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'Progressive' Foreign Investment Agreements as Swords and Shields for Canadian Mining in Africa: on Development funding, FDI, and Social License to Operate
This chapter provides a critical comparative overview of sustainability disciplines in selected international investment agreements (IIAs), including bilateral investment treaties (BITs), with a particular focus on model IIAs and actual BITs concluded between Canada and several African countries. The chapter demonstrates two general tendencies. First, an overwhelming number of BITs between capital-exporting states and African countries contain no express reference to the public and further societal interest of the host state. The same goes for BITs between a developing state and an African country. Second, to date only six BITs between a developed country and an African state (all Sub-Saharan least-developed countries) do refer to the public interest and sustainable development of the host state, and all of them are concluded by Canada.