Urban Assertiveness, Legal Frameworks, Informal Networks and Intercity Trade Among the Cities of SADC

While both international trade law and regional trade agreements in the SADC region are typically focused on nation states, it is cities that produce the bulk of economic goods and services in the region and that, in effect, are the main actors in terms of trade agreements. Similarly, regional trade is facilitated by inter-city infrastructure, connectivity, transport routes and so forth. Indeed, both formal and informal trade in the region predominantly take place on an inter-city level, yet this is seldom perceived or structured by applicable legal regimes. Changes in the legal and/or regulatory landscape in one city may thus have regional trade implications across the region, without these visibly triggering international or regional trade laws or agreements. One example of this is the City of Johannesburg’s ill-fated crackdown on unlicensed informal trade through the so-called “Operation Clean Sweep” in late 2013. Apart from its devastating impact on the lives of Johannesburg-based traders and their families, Operation Clean Sweep’s economic effects were felt in cities across SADC and beyond, as a number of formal and informal cross-border trade links were negatively impacted, or even severed, by its implementation. This paper aims to better understand the role of cities and local government in regional trade, while at the same time exploring the international dimensions of informal trade.