International Commodity Agreements

Abstract

Since the adoption in 1976 of the Integrated Programme for Commodities, only four international commodity agreements have been concluded, of which only one, the International Natural Rubber Agreement (1979), was new. The others are the International Sugar Agreement (1978), the International Cocoa Agreement (1980) and the International Tin Agreement (1981). In view of the broad political support for international commodity agreements, the progress towards concluding such agreements is slow. Moreover, in some of them universality is lacking. Several countries which account for a substantial proportion of world production and consumption of, and trade in, the commodity subject to an international agreement, have not ratified or acceded to the relevant agreements. The duration of the negotiations has been exceedingly long in comparison with experience on negotiations of the previous agreements. This outcome, several years after the adoption of the Integrated Programme for Commodities, is disappointing and unexpected, especially since the basic purpose of that Programme and the setting up of the Common Fund in accordance with it was “to act as a catalyst for international commodity agreements”. The purpose of this article is to examine the reasons for this outcome.