ASSESSING THE PARADOX AND OPPORTUNITIES OF LOCAL CONTENT UNDER THE INTERNATIONAL TRADE AND INVESTMENT LEGAL FRAMEWORK: A LESSON FROM CAMEROON

Appositely, Local Content Initiatives (LCIs) seek to promote the supply of domestically produced goods and services, and the employment of the local workforce. Besides, they aply require that a producer sources part of its inputs or labour force from the domestic economy andas well boost technology transfer or research and development in the country where the operations are taking place. Indeed, LCIs remain widely used and recent years have seen the proliferation of such instruments to support industrial objectives, as duly appreciated in the extractive sector. This is because LCIs are often perceived as paramount in achieving national development objectives by resource-rich countries. Yet, LCIs may contravene a number of trade and investment disciplines at the bilateral and multilateral levels, such as, the free trade agreements (FTAs), bilateral investment treaties (BITs) and the World Trade Organization (WTO) rules. In addition to the multilateral obligations, resource-rich countries also have contractual obligations with their extractive companies and/or have signed up to bilateral treaties, such as, investment agreements or free trade agreements ?which generally are in favour of investors, have attempted to go beyond the scope of the WTOprovisions; either by deepening the limitations or by adding new commitments that currently fall outside the scope of the WTO. Hence the question posed is - to what degree can these constrain the policy space of resource-rich countries using LCIs? In this regard, this paper argues that despite the limitations highlighted, within the multilateral trading system, guided by the WTO rules, developing countries in general and Cameroon in particular, still maintain a certain degree of policy space to pursue legitimate economic objectives, including industrial policies. More so, although the WTO provides clear rules on what types of LCIs are permitted or not, some fundamental policy instruments still remain widely available; in practice, this may have been eroded, especially with countries that have entered into more constraining bilateral agreements, through BITs and FTAs. Form this, the paperassesses the paradox and opportunities of local content under the WTO framework, BITs, and FTAs with particular focus on Cameroon, where LCIs remain a keyinstrument of development despite its legal lapses and constraints.