By Omar FaFa M’Bai
There are moments in the life of a nation that deserve more than a passing headline. There are victories that transcend the individuals who achieved them and become part of the institutional memory of a country and moments that remind a people of what is possible when national purpose, exceptional professional competence and faith in our own human capital come together in defence of the public interest.
The successful annulment of an international arbitration award of approximately US$33.2 million against the Government and people of The Gambia is, in my view, one such moment.
This is not an occasion for political triumphalism, nor should it be reduced to partisan celebration. It is an occasion for national pride. It is an occasion to recognise excellence where excellence has been demonstrated, to celebrate exceptional legal representation and above all, to acknowledge the immense significance of protecting a small developing nation from a financial liability that could have placed a considerable burden upon its public finances and, ultimately, upon the Gambian taxpayer.
I therefore begin by commending the Government of The Gambia, the Attorney General and Minister of Justice, and the Attorney General’s Chambers for assembling and entrusting this important international dispute to a formidable legal team, including distinguished international counsel Mrs Cherie Booth-Blair, KC, and one of The Gambia’s own distinguished sons, Mr Edi MO Faal, who co-led the conduct of the case.
There is something particularly significant in a nation recognising the excellence that exists among its own people.
For too long across Africa, there has sometimes been an instinctive assumption that the highest levels of international expertise must necessarily be found elsewhere. International arbitration, particularly investor-state arbitration, is undoubtedly a highly specialised field requiring mastery of complex jurisdictional principles, treaty and international investment law, procedural rules, comparative legal analysis and sophisticated written and oral advocacy. But international excellence and national talent are not mutually exclusive.
The recognition and deployment of Gambian legal talent in a dispute of this magnitude therefore deserves particular commendation.
The successful conduct of a complex international arbitration annulment proceeding requires far more than familiarity with statutes and decided cases. It demands intellectual discipline, strategic judgment, forensic analysis, mastery of international arbitration rules and principles, meticulous preparation, persuasive written advocacy and the ability to articulate difficult questions of law with precision and authority before an international tribunal.
It requires advocates capable of identifying the weakness in an adverse decision, isolating the legal and jurisdictional questions upon which that decision rests, and constructing a compelling legal argument as to why it cannot properly stand.
Above all, it requires the rare ability to persuade.
Advocacy, at its highest level, is not simply the knowledge of law. It is the art of transforming legal knowledge into reasoned persuasion.
To persuade an international annulment committee to set aside an award previously rendered against a sovereign State is no ordinary professional achievement. It requires courage to challenge an adverse outcome, confidence in the strength of the legal position, and the intellectual and advocacy skills necessary to demonstrate that the original decision cannot withstand proper legal scrutiny.
The significance of what was at stake must also not be underestimated.
US$33.2 million is not merely a figure appearing in an arbitration award.
For a developing country of The Gambia’s size and economic circumstances, such a liability represents resources of enormous national consequence.
Behind every million dollars of public money are competing national necessities, hospitals requiring medicines and equipment, schools requiring classrooms, teachers and educational materials, roads and public infrastructure awaiting construction, communities requiring clean water and electricity, young people seeking opportunities, and families whose daily lives depend upon the ability of government to allocate scarce national resources responsibly.
Ultimately, public liabilities are borne by the public.
An award of this magnitude could therefore have imposed a significant burden upon the national budget and constrained the Government’s ability to deploy scarce resources towards development priorities. The successful annulment did more than remove a legal liability from the Government’s books. It protected resources belonging, in the broadest and most meaningful sense, to the people of The Gambia.
That is why this victory belongs not only in our legal reports.
It belongs in our national consciousness.
The government’s official announcement indicates that the decision not only removed the damages and interest awarded against The Gambia but also enabled the country to recover approximately US$213,000 in arbitration costs. The economic significance is therefore tangible. Money that might otherwise have been consumed by an adverse international award can instead remain available for the legitimate priorities of the Gambian people.
For a small nation, defending the public purse is itself an act of national service.
There is another dimension to this achievement that deserves equal attention and that is its contribution to the development of Gambian jurisprudence and legal confidence.
The law of a nation develops not only through judgments delivered in its domestic courts. It also develops through the quality of its lawyers, the arguments they advance, the principles they defend and the reputation they establish for their country before regional and international institutions.
Future generations of Gambian lawyers should be able to look upon achievements such as this and understand that the geographical size of their country does not determine the intellectual reach of its lawyers.
A Gambian lawyer can stand before the most sophisticated international tribunals.
A Gambian lawyer can engage with the most complex questions of international law.
A Gambian lawyer can sit alongside distinguished international counsel as an equal professional partner.
And Gambian legal reasoning can contribute meaningfully to the resolution of disputes of international significance.
That is an important legacy.
Young Gambian lawyers entering the profession today should see in this victory something larger than the result of one case. They should see evidence that excellence has no nationality and that professional distinction is achieved through scholarship, preparation, integrity, courage and an undeterred commitment to one’s craft.
The Roman statesman Cicero gave us an enduring principle: “Salus populi suprema lex esto”…. let the welfare of the people be the supreme law.
Few principles better capture why the defence of public resources matters.
When lawyers successfully defend a nation against a substantial financial liability through lawful process and exceptional advocacy, they are not merely winning a case. They are helping to preserve resources upon which the welfare of ordinary citizens may depend.
