Legal analysis of the impact of Ghana s International Investment Agreements on the state's regulatory autonomy

Commentators suggest Antonio meant that by virtue of all that had led up to that moment, the past had set the stage for their next act, as a prologue does in a play, and that the script is henceforth in their hands1. This thesis, similarly, aims to redefine sovereignty in Ghana by showing that attaining political sovereignty merely set the scene for the route to the attainment of true sovereignty, particularly regulatory autonomy.

The Investment Treaty Regime has been described as ‘what may be the most potent (and, for many, the weirdest) regime underpinning economic globalisation’.2 Traditionally, the components of a regime are ‘the principles, norms, rules and decision-making procedures around which actors’ expectations converge in a given area of international relations’.3 Commentators state that the modern Investment Treaty Regime has three main components, ‘firstly investment treaties, secondly the set of treaties, rules, and institutions governing investment treaty arbitration, and thirdly the decisions of the arbitral tribunals that apply and interpret the investment treaties’.4

This thesis focuses primarily on the investment treaties and how their provisions impact upon the regulatory autonomy and sovereignty of Host States that have signed up to old-style bilateral investment treaties (BITs), using Ghana as a Case Study. By examining the BITs to which Ghana is signatory, the cases that have been brought against Ghana by foreign investors and the manner in which other states, both from the Global South and the Global North have tried to mitigate against the erosion of their regulatory autonomy, this thesis proposes a solution that will empower Ghana (and potentially other developing country Host States) in its bid to redefine its sovereignty by reclaiming its regulatory autonomy.