Title: Land reform and investment protection after the Campbell litigation: can SADC learn from NAFTA?

Authors: Lonias Ndlovu

Addresses: Department of Private Law, University of Zululand, South Africa

Abstract: In 2008, Mike Campbell and other former commercial farmers took the Zimbabwean Government to the erstwhile SADC Tribunal in Windhoek over a land dispute. While the dispute was primarily about allegedly discriminatory land reform laws and policies affecting citizens of Zimbabwe mainly, the manner in which the Zimbabwean Government reacted to the ruling suddenly raises questions about the protection of investments in the SADC region. The nagging question which this paper seeks to address is, ||is the SADC dispute settlement regime as currently provided for in Article 32 of the Declaration and Treaty of SADC and the subsequent Protocol on Trade adequate to guarantee investor protection in light of the aftermath of the Campbell decision?|| In an attempt to address the question, this paper takes a closer look at the NAFTA Chapter 11 Investment protection provisions and compares them with their SADC counterparts.

Keywords: Southern African Development Community; SADC; NAFTA; North American Free Trade Agreement; Zimbabwe; protocols; Mike Campbell; land reforms; investment protection; litigation; commercial farmers; farming; farms; tribunals; Windhoek; land disputes; Namibia; discriminatory laws; Africa; governments; discriminatory policies; legal rulings; dispute settlement; declarations; treaties; private law.

DOI: 10.1504/IJPL.2012.043902

International Journal of Private Law, 2012 Vol.5 No.1, pp.79 - 100

Published online: 20 Sep 2014 *

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