We must also learn, as a nation, to celebrate our own.
National pride should never mean believing that our country or our people are beyond criticism. True patriotism is mature enough to acknowledge shortcomings while remaining generous enough to celebrate excellence.
When a Gambian excels internationally, we should celebrate that Gambian.
When Gambian professionals demonstrate that they can perform at the highest international level, we should say so publicly.
When our institutions make the right decision by identifying competence, recognising talent and placing responsibility in capable hands, we should equally acknowledge them.
A nation builds confidence partly through the stories it chooses to remember.
If we tell only stories of failure, controversy and division, we risk raising generations who believe that greatness is always somewhere else. But when we document and celebrate genuine achievement, we create precedents of possibility.
That is why Mr Edi MO Faal and the entire legal team deserve public recognition.
Mr Faal’s role should be celebrated not merely because he is Gambian, but because Gambian talent was entrusted with responsibility at the highest level and contributed to an outcome of immense national significance. National pride is most meaningful when it is grounded in merit.
Special recognition must equally be accorded to Mrs Cherie Booth-Blair, KC, whose distinguished international legal experience and leadership, working alongside Mr Faal and the wider team, contributed to this remarkable outcome. The strength of the representation appears to have rested precisely in that combination of international expertise, local legal knowledge and coordinated advocacy.
The state law officers and every member of the legal team who worked, researched, drafted, strategised and contributed behind the scenes also deserve recognition. Major legal victories are rarely the work of one individual. Behind the advocates whose names become publicly known are often teams of lawyers and professionals whose painstaking work makes successful advocacy possible.
Particular acknowledgment is also due to Senior Counsel Kebba Sanyang, identified by the Government as the expert witness on Gambian law, and to the state law officers who contributed throughout what was reportedly a difficult two-year legal process.
In that spirit, it would be fitting for the Government of The Gambia to consider formally recognising this exceptional achievement through appropriate national awards or awards of excellence for Mr Edi MO Faal, Mrs Cherie Booth-Blair, KC, and the members of the legal team at the Attorney General’s Chambers whose collective expertise, dedication and professionalism contributed to this historic outcome. Such recognition would not merely honour individuals, it would affirm, as a matter of national principle, that exceptional service in defence of the Republic and the public interest deserves to be acknowledged and celebrated. Nations inspire excellence when they recognise excellence, and honouring those who have rendered distinguished service to their country sends a powerful message to present and future generations that professional distinction, patriotism and service to the national interest matter.
The Attorney General and Minister of Justice, Mr Dawda A Jallow, and the Government of The Gambia should likewise be commended for believing that this adverse award could lawfully be challenged and for providing the institutional mandate necessary to pursue that challenge.
There is leadership in knowing when to fight.
There is also leadership in knowing how to fight, through law, institutions and reasoned advocacy.
The decision to challenge an adverse international award through the mechanisms provided by international law demonstrates something important, respect for international legal obligations does not require passive acceptance of every adverse decision. A sovereign State is entitled, like any litigant, to invoke the lawful remedies available to it where it believes that a decision is fundamentally defective.
That is the rule of law in action.
The Gambia did not prevail by rejecting international law.
It prevailed by using international law.
That distinction is important.
This victory should therefore strengthen, rather than diminish, our commitment to lawful dispute resolution, institutional integrity and the highest standards of professional advocacy.
And perhaps that is the greatest lesson of all.
The Gambia may be a small country geographically, but no nation is small when its institutions act with purpose, when its professionals pursue excellence and when its people believe in the capacity of their own.
This victory should be recorded as part of our contemporary legal history not as an occasion for boasting, and certainly not as a weapon for political division, but as an example of what can be achieved when national interest, institutional leadership, Gambian talent and international legal excellence converge around a common purpose.
There will always be disagreements in public life. There will always be moments when politics divides us, there will always be different views in constitutional interpretations. But there should also be moments when we are capable of rising above those divisions and differences and simply saying:
This was good for The Gambia, Our Homeland.
Saving the country from an approximately US$33.2 million arbitral liability is such a moment.
We should celebrate the lawyers.
We should celebrate the institutions that empowered them.
We should celebrate the Government for recognising and trusting Gambian legal talent while bringing together the international expertise necessary to defend the national interest.
And we should preserve this achievement as an inspiration to the next generation of Gambian lawyers who may one day be called upon to defend their country before courts and tribunals anywhere in the world.
For ultimately, the greatest tribute we can pay to this legal team is not simply to applaud the victory today.
It is to allow their achievement to remind us of something enduring:
A nation that believes in its people gives its people the opportunity to make their nation proud.
On this occasion, they have done exactly that.
Congratulations to Mr Edi MO Faal, Mrs Cherie Booth-Blair, KC, Counsel Kebba Sanyang, the state law officers and the entire legal team. Congratulations to the Attorney General and Minister of Justice and the Government of The Gambia.
And above all, congratulations to the people of The Gambia, in whose name, and for whose ultimate benefit, this remarkable legal victory was secured.
May it inspire confidence in our institutions, pride in our national talent, and generations of Gambian lawyers yet to come.
About the author
Omar FaFa M’Bai is a legal practitioner, a governance advocate, and a parent based in Dubai, UAE. He writes regularly on institutional integrity, leadership, and education across Africa, Middle East, and Asia.
