Petina Gappah, an international lawyer and writer from Zimbabwe
/Here are three pieces of advice:
Subscribe to The Economist (Take advantage of their trial subscription!).
Be ambitious and do not always take failures personally.
You need to have a good understanding of how your field of law fits within international law more broadly.
CV in brief:
Education: LL.B. at the University of Zimbabwe | LL.M. in International Law at the University of Cambridge | PhD in International Trade Law at the University of Graz
Career so far: WTO | ACWL | Writer
Languages spoken: Shona, English, French, German
Exclusive interview by Lara Twerenbold, October 2019
Petina, you have been working as an international lawyer and legal counsel for many years. What sparked your interest towards that career path?
After having done a law degree at the University of Zimbabwe, I studied International Law in Cambridge. By the time I was 27, I had a PhD in International Trade Law from the University of Graz in Austria. I had always wanted to work in foreign policy and my plan was to end up working for the Zimbabwean Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Instead, I got a job in Geneva at the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 1999. I wanted to gain some experience and then go back to Zimbabwe to work for the Minister of Foreign Affairs, but it wasn't possible because the government was pursuing an isolationist and inward-looking foreign policy that I didn't agree with. I'm a globalist and a multilateralist and, as such, I believe the world is stronger if countries obey international rules. Working for a government that didn't want to respect its human rights obligations and its bilateral investment agreements wasn’t an option for me.
In 2002, I left the WTO and started working in the Advisory Centre on WTO Law (ACWL), a legal aid centre for international trade law. During my time there, we advised more than 70 countries from Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean. I was there until 2011, when I took a leave of absence, and came back in 2013.
In 2015, I left Geneva and the ACWL for good to focus on my career as a writer. However, in November 2017, while I was writing my new book, Zimbabwe’s former President Mugabe stepped aside, and a new government took over. Finally, my country had the outward-looking foreign policy that I had always hoped for. The new government asked me to join them as a re-engagement advisor for 18 months. I wrote their new investment law and advised them on investment promotion and investment policy. I organised two World Economic Forum conferences one in 2018 for the President and one in 2019 for the Finance Minister as well as the foreign minister’s trip to the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) twice, as Zimbabwe was trying to rejoin the Commonwealth. By putting in a most-favoured-nation (MFN) principle in the governmental investment law, I have assured that all investors are treated the same and are given the same benefits. We did some really good work and I would have loved to continue, but my contract ended in July 2019 and I'm now promoting my new book, while I have also been appointed as an adjudicator on a panel for the WTO.
You recently published your fourth book Out of darkness, shining light. What impact can storytelling have on our understanding of history and international affairs?
Storytelling humanises even the most difficult situations of conflict. I remember watching a news bulletin about the Iraq War, and discussing with my friends in Geneva about the legality of this war in international law, when I saw a news article about one of the numerous episodes of bombing at weddings. That's when it struck me: it wasn’t just a problem of international law. Despite being directly affected by war, people were still getting married and celebrating love. It was an important reminder of what this is all really about. When, at the UN General Assembly, delegates discuss global issues such as climate change and terrorism, they talk about human lives. Storytelling helps centre on those lives to understand that it's not only a matter of a dry and dusty world of international treaties and the UN Charter, but real people too. That's the link between international law and storytelling. At the moment, I'm writing a series of stories based in Geneva where a fictitious organisation has the mandate of promoting peace through trade. Not only am I looking at the conference around the mandate, but also the lives of the people working in this organisation.
What was your experience being a student from Zimbabwe pursuing a career in Europe?
When I moved to Europe in the early 1990s, I was extremely excited because I was a feminist. I was looking forward to a world that I thought was much more developed in terms of ideas than my own. But I found myself in a very conservative and inward-looking European country, Austria. The position of women seemed somehow less emancipated than in my own country. Austrian women gave me the impression to focus mainly on being housewives, going back to work when their children would start school and only on a part-time basis. I was profoundly shocked. However, I enjoyed my experience at the Institute for International Law while learning German and writing my thesis. Although I felt isolated because of a lack of social relations, it has been an incredible professional opportunity. Yet, I didn’t have enough material to write my thesis and I decided to go to Cambridge to pursue a master’s degree in international law. In Cambridge, I finally felt like a student, exchanging views with many other international students, as I thought I would be doing in Austria. After finishing my master’s degree, I would have had the opportunity to pursue a PhD in Cambridge, but I didn't want to start all over again, so I went back to Austria confident to finally be able to finish my thesis.
Can you describe your role as a lawyer for international trade law at the WTO? How has your work been affected by the fact that international law depends strongly on the willingness of states to cooperate on a specific issue?
I found my role most effective in the ACWL and at the WTO. International law is an odd system of law because it operates based on the principle of pacta sunt servanda – the willingness to be bound. In both occasions, I worked in the dispute settlement system. At the WTO, I worked for the Appellate Body, the tribunal of final instance, and at the ACWL I represented developing countries using the WTO system. Recently, I’ve been reengaged in the system as an adjudicator on a WTO panel. In this system countries are willing to be bound and willing to respect the rules. When a rule doesn’t work or there is a misunderstanding in its interpretation, States are willing to go to adjudication to find a solution that has to be obeyed. The multilateral trading system is the perfect example of how international law works when respected. Wherever money and strong commercial interests are involved, international law will deliver. I'm glad that the system is strong enough to sustain itself, but I wish that international law could be enforced not only as a result of commercial interests. In this way we could avoid injustices in other areas, such as climate change and what has happened to the Paris agreement.
