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Professor Kofi Kufuor

Professor

Economic integration in Africa, Law of the World Trade Organization, Law and Development, New Institutional Economics, Human Rights in Africa, Law and Urbanization in Ghana

Department of Law & Criminology , Royal Docks School Of Business And Law

I teach the following modules on the LLM

  • Law and Development
  • Law of the WTO and Globalisation
  • International Environmental Law
  • Economic Integration in the Developing World

I am also Research Degrees Leader in the School of Law, Policing and Justice.

Qualifications

  • PhD, University of Warwick
  • LLM, London School of Economics
  • BA, University of Science and Technology, Ghana

Areas Of Interest

New Institutional Economics, Regionalism in Africa, Law of the World Trade Organization, Human Rights in Africa, Law and Development, Law and Urbanization.

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OVERVIEW

I am interested in the interdisciplinary approach to legal scholarship and thus I am keen to supervise doctoral students whose work in law also incorporates insights from history, economic theory, and sociology.

External roles

Ii have been external examiner for 23 doctorates in law across several universities including the University of Oxford, Kings College London, London School of Economics, School of Oriental and African Studies, Brunel University, University of Exeter Kingston University and the University of Pretoria.

CURRENT RESEARCH

I am the author of 5 Monographs and 40 refereed papers on a variety of legal issues.

  • The African Continental Free Trade Agreement (forthcoming) Routledge

Most recent research

I am currently researching the African Continental Free Trade Agreement for a monograph to be published by Routledge in 2022.

Monographs

1. African Unification: Law, Problems and Prospects (2016) Carolina Academic Press, Durham: North Carolina Book review excerpts by Geroge Boateng, 89 issue 3 Africa: Journal of the African Institute, (2019) pp.625-626

Kofi Oteng Kufuor has written a clear, factual piece set out in history, religion and political jurisprudence on the challenges, prospects and law towards the formation of a unified African government. The book's strength is its careful attention to the relationship between culture, normative behaviour and religion. It is a novel piece of work....... Kufuor’s book provides a fantastic perspective on African integration…. embroiled in history through politics, law, and religion. The debate between supranationalism and national sovereignty in this book will hold readers spellbound.

2. The African Continental Free Trade Agreement: The Development of a Rules-Based Order (Routledge, 2024 forthcoming)

Journal papers

  • Judicial Work of the ECOWAS Court Justice From 1 January 2022 to 31 July 2033’ , 23 Global Community Yearbook of International Law and Jurisprudence (2024 forthcoming)
  • ‘Pathways to African Unification: The Four Riders of the Storm’ 28 (1) Fundamina: A Journal of Legal History (2022) pp.66-103
  • ‘Institutions and Economic Fortunes in Comparative Perspectives’, 10 Zanzibar Yearbook of Law, (2020) pp.35-59

Research groups and centres

  • Member, Centre for Justice, Law and Society
  • Associate Director, Noon Centre

PUBLICATIONS

Most recent publications:

Monograph

  1. The African Continental Free Trade Agreement: The Development of a Rules-Based Order (Routledge, 2024 forthcoming)

    This monograph explores the emergence and formative development of the AfCFTA. Its crux is the crafting a rules-based order for Africa. The monograph draws on urban law, civic republicanism, and public choice theory to explain the stunting of regional trade rules in Africa and how these very concepts also provide opportunities for decision-makers to chisel away at arbitrary trade law and install across the continent a framework for cross-border commerce that mimics a regional trade constitution.
  2. African Union: Law, Problems and Prospects (2016) Carolina Academic Press: Durham: North Carolina.

    This monograph explores the law and problems arising out of measures to deepen political and economic integration in Africa. It attempts to move the debate beyond a description of the law towards an analysis of failure embedded within a wider range of social and economic explanations that continue to stifle the successful formation of this regional organization.
  3. The African Human Rights System: Origin and Evolution, (2010) Palgrave Macmillan: New York

    This monograph explores how and why the African human rights system has evolved from a set of institutions perceived by scholars and human rights activists as weak and overly state-centric, to a system that is of increasing importance for the protection of human rights.  
  4. The Institutional Transformation of the Economic Community of West African States, (2006) Ashgate: Aldershot, England

    In this monograph I apply concepts of the New Institutional Economics School to the emergence, and transformation of the regime for economic integration in West Africa. In addition to rational choice institutionalism, I draw on insights from historical institutionalism and sociological institutionalism as a means for understanding institutional forms. My conclusion is that economic rationality alone cannot explain institutional outcomes, even though the prima facie case for regional integration in West Africa is economic efficiency through trade liberalisation.
  5. World Trade Governance and Developing Countries: the GATT/WTO Code Committee System, (2004) Blackwell: London, for the Royal Institute of International Affairs

    This Chatham House monograph analyses the role played by developing countries in the world trading system. It challenges the assumptions that the developing countries were passive participants in the GATT-managed world trading system. The monograph argues that rather, the developing countries strategically and subtly have manipulated the rules of the global trading system and the organizations created to monitor GATT and WTO law.

Journal articles

'Uber in Ghana: Markets and Institutions in the Emergence of Ride-sharing Taxis' 4 Lancaster University Ghana Law Journal (2018) pp.45-69

'Let's Break the Law: Landlords, Tenants, Norms and Rent Deposits in Ghana' 7 Global Comparative Law Journal, (2018) pp.333-354
 

TEACHING

- LLB: Constitutional Law, Public International Law

- LLM: Law of the World Trade Organization, International Environmental Law, Economic Integration in Developing Countries, Law and Development

LLB (Hons) Business Law

Study LLB (Hons) in Business Law at UEL: Explore legal principles in business, contracts, and corporate law. Gain skills for a dynamic career in law and commerce.

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LLM Energy and Natural Resources

This master's course examines upstream and downstream regulatory trends in oil, gas and minerals in Africa, Asia, Europe and the Middle East.

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LLM Business and Financial Law

Study Business and Financial Law and familiarise yourself with contemporary legal and regulatory issues that govern international business and finance.

Study Business and Financial Law

INDUSTRY PARTNERS

  • Consultant to the Department for International Development on antidumping cases
  • Consultant on Ghanaian law to Wilson Solicitors, London
  • Wiltshire Council Expert Report on Ghanaian Public Law
  • London Borough of Haringey Expert Report on Ghanaian family law (with Augustina Akoto).

Publications

The last four years of publications can be viewed below. 

Full publications list

Visit the research repository to view a full list of publications

Research repository