• Editorial
    As we head into summer months, the weather is not the only thing warming up.  Trade negotiations see hitting the headlines with increasing frequency, a sense of urgency driving the debate into the public domain: the Doha Round of global trade talks seems to be veering towards a potential climax, with revised negotiating texts issued…
  • Checking the system: a review of trade preferences
    GSP wrongly in the shade of EPAs? In recent months public discussion has focused on negotiation of Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) between African, Caribbean and Pacific countries (ACP) and the EU, leaving other preferential trade options as notes in the margin. This is somewhat surprising, given that since the summer of 2007 it appeared obvious that…
  • Negotiating Caribbean IP rights: a question of balancing national policy priorities with foreign trade policy?
    A group of small economies in the Caribbean with limited industrial and technological capability signed an Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) with the European Commission covering the protection and enforcement of intellectual property (IP) rights. Many other poorer nations from the African and Pacific region also signed interim ‘goods only’ EPAs with a further possibility of negotiating…
  • EPAs: what is at stake for agriculture and development in Central Africa
    Negotiations between the EU and Central Africa on a final regional Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) resumed in Brussels at the end of May. Exchanges focused on the text of the agreement put forward by Europe on market access and on trade in services while the development aspects of the EPA were once again put on…
  • The Growth Report: the momentum of Africa
    Developing countries can achieve fast, sustained, equitable growth if they engage and integrate with the global economy and have committed leaders. This is the key message of the recently published ‘Growth Report’, a study put together by a group of policy makers and economists, mostly from developing countries.2 The group was commissioned to investigate what…
  • The quest for answers: food and energy security
    The world is facing its worst food crisis since the 1970s: rapidly rising prices have triggered riots and threatened hunger in dozens of countries. The current situation is unprecedented on account of the number of commodities affected by price hikes and the simultaneous record costs for energy commodities. The extent of the crisis recently prompted the…
  • WTO Roundup
    Doha Round nears moment of truth, as Lamy calls make-or-break ministerial WTO Director General Pascal Lamy has called for a crunch meeting of ministers in Geneva on July 21, in a bid to salvage a deal in the troubled Doha Round of trade talks. Speaking to chief negotiators on June 27, Lamy said that his bold…
  • EPA Negotiations Update
    Melissa Julian, Nicolas Mombrial, Corinna Braun-Munzinger, ECDPM ACP-EU Council adopts EPA resolution The ACP-EU Council of Ministers adopted a joint resolution on Economic Partnership Agreements during its meeting on June 12-13 in Addis Ababa.1 The text echoes the EU External Relations Council conclusions of May 27, by calling for greater flexibility in the move from interim agreements…
  • What if politics finally got involved with world affairs? The Taubira report on EPAs
    A report which “does not mince its words” and puts Europe in the dock On April 9 2008 Christiane Taubira, a left-wing member of the French National Assembly, was asked by French President Nicolas Sarkozy to examine ways of relaunching the Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) between the European Union and the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP)…