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Africa-wide integration projects have competed with step-wise regional integration since independence. This chapter examines the new project of an African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA). The project’s potential to become an economic game-changer for Africa is analysed alongside the likely pitfalls of the arrangement. We conclude that while a well-staged AfCFTA can resolve a number of critical issues associated with intra-African integration, it cannot replace existing RECs, especially not with respect to negotiating extra-regional trade agreements. It is argued that to avoid undercutting the entire process, the entrenched logic of exceptions and exclusions from tariff liberalization must not be reproduced at the continental level, and a generic developmental set of rules of origin must be defined. The chapter closes with a description of the essential elements that must be included in a higher-order project of economic integration at both the regional and continental level in order to respond to what the literature calls transformative or developmental regionalism.

This chapter gives a comprehensive overview of all modifications to WTO rules on anti-dumping that have occurred in the 16 customs unions. It explains how the customs unions have deviated materially from WTO rules on anti-dumping and also explains their institutional frameworks in the area of anti-dumping. In doing so, this study goes beyond a mere characterization of the different customs unions as it also provides a legal commentary of the various customs union legislations. Beyond that, this chapter also addresses problems that arise if states are parties to multiple RTAs or multiple customs unions specifically, gives an overview how non-preferential rules of origin interact with rules on anti-dumping and considers how customs unions have regulated anti-dumping actions on behalf of a third country.

This chapter contains the second part of exemplary EPA critique related to the content of the treaties. All relevant economic aspects and clauses of the trade-in-goods agreements are critically examined, including the market access offer, quantitative restrictions, trade remedies, export duties and subsidies, national treatment and procurement, and rules of origin. The agreed and proposed clauses are submitted to scrutiny of whether the remaining policy space still allows sensible infant industry protection in Africa. The analysis concludes that some policy space is left for targeted developmental efforts by African governments but is made very difficult in the practical management of the new trade rules. The chapter contains two case studies on global poultry and cashew trade. The overall result of the EPA examination with regard to partnership, development orientation and sustainability is a mixed picture at best.

This chapter offers a descriptive analysis of the current state of the general pillars of Afghanistan’s foreign trade legal regime since the post-Taliban era. Section 3.1 provides a brief review of the Afghan economy and foreign trade development since the fall of the Taliban in the end of 2001. Section 3.2 focuses on laws and regulations governing the foreign trade of goods, mainly in the areas of export-import, customs procedure and other customs regulatory measures such as standards and technical regulations, sanitary and phytosanitary measures (SPS), rules of origin (RoO) and anti-dumping and countervailing measures. Section 3.3 examines laws and regulations governing foreign trade in services, primarily in areas of foreign investment, competition and State enterprise ownership (SEOs). Section 3.4 describes Afghanistan’s commercial dispute settlement regime. Section 3.5 describes Afghanistan’s route into international trade. Section 3.6 concludes the chapter.

Canada, Mexico and the United States, at the insistence of the Trump Administration, agreed to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), reflecting the U.S. objectives of reducing the substantial U.S. trade deficit with Mexico, discouraging future U.S. source investment in Mexico and thereby encouraging manufacturing employment in the United States. These negotiations resulted in a revised agreement—the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA)—that was signed by the three Parties on November 30, 2018 and again in revised form December 10, 2019 that is likely to enter into force mid-2020. In the process, while Mexico and Canada made significant concessions, the United States was required to compromise on its initial demands on such issues as automotive rules of origin, government procurement, dispute settlement and a Sunset clause, among others. One major benefit of the renegotiation was the agreement by the Parties on a relatively robust chapter addressing environmental protection (Chapter 24), a major improvement over NAFTA’s side agreement, the North American Agreement on Environmental Cooperation (NAAEC). USMCA’s environmental chapter incorporates many of the features of the Transpacific Partnership (from which the Trump Administration withdrew in January 2017) including making environmental disputes subject to the same dispute settlement mechanism as trade disputes. Moreover, the USMCA environmental chapter and related agreements incorporates some of the best features of the NAAEC as well as the innovations of TPP to create a new high standard of environmental protection for regional trade agreements.

