It is increasingly clear that the international legal arrangements governing the global economy can have direct implications for land governance. 

Take a recent case from Ethiopia, a country where large-scale land deals for agribusiness investments attracted high levels of public attention. In December, the government terminated a 100,000-hectare farmland lease with an Indian investor, alleging lack of progress with land development. 

A few weeks ago, the Indian investor was quoted as saying he was “prepared to seek international arbitration on the matter“, claiming that the cancellation violated a bilateral treaty on the protection of foreign investment that the governments of India and Ethiopia signed in 2007.