Large-Scale Land Investments in Least Developed Countries - Legal Conflicts Between Investment and Human Rights Protection

This book analyses large-scale land investments for agricultural purposes in Africa's least developed countries from a law and economics perspective. Focusing on the effects of foreign land investments on host countries' local populations and the apparent failure of international law to create incentives to offset them, it also examines the legal and economic mechanisms to hold investors accountable in cases where their investment leads to human rights violations. Applying principal agent and contract theory, it elucidates the sources of opportunism and develops control mechanisms to ameliorate the negative effects. It shows that although judicial mechanisms fail to deliver justice, international law offers alternatives to safeguard against arbitrary and abusive state and investor conduct, and also to effectuate human rights and, thus, tackle opportunistic behaviour.


Luis Tomás Montilla Fernández, LL.M, was a doctoral researcher at the University of Hamburg Graduate School in Law and Economics since October 2010. His research focusses on the mechanisms provided by International Law to promote foreign direct investments and  human rights, specifically the right to property and the right to food, both in the law making processes as well as in the settlement of investment disputes. He is currently working on the social impacts of large-scale investments in sub-Saharan Africa, including the effects of foreign investment in agriculture in Africa on the lives of local farmers; legal-philosophical aspects of investment law, and; on the promotion of Human Rights in international investment arbitration cases. 
Luis has published papers on the subjects of international investment law and human rights, has presented his work at conferences in Europe, Africa, and Asia and has been a panelist on topics associated with his research areas. 
Luis is a member of the Society of International Economic Law (SIEL), the German-Chinese Lawyers Association (DCJV), and was part of the Board of Postgraduate and Early Professionals/Academics Network of the Society of International Economic Law (PEPA/SIEL). Luis was invited by FIDH to join the group of experts to visit Belarus and draft the CESCR 2013 report. He has been a visiting researcher at the University of Ghana in Accra, the University of California in Berkeley, Columbia University in New York and University St. Gallen, Switzerland. 

Before joining the Institute of Law & Economic in Hamburg, Luis obtained his LL.M. degree at the Albert-Ludwig University in Freiburg im Breisgau (Germany), summa cum laude. Previously, Luis practiced law in Venezuela, studied legal sciences and obtained the degree and Venezuelan lawyer license (Abogado) with honours cum laude.