Stand-Alone Posts

The necessity to change the measurement strategy of the AGOA and ACP-EU trade agreements presents a challenge not only to African countries but also to the US and the European Union to establish a common understanding on the need to widen the scope of the measure. All the partners involved require a comprehensive measurement strategy to quantify the real impact of AGOA and ACP-EU on people’s lives.

This article contends that premised on being Africa’s major trading partners, economies such as the US, the EU, and China are likely to experience trade diversion when the AfCFTA comes into force. As a result of such potential trade diversion, the implementation of the AfCFTA could be hindered. It is only by addressing the interests of these economies that AfCFTA will foreclose the possibility of a “crisis of implementation”.

Although practically difficult to achieve, a World Trade Court or this sort may also remove the feeling of guilt from African officials when dragging their fellows to a regional trade dispute settlement forum. Understandably, the political tensions among the AMU states concerning the Western Sahara, which has paralyzed the organization for decades now, may have prevented them from attempting to solve the matter intra-regionally.

It has become increasingly clear with the unfolding of the EPA events that the failure of the Community to achieve basic set out objectives lies deeper than the merits of the projects embarked on. As it has not proved efficient to hold each Partner State to their commitments to the Community at all times, it is necessary to address the systemic weaknesses that allow unconstructive concerns to permeate well-intended goals.

Despite the existing EAC legislation, citizens continue to face challenges to movement of goods and persons across the borders. The ability of EAC citizens to enforce these trade commitments has been grossly underused, and such disputes have been referred to diplomatic means for resolution. It can only be hoped that moving forward, more persons will seek legal redress for such disputes.

Reforming domestic law is critical to ensuring countries capture the benefits of their natural resources wealth. In addition, it is increasingly being recognized in investment treaty reform processes as well as in investor-state dispute settlement proceedings that investor compliance with domestic law is a prerequisite to entertaining investor claims against states.

Africa boasts of at least eight RECs (or potential and existing FTAs) recognised by the AU, one emerging TFTA, and, a budding AfCFTA.  All these efforts are meant to lead to the realisation of the AEC

The present report entitled “Special Economic Zones: Emerging Frontiers for Industrial Growth” covers the period of January – March 2019. The Report is divided into sections that provide important updates on the current steps being taken by the Federal Ministry of Industry, Trade & Investment (FMITI) and the Federal Government of Nigeria (FGN) in thematic areas that include: trade and trade policy, SMEs, investment, industry, the African Continental Free Trade Area Agreement (AfCFTA) and general news update.

The last two decades has seen Intellectual Property, (IP), increasingly regulated by bilateral and regional free trade agreements, (FTAs), rather than through multilateral forums like the WTO. This trend is evidenced in trade between China and African countries, which is dominated by bilateral trade agreements.

Because Ethiopia is the headquarters of the African Union its role on regional integration is usually taken as given. It is usually assumed that the state has and is making efforts to integrate with the continent. In this essay, I contend that Ethiopia’s historical engagement with regional integration has been at best passive and vague. On the contrary, its focus on regional integration at the moment seems different and active.