A General Review Of The Model Law On Investment In Africa

The World Investment Report 2003 showed that in Africa, there are many countries that attract foreign investors, such as Angola, Algeria, Nigeria, Chad, Tunisia and so forth. However, from the statistics report, we can clearly find that these kinds of countries are only tiny minority, their success can not change the disadvantageous position of the entire African continent in attracting foreign direct investment. According to World Investment Report 2003, compared with developed countries and other developing countries, the attractive power of the majority of African countries to foreign investors weakened greatly in the decades after 1950s.Take some Asian countries for example, decades between 1950s and 1970s, Asia, Africa and the Pacific had equally attraction to foreign investors. However, from 1980 to 2003, the attractive power of Asia and Pacific region to foreign investors exceeded African countries greatly. At different times, even the countries and regions like China, Hong Kong, Singapore and Malaysia, the amount for one country or region to attract foreign direct investment is larger than the entire African continent. During the 1990s,Africa remained relatively unattractive to foreign investors. On December 19, 2003 a team of legal experts adopted a Model Law on Investment in Africa (Model Investment Law) ,for"Improving the Legal Incentives for Investment in Sub-Saharan Africa". In the history of Africa, for various reasons, Foreign Investment Laws in Africa in the past didn't make force. The team of legal experts learned those lessons and adopted the general Model Law on Investment in Africa. The Model Law on Investment in Africa applies to all the investors. We only study the important provisions of the Model Law on Investment in Africa, especially the protections of the decision-making power of the enterprise, the protections of nationalization, dispute settlement and prohibited payments. In fact, the dispute settlement provisions of the Model Investment Law are some of the innovative provisions of this law. The Model Investment Law also delivers what appears to be its most innovative and bold provision. In Article 11, the Model Investment Law offers a direct, bold and broad condemnation of corrupt payments. It is based on the consideration to improve the substantive rules of the Model Law on Investment in Africa and improve Foreign Investment Law in China that a team of legal experts adopted a Model Law on Investment in Africa.