The research methodology includes the use of records obtained using a request filed under the Access to Information Act relating to Environment and Climate Change Canada’s long delay in preparing a final Recovery Strategy for the endangered Whitebark Pine. These records are used to illustrate the problem of executive branch noncompliance with law.The thesis analyzes why neither the judicial branch nor Canada’s democratic system are able to prevent or stop executive branch noncompliance and argues that Canada’s traditional system of cabinet confidentiality and secret bureaucratic advice to ministers undermines the rule of law and democracy. The thesis calls for recognition of executive branch secrecy and executive branch noncompliance with law as major obstacles to the rule of law and democracy in Canada.
View record
We are in the midst of a climate emergency: the necessity for global cooperation to ensure that the world succeeds in limiting global warming has never been clearer. Through the adoption of the Paris Agreement, 197 parties signalled their commitment to decisive action on climate change. But its success will depend on how this momentum can be carried forward. In light of a U.S. withdrawal in 2020, the EU and China have sought to promote their credibility as climate leaders on the world stage.The objective of this thesis is to assess the claims of the EU and China to climate leadership, in both the negotiation and implementation of the Paris Agreement. Drawing from leadership theory, I argue that a strengthened partnership between the two will be beneficial for both in terms of their capability and credibility. China possesses the structural power that the EU no longer enjoys, but the EU, by virtue of its leadership experience, holds the credibility for unilateral and intellectual leadership that China is lacking as an emerging leader. In the latter half of the paper, I extend my application of leadership theory to the leadership role of the EU and China in the implementation of the Paris Agreement. Drawing from the regime effectiveness literature, I suggest approaches for measuring the goal achievement of leaders in implementation. My research shows that leadership by example will be necessary due to the design of the implementation mechanisms, but that measuring goal achievement presents challenges. Illustrative of this, an assessment of the EU and China’s Nationally Determined Contributions demonstrates that they are at best “insufficient” to meet the 1.5°C goal of the Paris Agreement. This thesis responds to a gap in the literature on leadership which focuses on regime formation, but not regime implementation. It also contributes towards literature that has begun to understand the role of multiple leadership actors. How the Paris Agreement will ensure successful global action on climate change is a critical question for our generation. It is important that putative climate leaders are held to account for their role in this by the academic community.
View record
If this is your researcher profile you can log in to the Faculty & Staff portal to update your details and provide recruitment preferences.