Investment Relations from Below: Echoing the Voices of the Invisible in Uganda’s Extractive Sector

Abstract

Large-scale extractive projects often trigger or exacerbate disputes and conflicts, primarily due to the extensive land acquisition they necessitate. These acquisitions, whether permanent or temporary, generate competing claims as local communities whose livelihoods, survival, and socio-cultural identities are deeply tied to their land, seek to preserve traditional land-use practices. Evidence of land grabs, displacement, human rights abuses, environmental degradation, and escalated conflicts highlights the risks inherent in these projects. Despite these impacts, the International Investment Regime (IIR) is ill-equipped to shift its focus from investments and profitability to these complex social dynamics. The regime offers no meaningful mechanisms to recognise or protect the rights of local communities throughout the investment process.

Literature on IIR has consistently disregarded the communities affected by the extractive projects, with recent debate shifting to the state’s right to regulate. While this is an expression of a state’s sovereignty, it masks the invisibility of these communities within IIR. Using insights from Third World Approaches to International Law (TWAIL), an emerging yet underexplored framework, the thesis critically evaluates international law through the lived experiences of two communities in Uganda affected by extractive projects. It provides a holistic presentation of the social fabric of investment relations and examines how competing interests are represented, contested, and prioritised in foreign investment projects. The study reveals that the regime privileges profitability above other interests and reinforces power asymmetries in ways that disproportionately impose costs and risks on local communities that lack the capacity to adapt. The study not only applies TWAIL to Uganda’s land regime but also refines the framework, demonstrating its relevance beyond Uganda. Overall, the thesis contributes to broader discourses on law and power, exploring whether law serves powerful interests, empowers or disempowers marginalised groups, or is rather irrelevant in addressing these dynamics.