African Bar Association holds annual conference from August 6-10

The African Bar Association has fixed August 6th to 11th, 2023 to hold its annual conference at the UNISA main campus in Pretoria, South Africa. 

The theme for this year’s conference is “Building the Legal Profession in Africa under the African Continental Free Trade Agreement.”

“The conference is expected to assemble leading experts on law, the legal profession and Africa trade. Structured around functional topics of trade, the conference is expected to take a nuanced but critical view of African trade and the evolving regime under the AfCFTA with the view to evaluating current dynamics and prospects of the regime,” the AfBA said on its website. 

Ahead of the conference, the steering committee has called for academic articles and paper proposals on about 19 topics relating to the conference theme.

The areas are;

1. Contemporary Issues Affecting the Legal Profession in Africa

2. The African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA) and the African Lawyer: The legal profession under the AfCFTA.

3. Anti-Corruption, the Rule of Law and the African continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA)

4. Climate Change, Sustainable Value Chains and the African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA)

5. Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the Emerging Continental Legal Practice

6. The Legal Academy Panel: restructuring Legal Training to be Responsive to Africa’s needs: The changing Legal Practice in Post-Covid Africa

7. Gender Mainstreaming in Africa Legal Practice

8. Overcoming Trade Litigation Deficit: Experience from World Trade Organization (WTO)

9. Military Panel: Resurgence of Military Intervention in African Politics: Positive and Negative Roles of the Military & Lawyers

10. Global Geopolitics and African Alignments

11. Adjudication and Arbitration Panel: Emerging Developments in Africa Commercial arbitration and adjudication

12. Issues in Conflict of Interest and Cross Border Legal Practice in Africa: Local Practitioner vs. Foreign Firms in Africa Legal Practice

13. Access to Justice: Emerging issues and challenges in Justice Administration

14. Communication and Africa Development

15. Tax Implications of the AfCFTA & African Development

16. Cross-Border Movement of Goods & Services in Africa: State of the Regulatory & Infrastructure Support for Air Transportation

17. Contemporary Trends in Litigation: The Increasing Rise in the Use of eDiscovery

18. Recent Privacy Laws, GDPR, PIPEDA, CCPA, LGPD, PDPO and PDPA

19. Prospects & challenges for the African oil & gas industry in the era of the global drive for clean energy’