The International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development (ICTSD)* is pleased to alert you to three new papers on key issues related to Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs).
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Issue Paper 1: “Environmental Issues in Economic Partnership AgreementsImplications for Developing Countries”
By Beatrice Chaytor
This paper provides a comprehensive review of all rules related to trade and environment in the final ACP-EU EPAs, as well as proposed provisions in the context of ongoing negotiations. The aim of the paper is to enable ACP countries to understand how trade policy related to the environment has been introduced in EPAs, and how those policies might impact sustainable development in ACP countries. The paper starts by presenting the current European approach on trade and environment in those agreements. More specifically, it addresses the current state of negotiations, analyses precise proposals made, and explores some of the implications of introducing environmental issues in the EPAs.
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Issue Paper 2: “Legal and Systematic Issues in the Interim Economic Partnership Agreements: Which way now?”
By Cosmas Milton Obote Ochieng
This paper provides a legal analysis of systemic issues related to the relationship between the WTO and EPAs, including:
- The application of the Most Favourable Nation clause, Article XXIV of GATT and its relationship with EPAs;
- The effects of the “standstill” clause on bound or applied tariff rates applied to ACP countries by WTO members;
- The political and legal effects of the “Non-Execution Clause” in EPAs;
- The articulation of the dispute settlement mechanisms of EPAs and their interactions with the WTO one.
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Issue Paper 3: “Trade Agreements and their Relation to Labour Standards: The current situation”
By Pablo Lazo Grandi
This study offers a political and legal review of international labour standards in trade agreements, as well as analysis of how these standards have evolved in the international trade arena. The author examines emerging trends in the negotiation of trade and labour standards at the multilateral, regional, and bilateral trade deals. The study aims to offer developing country governments and other relevant stakeholders practical guidelines on how to address these issues in international negotiations with a focus on RTAs, taking into account the experience of countries, such as Chile, that have already negotiated several of those agreements.
*The International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development (ICTSD) is a non-governmental organization, based in Geneva, which – by empowering stakeholders in trade policy through information, networking, dialogue, well-targeted research, and capacity building – seeks to influence the international trade system such that it advances the goal of sustainable development. For further information on ICTSD’s EPAs and Regionalism Programme, please see: http://ictsd.org/programmes/epas/