In your opinion, how does the WTO structure provide a framework for developing countries to establish a proper and independent economy?
At the beginning of my career, the greatest power imbalance between developed and developing countries was their ability to negotiate within the WTO. Over the last 15 years, much has been done both by the WTO and the ACWL to empower developing countries in negotiating for themselves. The number of negotiating groupings have grown in the past years. They don’t only revolve around developing versus developed countries, but also around specific issues. The WTO has become an interesting example of how, on a global scale, countries can form negotiating groupings according to their interests. The WTO provides developing countries the opportunity to deepen their relations not only with each other but also with other trading partners. When I was at the ACWL, we sometimes advised countries that wanted to accede to the WTO, but it never happened that a country wanted to leave. Member States want to improve the system in terms of diversity and representation, but nobody wants to leave - not even Zimbabwe when it was in its isolationist phase.
Can you tell us about important stages in your life that got you to where you are now?
The most important thing that I did for my career was to subscribe to The Economist magazine in 1998. Both the jobs that I found in Geneva were advertised in The Economist, in 1998 and in 2001. My advice to young people wanting to gain access to the international field is to read The Economist, besides newspapers in general. It’s important to have a good understanding of the field and of how it fits within international law more broadly. Another key stage of my career was my studies in Cambridge and Graz. This was important to deepen my knowledge of international law and find out what I wanted to do with my life. Afterwards, I started working in Geneva, which was an extraordinary thing because I was the first of all Zimbabweans to be hired on a fixed-term contract at the WTO. I have been a pioneer in many occasions, which is why at my age I'm one of the most experienced African trade lawyers in dispute settlement. There just haven't been that many of us.
How do you handle failure? What motivates you to keep going when dealing with setbacks?
My biggest disappointment was not receiving the job at the Appellate Body that I had campaigned for in 2014. My ambassador and I had developed a really good campaign, managing to gain support and impress many people. However, at the last stage, I didn't get it. It shook my confidence until I understood that not everything was about me. When it comes to those high-level appointments, the choice is based on many factors other than the person in front of them. It helped talking to ambassadors for whom we had campaigned and who had encouraging words about the campaign and how well I had done. Nevertheless, I have now been appointed as a panellist in the system in which I had seemingly failed. It was a sobering moment to me back then because I wasn’t used to failure. On reflection, I probably needed to go through it to understand that sometimes it isn’t only about yourself. To succeed, you have to be able to recognise when not to take failures personally. Always keep going. You can and should do your best but always remember that other factors come into play as well.
You've worked for several governments, including your own, and for an international organisation. What was your experience as a woman working in this field? Do you think your gender and ethnicity had an impact on how you've been treated?
I would say it has had a positive effect on my career in the sense that there are very few Zimbabweans in this field. When people meet one, they are pleasantly surprised and for the most part, I would say it’s been largely positive. Sometimes it has had a negative effect, especially when people assume that being Zimbabwean means being a supporter of Robert Mugabe. However, the international trade world is mainly white and male. It’s a refreshing surprise when somebody different from the stereotype enters this field.There are areas of international law that are traditionally seen as male, others as female. If you consider the International Department of UN Women in New York, the staff is mainly women. When you look at the field of Human Rights, there are many women. My point is that we need more women in all areas of international law, not only in those that are considered appropriate for them. And in order to achieve that, women simply need to be hired because it's not like we're not studying - we are. We just need to be hired.
If you don’t agree with a government you work for, what impact does this have on your work?
When I was working for the Zimbabwean government, it didn't always have proper representation at international forums because the focus was mainly on investment and trade, a field dominated by white men. Sometimes it’s simply about opening up opportunities. Just because women in a particular country do not have to fear active political repression, it doesn’t mean that they are equally represented in all areas of society. But talking about what it means to work for a government and not agreeing with its decisions, I was lucky that I had to give advice on technocratic issues, such as on commercial and economic issues. Of course, many things happened which I absolutely couldn’t agree with. When demonstrators were shot on August 1, 2018, it was a sobering moment for many people who had supported this government, me included. On one hand, the government wants to re-engage and open up Zimbabwe to investment. On the other hand, the country still needs fundamental reforms to promote investment because investors don’t want to put money in a country where people are shot in the streets.
What assets do young women need in order to pursue a career in the international field? What advice would you give to young women willing to work in this field?
You need to be extremely ambitious and read a lot. Of all the qualities, resilience is the most important because it isn’t easy to find a job in the field of international trade law. So, you have to keep trying and not give up. A friend of mine applied for 36 jobs before getting one. Even if you're not currently working, try to find an internship, writing a paper or keeping a blog. Do as much as you can to keep yourself active and engaged.
What is your dearest project to work on in the next (few) year(s)?
I'm currently doing a panel for the WTO and writing a treaty manual for Zimbabwean Members of Parliament and the Executive. I have been inspired by the Swiss treaty manual written by the Swiss Federal Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Switzerland, indeed, is one of the few countries that has a comprehensive treaty manual explaining the creation of treaties in international law and their role in the Swiss Constitution. I wanted to do the same for Zimbabwe because it has an odd constitutional set up, with three different treaty regimes: one under the new constitution from 2013, one under the 1980 constitution and one under the constitution before that. As a result, it is difficult to understand the legal consequences of each treaty. The manual aims at laying out all of that and I'm hoping to eventually pass it on to my government. Although I'm not directly working for them anymore, I'm still contributing in other ways. Nevertheless, if the opportunity presents itself and I receive an offer that allows me to make an impact both to my country and the world, I will take it.
