Ethiopia and Its FDI: Towards Domesticating BITs for Sustainable Development

Abstract

The main objective of this article is to explore rooms for sustainable development friendly domestication of BITs in Ethiopia. It employed a doctrinal research approach and examined a range of policy documents, legal frameworks, interview data and scholarly literature.  Bilateral Investment Treaties (BITs) are used as a tool for the promotion and attraction of FDI. However, the implementation of BITs without tailoring to the Ethiopian context would contravene the constitution and many international conventions to which Ethiopia is a party. Domesticating the BITs in support of Ethiopia’s sustainable development agenda is desirable amid there is limited understanding of how the BITs could be domesticated and implemented in line with sustainable development within the Ethiopian context. Though Ethiopia's BITs lack alignment with the sustainable development agenda, customizing for alignment is required. As BITs require domestication for their domestic implementation, such a process opens a room for recalibrating rights and obligations in line with the sustainable development agenda. Both national and international policies for sustainable development agenda together with continued calls for reform to the BITs regime nurture customized domestications. In addition, BITs ratification in Ethiopia should go beyond the declaration of ratification and reproduce treaty provisions together with the interpretation of vague sustainable development impeding provisions.