Abukari, Adam (2019) Rule of law and justice in petroleum law in sub-Saharan Africa : critical analysis of socioeconomic rights and the World Bank New Africa Strategy. (PhD thesis), Kingston University, .
Abstract
Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) is endowed with huge quantities of petroleum, which attracts private and public interests. Within the framework of municipal law and international law, these interests are crammed with competing forces over ownership, extraction and marketing of the resource. SSA countries are in desperate need of acquiring equitable share of the financial wealth that is derived from their petroleum commodities in order to adequately enhance their socioeconomic rights such as adequate standard of living. Evidence from countries such as Ghana, Nigeria and Angola suggest that petroleum legislation and contracts with petroleum companies are largely inconsistent with key requirements of the rule of law (ROL), justice and socioeconomic rights. SSA lacks the capacity to effectively address this imbalance. The World Bank New Africa Strategy (NAS) of 2011 could be one of intervening instruments to help address this challenge. Therefore, to what extent can petroleum law be harnessed with the ROL, justice, and the NAS to enhance socioeconomic rights in SSA? The thesis argues that when tenets of the ROL (such as transparency and accountability) and justice (such as equity, entitlement and fairness) are effectively integrated in petroleum law in SSA, there is the greater possibility that petroleum law can effectively protect socioeconomic rights such as adequate standard of living, especially when there is an intervening factor such as the NAS to build the capacity of SSA to achieve fair share (entitlement) from its petroleum. The contribution of the thesis is anchored on deepening the understanding of and/or establishing the delicate relations between rule of law, justice and petroleum law in SSA in the light of socioeconomic rights and the NAS. The thesis concludes that there is the need for continued reformation of the current petroleum legal architecture in SSA to maximise socioeconomic benefits from their petroleum resources.
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