Bangladesh’s Regime Change – The India-Bangladesh BIT (2009) and the Joint Interpretative Notes (2017)
(The American Review of International Arbitration (Blog))
In August 2024, a violent uprising in Bangladesh (dubbed the ‘Monsoon Revolution’) led to a political regime change, ending the fifteen-year term of Bangladesh’s previous Prime Minister. Taking stock of Bangladesh’s economy on priority, the new interim government (supported by the military and with constitutional approval by the Bangladeshi Supreme Court) recently issued a 400-page White Paper on the State of the Bangladesh Economy, highlighting the previous government’s alleged lapses (stating that over US$240 billion had been embezzled and laundered over fifteen years) and identifying projects that had operated/been awarded on questionable terms and regulatory exemptions. The interim government plans to review and renegotiate previous contracts and projects, and clearer next steps will likely emerge through Bangladesh’s forthcoming economic mid-term plan (2025 – 2027).