By Ian McDonald
I have a high admiration for Owen Arthur, former Prime Minister of Barbados and outstanding Caribbean statesman. I therefore read with great interest his recent address at the UWI Cave Hill Campus entitled “The Economic Partnership Agreement Between Cariforum and the European Union and The Building of a Post-Colonial Economy in the Caribbean.”
At the beginning of his address Prime Minister Arthur quotes from the poem “View From the George Headley Stand” by the excellent Jamaican poet and critic Eddie Baugh:
“You see, you see what I tell you,
he playing and missing, I tell you!
No, no, you don’t read the stroke
He know what he doing, he leaving the ball alone….
that is what I call a indigenous stroke.”
And Prime Minister Arthur remarks that in the Caribbean we have a propensity to play and miss and/or leave the ball alone and as a result score no runs – implying that on this occasion, the conclusion of the EPA, we should really change our stance and take the opportunity to score a few runs for a change.
It is a vivid metaphor and the Prime Minister, while recognizing the difficulties that will be faced, is very optimistic that a great deal of good can and should flow from the EPA. He comments towards the end of his address.
“I have said enough to suggest that the EPA is not a perfect instrument, but it is good enough to assist our aims in building a post-colonial economy by greatly facilitating our repositioning away from primary commodity producers and the exporter of a limited range of rudimentary services.
It also provides the benchmarks that can now be used in negotiating modern, mature economic relationships first with Canada and also with the USA. In so doing, it can set the general stage for the Caribbean to secure new terms of economic engagement, going way beyond the terms set out in our traditional trade-in-goods regimes, to provide new market access arrangements and new mechanisms for cooperation to support the development of new sectors in a manner required to modernize and transform economies.”
I hope Prime Minister Arthur’s judgement in this is as right as his heart has always been in the right place in the cause of West Indian unity and progress. But I fear that the European side of the bargain in the very nature of current international trade relationships will inevitably be much the better side and that there will be all too many setbacks for us.
A key passage in Prime Minister Arthur’s address explains succinctly how the rules of the game in international trade were drastically and fundamentally changed against our interests in the Uruguay Round of negotiations which took place in 1986-1994.
“In the early stages, international trade rules reflected respect for the principle that as between equals equality; as between unequals proportionality.
Hence, while from the outset the precepts of reciprocity and non-discrimination were embedded in international trade law, significant exceptions were carved out for developing countries. For it was understood that the real benefits of free trade accrue to only trading partners that have similar levels of development. A distinction was therefore drawn between free trade and economic development; and the latter was thought to require the use of protectionist measures to enable some countries to reap any benefits from free trade agreements.
Hence, the first GATT review of 1954-1955 embedded in Article XV 11 the right of developing countries to impose protectionist measures to facilitate the promotion of infant industries.
This concept of Special and Differential Treatment for developing countries was subsequently expanded and strengthened by the adoption of Part IV to the legal text of the 1964 GATT.
This addressed several important issues for developing countries. Among them, it recognized an exception to one of the main principles of international trade rules – that of reciprocity. Hence, at Article XXVI (8) it stated that developed countries were not to expect reciprocity from developing countries in their commitment to reduce trade barriers.
This waiver of reciprocity was given an even more expanded legal status with the adoption of the Enabling Clause in the Tokyo Round (1973-1979).
The Enabling Clause covered major areas of Special and Differential Treatment. It recognized the granting of trade preferences by developed countries under preferential trade Agreements (such as the LOME Convention), the granting of exemptions on the use of non-tariff measures by developing countries, and the recognition of the Least Developed Countries as a group deserving specially favourable treatment.
The Uruguay Round (1986-1994), however, not only marked a fundamental turning point in the conception of Special and Differential Treatment for developing countries but introduced a change to international trade law which simply has to be judged as the most unjust arrangement in the entire history of mankind.
During the Uruguay Round, countries accepted that, independent of their level of development, they should all adhere to the same principles, rules and obligations required by multilateral free trade agreements.
The most fundamental change brought about by the Uruguay Round was the replacement of the exception to reciprocity previously granted to developing countries with the provision that there are adjustment costs involved in participating in free trade arrangements, but that these should be addressed by the application of “flexibility and reciprocity.”
It could not be said more clearly than that. It is little wonder that we play and miss and often have to leave alone. Since that drastic change of rules, and given the new panel of umpires in the WTO with instructions to uphold them, we have been unavoidably on the back foot ever since. We may score a few runs here and there but it is hard to win vital Test matches like the EPA-negotiation.