This chapter stresses the importance to Costa Rica’s economy of its accession to the Pacific Alliance (PA) and analyses market access negotiation challenges. One of the requirements for accession to the PA is for new members to have existing free trade agreements in place with the PA members. We compare the agreements Costa Rica already has with each of the PA countries in order to identify the sensitive products that may present the greatest challenges in the accession process. One of the difficulties with these sensitive products is to determine how the four separate agreements that Costa Rica has negotiated with each Member of the PA can be converted into a single agreement in terms of the tariff schedule and rules of origin. The chapter concludes that with respect to rules of origin, all preferential trade agreements (PTAs) signed by Costa Rica with PA member states – except for the Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with Chile – have diagonal cumulation of origin and therefore the benefits of market cumulation outweigh the challenges posed by sensitive products. In terms of the tariff schedule, sensitive products are identified in current PTAs. However, if Costa Rica becomes a full member of this economic bloc, the country will benefit from increased market access due to the regional cumulation, as well as from many other commitments beyond market access.

The position of the EU in the negotiations with Vietnam shows that the EU is less prone to concede long transition periods and flexible rules of origin to an ASEAN country than to Latin American countries. Moreover, the agreement includes a soft language concerning suspension of reciprocal trade commitments in case of human rights violations, while it promotes the most detailed consultation procedure in the enforcement of sustainable development. A comparison with the trade agreement concluded with Singapore also shows that the EU has exerted greater pressures on Vietnam to adjust to EU regulatory standards than to other high-income ASEAN members. Due to the downstream location of Vietnam in high-tech manufacturing and to its labour-intensive industry, import-dependent and sector-specific protectionist groups strongly mobilized in order to affect the negotiations. Competition with the US also strengthened European exporters’ interest to obtain conditions enabling access to these countries’ markets similar to those granted to their US counterparts. NGOs found allies in the protectionist industry in the promotion of high labour and environmental standards and strict enforcement procedures. However, these groups proved less effective in pushing forward binding human rights clauses. Similar patterns of societal mobilization are emerging in the ongoing negotiations with other ASEAN members.

Despite the existence of many regional economic communities (RECs) in Africa, intra-regional trade remains dismally low compared to other RECs in Europe, Asia and Latin America. Hence, the need for a paradigm shifts to the Tripartite Free Trade Area Agreement (TFTA) to enhance and reinvigorate the African integration agenda. Consequently, this study explores the benefits and obstacles that can promote or hinder the established TFTA in Africa. The three RECs will need to focus their efforts on making the TFTA effective by covering key areas of trade in goods and services, investment, competition policy, technical barriers to trade, electronic commerce, customs cooperation, rules of origin, intellectual property and dispute settlement.

The discussion in this chapter continues from the previous chapters where the line of discussion follows that since the formation of the WTO, the international trade pattern has been progressing in the direction of free trade and has by and large been competitive and based on efficiency; nevertheless it is more beneficial to the multinationals. This has raised new forms of trade related issues that can be compared with benefits of several types, and one such is comparing the benefit obtained by multinationals, with the subsidies defined under the SCM Agreement.

This chapter, by Peter Katjavivi, Namibia’s Speaker of Parliament and former Ambassador to the European Union (EU), provides an African perspective on the Cotonou-mandated economic partnership agreements (EPAs) between the EU and the African, Caribbean, and Pacific (ACP) group. In Africa, the EPAs are being negotiated or finalised with five sub-regional formations: West Africa, Central Africa, Eastern and Southern Africa, the East African Community (EAC), and the Southern African Development Community (SADC) EPA group. The chapter details African concerns—ranging from those related to technical issues like rules of origin to broader matters such as policy flexibility—in the negotiations, and discusses the negative implications of the agreements for African development and regional integration. Katjavivi argues that the different approaches taken by Africa and the EU to the negotiations, particularly on the development component, have been a major issue. He is further critical of the EPA processes for their failure to take into account challenges related to globalisation, climate change, and poverty eradication. Katjavivi contends that the EPAs seem primarily to be about furthering the EU’s commercial interests in Africa, while contravening Brussels’ stated concern with the promotion of development in the ACP regions and globally.