ISDS Case Map
Caribbean
There are new uncertainties surrounding the proposed signing of the full Economic Partnership Agreement on September 2 between the European Union and CARIFORUM - the Caribbean Community member states and the Dominican Republic.
A former chief negotiator for the region said it is not too late for Caribbean Community (Caricom) countries to pull out of the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) with Europe.
The Caribbean could suffer economically if a proposed free trade agreement between several regional countries and the European Union is signed because of damaging flaws in the deal, according to Bharrat Jagdeo, Guyana's president. “Europe negotiated in bad faith. We were bullied into this.”
In the light of the ongoing debate on the economic partnership agreement (EPA), the Jamaican Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade has released a chronology of the CARIFORUM EC/EPA negotiations
Jamaica enacted legislation for the protection of GIs through the Protection of Geographical Indications Act of 2004. However, protection under the law strictly complies with the standards laid out in the TRIPS Agreement and does not contemplate the "TRIPS plus" and "TRIPS extra" elements incorporated in the EPA.
The Barbados Association of NGOs (BANGO) is seeking 5 000 signatures for a petition calling on Government to work out a better Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) with Europe.
The ACP countries, by opening up their markets freely to European goods, services and companies will be transformed into a state of development via an impressive chain of unproven, theoretical assumptions. The EPA itself is replete with development rhetoric and references to the development objectives of the Agreement, most, if not all, of which are compromised by the content of the Agreement itself. Nowhere in the Agreement is there a direct, targeted attack on the basic supply-side problem, let alone binding commitments to put in place a complement of measures aimed at this problem.
Analyses the Cariforum-EC EPA from a critical standpoint, including the EPA architecture, what each side gets from the Agreement, the scope of binding commitments, the institutional machinery and the scope for revision of the Agreement. The points are illustrated with direct quotations from the EPA text.
It has become patently evident that the European Union is taking the Caribbean for a ride over the Economic Partnership Agreement initialled last December. The Caribbean has to stop the ride and renegotiate the deeply troubling aspects of the EPA before any signing takes place.
Regional trade unionists have called for a review and renegotiation of the recently initiated Economic Partnership Agreement, negotiated between the EU and the Caribbean Forum countries, Caribbean Community member states and the Dominican Republic.
