Emily Jones

Of enduring concern for small states are the numerous constraints they face in international trade negotiations. This study provides evidence that small states can still have an important influence over the outcomes of negotiations if they successfully identify and tackle these underlying constraints.


Building on existing scholarship, Manoeuvring at the Margins is the first attempt to thoroughly analyse the views of representatives from small states on the constraints they face in this area. The authors, led by Dr Ngaire Woods and Dr Carolyn Deere Birkbeck of the University of Oxford, highlight three areas where small states can maximise their potential influence: establishing an effective negotiating team by strengthening human resources; harnessing the support of civil society and the private sector; and improving negotiation strategies. The recommendations they provide will be useful in assisting trade policy-makers in small states to achieve greater success in WTO and other trade arenas.

A paperback copy can be purchased from the Commonwealth Secretariat:http://publications.thecommonwealth.org/manoeuvring-at-the-margins-782-p.aspx

Against the backdrop of the concomitant food, financial and economic, and climatic crises, African countries continue to negotiate the challenging Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) with the European Union (EU). While these new agreements have the potential to help African countries accelerate their economic growth and develop more resilient economies, the presence of negotiating deadlocks or a sense of fatigue, raise legitimate questions regarding the structure and content of EPAs. This publication utilises the momentum for reflection generated by these crises to reflect about the way forward for the EPAs. It consists of a collection of essays by senior policy makers and eminent experts. The marked divergences of views expressed reflect the complexity of negotiations and the necessity of adapting EPAs to regional and national circumstances.

Despite these differences, however, two messages can be delineated. The first is negative concerns the near universal agreement that EPAs fall short of their developmental potential, that promised improvements have not materialized, regional integration has been largely compromised, and trust has eroded. The second message is positive and it is that actors have not lost hope of turning this situation around, and there is no shortage of creative suggestions as to how the agreements can be improved. The challenge for negotiating parties is to put aside the rocky negotiating process to date, rebuild the trust needed for a true partnership, and with renewed focus, enter into a constructive, realistic, and pragmatic dialogue on how best to update EPAs.

The Eighth Ministerial Conference of the World Trade Organization (WTO) in Geneva, Switzerland, from 15 to 17 December 2011 offers a critical opportunity to generate fresh perspectives that could strengthen the multilateral trading system and bring momentum back to trade talks in ways that secure development-friendly outcomes. Rather than being merely a routine exercise, the Ministerial Conference can be harnessed to take stock of where progress has been made and where it falls short on the development-front, and to clarify what remains to be done for the poorest, smallest and most vulnerable WTO Members. Failure to address adequately the interests of the WTO’s poorest and most vulnerable member states not only damages the development prospects of these countries, but also presents clear risks for the credibility of the multilateral trading system.

This edited publication represents some of the new thinking from participants who are active in the Global Trade Ethics project. In keeping with the aims of the initiative, it begins with a discussion of what is meant by the vision of a global trade ethics (Howse and Nicolaïdis). In turn, this is linked with an examination of how one can address certain questions of legitimacy in the trading system, including the WTO specifically (Eagleton-Pierce). Such initial conceptual grounding sets the scene for a discussion of major themes addressed by eight authors who each examine a particular concrete instance of trade politics. The issues examined include a focus on fairness and decisionmaking processes (Narlikar), the EU’s management of globalization through the WTO (Meunier), the Aid for Trade initiative (Page), the EU’s promotion of intellectual property rules (Deere), the economic and political consequences of Northern agricultural subsidies on the South (Hemel), the linkage between the trade and migration regimes under the GATS provision (Betts and Nicolaïdis), and last but not least, the significance of EU-ACP negotiations over EPAs for global politics of trade (Jones).

In-depth country case study on donor-recipient aid relations in Ghana as part of an edited book. Based largely on interviews with the people who do the negotiating on both sides of the aid relationship, the authors ask how donors seek to achieve their policy objectives without being seen to push too hard, what preconditions they place on transferring authority to African governments, and what effect the constant discussions over development policy have on state institutions, democracy and political culture in recipient countries. It investigates the strategies that African states have adopted to advance their objectives in aid negotiations and how successful their efforts have been.

Europe is negotiating new trade deals with African, Caribbean, and Pacific (ACP) countries. A true partnership in trade could radically transform the lives of one-third of all people living in poverty, providing farmers and small businesses with sustainable incomes and workers with decent jobs. But Europe is choosing power politics over partnership. Through analysis of the goods, services, investment, and intellectual property chapters of texts concluded last year, this paper draws attention to aspects of Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) that put future economic development at risk and puts forward positive policy prescriptions