Jul 23
Dr Jane Kelsey, Professor of Law at the University of Auckland and a leading international authority on trade in services agreements, has conducted an exhaustive study of Legal Provisions on Services and Investment in the CARIFORUM-EC EPA. The eleven-chapter, 111-page study, now published by the South Centre, indentifies five principal categories of legal risk in the EPA: (i) asymmetry in favour of the EU; (ii) the unpredictable and unlimited multiplier effect of most-favoured nation and ‘regional preference’ obligations; (iii) an externally imposed regional integration model; (iv) closure of policy space; (v) complexity, uncertainty and a heightened risk of errors with no structured opportunity to correct them.
The main recommendation for Cariforum States is to utilise the Joint Declaration of the Parties on the Signing of the Economic Partnership Agreement, to be conducted pursuant to Article 5 of the EPA, which the author states is ‘the only formal opportunity to address the concerns raised in the report’. For Non-Cariforum States, especially in the ACP grouping, the main recommendation is they ‘should assert their right not to negotiate an agreement with the EU on services and investment’.
The publication of the Kelsey Report provides an opportunity to broaden current exchanges over the EPA in the Caribbean beyond the issue of implementation of the agreement. Given the scope and extent of the legal risks identified, it would be appropriate for the legal and other academic community, trade officials, the private sector, NGOs and other stakeholders to examine the EPA text critically with a view to assessing the implications and detemining the modifications necessary to make the Agreement more in line with Cariforum/Caricom circumstances and interests. This is all the more important, in that services and investment form part of the CARICOM/Canada FTA and negotiations on these subjects are due to commence soon. Further, we are nearly two years into the period allowed for the mandatory review, and adequate preparation in support of the Caricom/Cariforum case needs to be made.
Read the Kelsey/South Centre Report
Jun 04
This analysis by a COHA Associate correctly identifies corruption, crime, Prime Ministerial arrogance and general misgovernance as the basic factors in the landslide victory of Kamla Persad-Bissessar’s People’s Partnership coalition in the elections of May 24, 2010 in Trinidad and Tobago. At the same time it underestimates the historic significance of the coalition of five political parties/political movements that came together in the People’s Partnership, which crosses traditional ethnic lines and constitutes a new feature in the political landscape of the country with Caricom’s largest economy–Norman.
Jun 04
A recent article in Trade Negotiations Insights has drawn attention to the EPA Development Programme proposed by West Africa as the framework for its on-going negotiations with the EU….I wonder whether we in the Caribbean don’t have a lot to learn from what the West Africans have done…
Apr 25
Gender Justice in Trade Policy: The gender effects of Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs)
One World Action and the Commonwealth Secretariat recently published the report: Gender Justice in Trade Policy: The gender effects of Economic Partnership Agreements [1]. Based on the goods tariff liberalisation schedules agreed in Jamaica, Tanzania and Mozambique, this research provides the first detailed economy-wide analysis of the likely gender effects of EPAs…
Apr 15
The European Union (EU)’s interest and involvement in foreign direct investment (FDI) is by no means new. However, it has only been comparatively recently that one has been able to begin to distinguish the particularities of a specific EU approach to FDI, especially when placed within a broader developmental context. The approach has been most visible during the ongoing negotiations of Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) with the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) grouping of States…
Mar 30
What do Haiti, the Ethiopian famine, Live Aid and the destruction of the New International Economic Order of the 1970s have in common? Vijay Prashad, Professor at Trinity College, Hartford and author of The Darker Nations: A People’s History of the Third World, supplies the answer in this revealing commentary.
In December 1984, I walked into the HMV store on London’s Oxford Street to spend a little discretionary money on an LP. Other albums drew me, but one had an advantage….It combined the talents of all the major “Top of the Pops” singers onto one song. It had to be Bob Geldof’s Do They Know It’s Christmas?…
Mar 18
Selected items on Haiti relevant to issues discussed on this blog. Updated as time permits.
Rescue Haiti Watch Kizzie Ruiz’s powerful rendition on YouTube
Rescue Haiti The Lyrics, Christophe Grant
Previous items on the Haiti Page
Mar 18
Report on the EU Trade Conference in Brussels, the “EU Trade Policy towards Developing Countries: Challenges and opportunities for the next years” in Brussels, 16 March 2010.
There were many EU Civil Society Organizations, EU officials, Asian representatives and only a few ACP representatives…there was no presenter from the Caribbean or the Pacific..Other most important news was that the EU’s Generalised System of Preferences (GPS) will end in December 2011 and will be replaced by a new system, and that the EC is starting public consultations the coming two months..
Click here for report
Mar 17
Introductory Remarks, Association Of Caribbean Universities And Research Institutes (UNICA) Panel On Haiti, UWI, St Augustine, Trinidad, 15 March 2010
The catastrophe of Janaury 12 has thrust Haiti into the consciousness of Caribbean people as never before. As someone said in the days immediately following, “We are all Haitians now”…
