Multilateral and Regional Trade Issues for Developing Countries

This book is the first in a set of volumes of compilations of Trade Briefs, offering sources of information and training, and a reference for officials, policy makers and others responsible for following negotiations on behalf of Commonwealth developing countries.
This volume focuses on the various multilateral and regional negotiations -- in particular, the Doha Development Round and ACP-EU Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs). There are three sections: Issues in the WTO; WTO Disputes; Regional Issues. Issues in the WTO contains six briefs on areas of interest and concern to developing countries in the WTO. It provides an analysis and seeks to present a case to policy makers on the effective use of WTO Agreements and Rules by developed countries to deny benefits to developing countries. WTO Disputes contains seven briefs, two on the way developed countries use subsidies and safeguard actions, one on the dispute over genetically modified organisms, and another two discussing India’s trade with Europe and the USA. Regional Issues contains eight briefs. Six of these provide an overview of the ACP-EU Negotiations, the analysis of negotiations of Economic Partnership with the EU from a Caribbean and an Eastern and Southern Africa perspective, and a review of regional economic integration from the Eastern and South African experience. The final two briefs offer an analysis of the Rules of Origin of the United States Africa Growth and Opportunity Act and the European Union’s reform of its Common Agricultural Policy.

Roman Grynberg is the Deputy Director of the Economic Affairs Division, Commonwealth Secretariat, London.