Dr Arinze Okiche

I specialise in African international economic law broadly construed (with particular emphasis on international trade law and competition). In 2023, I was invited to write an article by the leading African economic law journal to explore Africa’s distinctive practice in international economic law.

I have been teaching law at Leicester since January 2022 and I currently convene the International Competition Law Module. I have also been a visiting lecturer at the University of Birmingham. 

Currently, my research focuses on the meaning and implications of flexibility in African regional trade agreements. In my research, I have proposed the theory that in the context of international law, international trade law and international relations, ‘flexibility’ can only be understood in two distinct ways; first as an institutional choice in contrast with legalisation in relation to how international actors design institutions and how States express their reluctance to limit their sovereignty with more legalised commitments (flexibility as an institutional choice). Flexibility has also been used to illustrate how various agreements transform or are adaptive to new and unplanned circumstances (contractual flexibility). In both senses, my research has argued that there is a problematic understanding of flexibility in African trade regionalism.

As an institutional choice, I am interested in how African nations use legalisation as a strategy for economic integration. I have also designed the African concept of implicit flexibility (as an antithesis of contractual flexibility) that might suggest that African trade agreements were not intended to create legally binding obligations. 

In the area of competition, I am interested in how African other developing countries balance equity and efficiency in both the design and enforcement of their competition laws.

Journals 

Arinze Bryan Okiche & Uchenna Vincent Agunwa, ‘African Practice in International Economic Law: 2021–20225’, (2022) 3 African Journal of International Economic Law: 185-202.

Ebelechukwu Lawretta Okiche & Arinze Bryan Okiche, ‘The Balance Between Equity and Efficiency; Reflections on the Goals of the New Nigerian Competition Law’ (2020) 46(2) Commonwealth Law Bulletin 331-363 

Others

Arinze Bryan Okiche, ‘Africa in the New Trade Environment-Market Access in Troubled Times’ (2023 Afronomics Law Blog) Online access

Arinze Bryan Okiche, ‘Reconsidering the Flexibility Paradigm of African Regional Trade Agreement and Informal Trade Engagements’ (2020 Afronomics Law Blog) Online access

Undergraduate

Law of Contract and Constitutional and Administrative Law

Postgraduate

International Competition Law (module convenor)

• PhD (University of Birmingham)
• LLM (Durham University)
• LLB  (University of Nigeria)
• BL (Bar qualification) (Nigerian Law School, Lagos)