What kind of technical assistance and capacity building benefits do developing countries enjoy if they sign a free trade agreement (FTA) with developed countries? This is a frequently asked question among developing country officials involved in FTA policymaking. While we tend to normatively...

While recent preferential trade agreements (PTAs) cover an increasingly broad range of policy areas beyond their traditional competence for reducing bilateral tariffs, little is known about the implications of this new emphasis on interactions with other trade-related policy measures. We...

Aid-for-trade programs can help strengthen low-income countries’ supply capacity and knowledge of trade preferences, which will allow them to take fuller advantage of these preferences. Aid for trade to support preference reform can be divided into three categories: (i) creation of...

This article provides a review of literature on African Agency and the drivers of change within EU–African trade politics in negotiations on Economic Partnership Agreements between the European Union and African governments.

The Africa Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries have benefited from unilateral preferential access to EU markets under various trade agreements. However, since agricultural trade is increasingly determined by food safety and quality standards, one of the main concerns of ACP countries is their...

This paper investigates Ghana-EU trade under the new Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA). The study seeks to examine the influence of the EPA on trade from the Ghanaian perspective. Using qualitative methods, focusing on review of trade literature from Eurostat, European Trade Commission, and...

This report consists of two main parts. The first Part is the report entitled 'Assessing the Development Friendliness of Dispute Settlement Mechanisms in the Economic Partnership Agreements'. The second part is composed of four different Appendices. These Appendices together form the 'Analytical...

Most of the world's developing countries have been colonies under one of the EU Member States. Today the European Union pursues preferential policies (in the form of special legal relationships) towards most of these former colonies. These preferential policies however differ rather...