Martin Waana-Ang is a Ghanaian J.S.D. Candidate at Yale Law School, where he previously earned the LL.M. degree. Prior to joining Yale, he practiced as an Associate Attorney with a leading Ghanaian law firm, advising on dispute resolution, transactions, and regulatory matters in the energy and extractives sectors. He also served as a law clerk at the Supreme Court of Ghana and worked as a teaching assistant at both the University of Ghana School of Law and Ashesi University. Martin graduated summa cum laude with an LL.B. from the Faculty of Law, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) and subsequently obtained the professional qualifying certificate in law from the Ghana School of Law. He was admitted to the Ghana Bar in 2024 and received the prestigious Mensah Sarbah Award for Best Professional Law Student, as well as the award for Best Student in Civil Procedure. Throughout his legal education, he held numerous leadership positions, including President of the Law Students’ Union, Country Director of the Federation of African Law Students, and Editor of the Ghana School of Law Journal. He currently serves as an Adjunct Lecturer in Environmental Law and Policy at the Faculty of Law, KNUST.
Martin’s research lies at the intersection of international economic law, natural resource governance, international environmental law, industrial policy, development economics, and the political economy of the global energy transition. His scholarship focuses particularly on critical minerals governance, trade and investment regulation, and the implications of geopolitical competition for resource-rich developing countries.
His doctoral dissertation examines how international economic law allocates authority over the material foundations of the global economy in an era shaped by digitalization, artificial intelligence, and the green transition. Focusing on the geopolitical contest for critical minerals, the project undertakes a comparative study of Ghana, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Zimbabwe to analyze how competition among major powers is reshaping trade, investment, and mineral policy regimes in Africa. The research further investigates the role of industrial policy in advancing African development objectives and explores the interaction between such policies and the rules of international economic law. More broadly, the dissertation interrogates the relationship between global capitalism, state power, and the protection of community interests in the global race for critical minerals. The research engages with the following normative frameworks: law and economics, law and political economy, third world approaches to international law, and the Yale School of International Law.
Doctoral Committee
Professor Joshua Macey
Professor Amy Kapczynski
Professor Aslı Bâli
Professor Claire Priest
Education
J.S.D., Yale Law School (in progress)
LL.M., Yale Law School (2026)
B.L., Ghana School of Law (2024)
LL.B. (summa cum laude), Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (2022)
Contact Information
Email: martin.waana-ang@yale.edu