Sub-national Involvement in Nigeria's Foreign Relations Law: An Appraisal of the Heterodoxy between Theory and Practice

Abstract

Nations, in their interaction with the international system, usually have in place a legal regime governing the external exercise of the powers of the state. This regime Curtis Bradley describes as the foreign relations law (FRL) architecture of a state. In a conventional FRL system, plenary powers for the conduct of international relations reside with the central government. For countries operating a federal system of government, the centripetal and centrifugal dynamics inherent in this system of government pose a serious challenge to this orthodoxy. More so, catalysed by globalisation, subnational governments (SNGs) in federal systems are increasingly affecting the reception and operation of international norms and acting as ‘paradiplomatic’ actors in the foreign relations sphere. This emergent trend has led to a growing body of scholarship that considers individual and comparative case studies across different jurisdictions. Focusing on Nigeria as a case study, this article evaluates recent empirical evidence that shows an increase in external interactions by Nigeria's SNGs in the FDI sector since 1999. The article argues that these external interactions by Nigeria's SNGs are a deviation from the conventional constitutional configuration of Nigeria's FRL setup wherein plenary powers for foreign relations have been allocated to the Federal Government (FG).