Olabisi D. Akinkugbe

Bio

Olabisi Delebayo Akinkugbe is the Purdy Crawford Chair in Business Law and Associate Professor at the Schulich School of Law, Dalhousie University. 

Professor Akinkugbe obtained a Ph.D. in law from the University of Ottawa, an LL.M. from the University of Toronto, and an LL.B. from the University of Lagos, Nigeria. He previously served as the Viscount Bennett Professor of Law at the Schulich School of Law and was convenor of the annual Viscount Bennett Roundtable on International Economic Law.

In 2024, he was the recipient of the Hannah and Harold Barnett Excellence in Teaching Award.

Professor Akinkugbe's research covers several topics on issues in and at the intersection of public international law, international economic law, human rights, law and development, international courts, and regional economic integration in Africa. He explores these issues from the national, regional, and international contexts. His research draws on critical traditions such as Socio-legal approaches to law, Post-colonialism, and Third World Approaches to International Law (TWAIL) among others.

Professor Akinkugbe holds several leadership positions within international law and international economic law journals. In 2023, he was appointed as the section Editor, International Decisions and Decision Essays, American Journal of International Law. In 2020, he co-founded and serves as the co-Editor-in-Chief of the African Journal of International Economic Law. Between 2018 and 2019, he served as the co-Managing Editor of the Nigerian Yearbook of International Law. Professor Akinkugbe’s other governance appointments include member of the Board of Editors of the American Journal of International Law, Journal of International Economic Law, Journal of World Investment and Trade, the Canadian Yearbook of International Law, and the Ocean Yearbook.

Professor Akinkugbe is active in the governance of international societies and professional associations in his field. He has been appointed to and serves on the Executive Councils of the Canadian Council of International Law (CCIL), American Society of International Law (ASIL), the Society of International Economic Law, the steering committee of the Academic Forum on Investor-State Dispute Settlement, and the Advisory Board of the African International Economic Law Network. He previously served as President of the African International Economic Law Network (2018-2020), and on the Board of the International Law Association (Canada). He was co-chair of the conference planning committee for the CCIL Annual Conference 2023 and the ASIL Mid-Year Forum 2022.

In 2019, Professor Akinkugbe seeded a new and thriving academic community when he co-founded (with James T. Gathii) Afronomicslaw.org, which focuses on all aspects of international economic law as they relate to Africa and the Global South. Afronomicslaw.org currently hosts the following initiatives: the African Sovereign Debt Justice Network; the African Journal of International Economic Law; individual blogs as well as thematic symposia; Book Review Symposium; Indaba (important conversations); Webinars; and the Academic Forum.

Professor Akinkugbe has served as a visiting professor and faculty in Canada, Brazil, and the United States. During the 2024-2025 academic year, he has been appointed as the Allan Rock Visiting Professor in Law at the Common Law Section of the Faculty of Law, University of Ottawa. In the Winter Term of 2024, he was an invited Visiting Faculty at the School of Law, Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil where he taught a series of seminars on international law and the Global South; and publishing. In the Spring Term of 2021, has was appointed as an Adjunct Visiting Assistant Professor at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University where he taught a seminar on Law & Development. Before joining the Schulich School of Law, he was an Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Law, University of New Brunswick, Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada from 2015-2017.

Prior to joining the academia, Professor Akinkugbe’s practice and in-house experience focused on project finance, construction law, public-private partnerships and arbitration. He was Legal Counsel at Lekki Concession Company, Nigeria where he administered the project and finance contracts as well as associated contracts in connection with the first public-private partnership road project in Nigeria.  Before then, he was as an Associate in the law firm of Aluko & Oyebode, Lagos, Nigeria.

Teaching

• Contracts and Judicial Rule-Making
• International Investment Law
• International Trade Law