Investment Issues in the West Africa–European Union Economic Partnership Agreement Negotiations: Is a Harmonised Regional Investment Framework the Answer?

Abstract

The African, Caribbean and Pacific Group of Countries (ACP) are currently involved in negotiations with the European Union (EU) to replace the existing trade agreement governing trading relations between the EU and the ACP (the Cotonou Agreement) with new trade agreements to be called Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs). The negotiations became necessary because of the demand within the World Trade Organization (WTO) for members to revise their trading arrangements to comply with the WTO principle of reciprocity. Under the Cotonou Agreement of 2000, the EU extended unilateral trade preferences to ACP countries, which some members of the WTO successfully challenged as violating the principle of reciprocity, hence the need to replace