Reevaluating AGOA as a Preferential Scheme and the Path to Follow: From Ethiopia’s Perspective
Posted: 29 November, 2021 Filed under: Meaza Haddis Gebeyehu | Tags: African Growth and Opportunity Act, AGOA, Ethiopia, Generalized System of Preferences, GSP, international trade relations, LDCs, legal instability, non-reciprocity principle, political compromise, preferential schemes, regional trade systems, S&D, Special and Differential Treatment, WTo Leave a comment
Author: Meaza Haddis Gebeyehu
Lecturer, Hawassa University, School of Law
One of the positive impacts of economic globalization is the shift of most, although not all, international trade relations into a rule-based, secure and institutionalized system instead of an arbitrary one. WTO and modern-time RTAs are the results of a long-term process since the 1940s which can be taken as a major step for the systematic regulation of international trade as a continuation of the structure from GATT 1947.
Eight rounds of negotiations took place during the GATT 1947 regime[1] during which the economic interests of most developing and least developed countries were underrepresented or totally ignored as the major parties to the negotiations were developed nations. Hence, developing and LDCs are left with the only choice of complying with the already established rules if they wish to be integrated into the multilateral system.
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