Dr Jonathan Bashi Rudahindwa

Jonathan Bashi Rudahindwa joined SOAS as a Lecturer in Law in January 2023.

He holds two law degrees (graduat et licence) from Université Protestante au Congo (Kinshasa, DRC), an LLM from Indiana University (USA) and a PhD from SOAS. His work experience prior to joining SOAS spreads across various sectors, with roles assumed in higher education (including Postdoctoral Research Officer at the LSE and Lecturer in Law in DRC), in the private sector, as well as in international development.

The main focus of Jonathan’s research is the correlation between law, regional integration, and development; it finds its basis in critical international economic law, international inequality and political economy. His work takes a nuanced approach to regional trade integration by adopting a social-legal method, examining the challenges faced by governments and social constructs in the governance of (formal and informal) cross-border trade.

His doctoral research was based on an interdisciplinary approach, and provided a political economy analysis of regional trade integration processes in Sub-Saharan Africa as a case study. Drawing from economic and political theory, as well as the analysis of other examples of market creation/market integration processes in the world (EU, NAFTA, and ASEAN), he considered the use of law both to advance trade integration and to promote regional development in the African context. The results of his thesis were included in a monograph published by Routledge in 2018 entitled “Regional Developmentalism Through International Law: Establishing an Africa Economic Community”.

Some of his recent research covers a comparative analysis of the harmonisation of commercial law within the Organisation for Harmonisation of Business Law in Africa (OHADA) and in the United States (Uniform Commercial Code), as well as trade, regional cooperation, and industrialisation in West Africa (with Dr Sophie van Huellen). His current scholarly work focuses on the expansion of his methodological approach to more case studies, including the study of public authority and the governance of informal cross-border trade is Central and East Africa.

International economic law; OHADA law; law and development (especially market creation/market integration, governance, and regional development in Sub-Saharan Africa); regionalism; international inequality.