Published online by Cambridge University Press: 06 March 2019
The Africa Caribbean Pacific–European Union (ACP-EU) Development and Trade Cooperation Relationship is currently regulated by the Cotonou Partnership Agreement. This agreement, which has been described as “the only one of its kind in the world” is based on the three pillars of politics, trade, and development between the EU and its Member States on the one hand and a group of developing countries on the other.
1 The Agreement was signed on 23 June 2000 and came into force on 1 April 2003. It replaced the Lome Conventions which had regulated the ACP-EU relationship for over 25 years. The full text of the Cotonou Agreement is available in OJ L 317, 15 December 2000 [hereinafter the Cotonou Agreement]. For an overview of the Cotonou Partnership Agreement see The European Union and the Developing Countries: The Cotonou Agreement (O. Babarinde/G. Faber eds., 2005); S. D. Salama/C. M. Salama, The New EU ACP Partnership Agreement, 14 J. Int'l Dev. 899 (2002); Karin Arts, ACP-EU Relations in a New Era: The Cotonou Agreement, 40 Com. Mark. L. Rev. 95 (2003); Bernd Martenczuk, From Lome to Cotonou: The ACP-EC Partnership Agreement in a Legal Perspective, 5 Eur. For. Aff. Rev. 461 (2000).Google Scholar
2 The ACP-EC Courier 19 (September 2000), special issue.Google Scholar
3 The ACP group was founded in 1975 with the signing of the Georgetown Agreement. The ACP group is composed of the following Countries: Angola, Antigua and Barbuda, Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Benin, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Central African Republic, Chad, Comoros, Congo, Cook Islands, Cote d’ Ivoire, Democratic Republic of Congo, Djibouti, Dominican Republic, East Timor, Equitorial Guinea, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Fiji, Gabon, Gambia, Ghana, Grenada, Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Guyana, Haiti, Jamaica, Kenya, Kiribati, Lesotho, Liberia, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Marshall Islands, Mauritania, Mauritius, Micronesia, Mozambique, Namibia, Nauru, Niger, Nigeria, Niue Palau, Papua New Guinea, Rwanda, St Kitts and Namo, St Lucia, St Vincent and the Grenadines, Samoa, Sao Tome and Principe, Senegal, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Solomon Islands,Google Scholar
Somalia, South Africa, Sudan, Suriname, Swaziland, Tanzania, Togo, Tonga, Trinidad and Tobago, Tuvalu, Uganda, Vanuatu, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. It is worthy of note that Cuba is a member of the ACP Group but is not a signatory to the Cotonou agreement.Google Scholar
4 Cotonou Agreement (note 1), Article 1(1).Google Scholar
5 Cotonou Agreement (note 1), Article 9. Article 9(3) makes good governance a fundamental element of the Agreement and any breach will attract the measures stipulated in Article 97.Google Scholar
6 When negotiations are successfully concluded, it is expected that the EPA will regulate the trade relationship between the ACP countries and the EU, effective as of 2008.Google Scholar
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10 See Title I and V of the EU Constitution 2004, OJ C 31, 16 December 2004. The EU Constitution has not yet entered into force.Google Scholar
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16 Article 5(1) of the Lome Convention IV states that:Google Scholar
Cooperation shall be directed towards development centered on man, the main protagonist and beneficiary of development, which entails respect for and promotion of all human rights. Cooperative operations shall thus be conceived in accordance with the positive approach, where respect for human rights is recognised as a basic factor of real development and where cooperation is conceived as contributing to the promotion of these rights.Google Scholar
In this context development policy and cooperation are closely linked with the respect for and enjoyment of fundamental human rights. The role and potential of initiatives taken by individuals and groups shall also be recognised and fostered in order to achieve in practice real participation of the population in the development process in accordance with Article 13.Google Scholar
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18 Cotonou Agreement (note 1), Articles 96-97.Google Scholar
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25 Treaty of Nice, signed on 26 February 2001, entered into force on 1 February 2003.Google Scholar
26 Case C-268/94, Portugal v. Council, 1996 ECR I-6699.Google Scholar
27 Id., paras. 24, 26.Google Scholar
28 Steve Peers has criticized the judgment of the Court in Portugal v. Council. In his view, “the Court's finding that development policy must be subordinated to human rights has no support in treaty law.” See Steve Peers, Case C/268/94 Portugal v. Council, 35 Com. Mark. L. Rev. 550 (1989).Google Scholar
29 Karin Arts, Development Co-operation and Human Rights: Turbulent Times for EU Policy, in New Perspectives on European Union Development Cooperation, 12 (M. Lister ed., 1999) [hereinafter Arts, Development Co-operation].Google Scholar
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39 See generally Cotonou Agreement (note 1), Article 96.Google Scholar
40 The ACP Countries are Equitorial Guinea, The Gambia, Liberia, Nigeria, Somalia, Sudan, Togo, and Zaire.Google Scholar
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50 Membership is based upon Cotonou Agreement (note 1), Article 94, which provides that membership will be considered for any “independent State whose structural characteristics and economic situation are comparable to those of the ACP States.”Google Scholar
51 Arts, Integrating Human Rights (note 13), 303.Google Scholar
52 Id., 302-303.Google Scholar
53 196 The Courier 6 (January-February 2003).Google Scholar
54 For an analysis of the role of gender in the Cotonou Agreement see Karin Arts/Wide, Gender Aspects of the Cotonou Agreement (2001), 11-12, available at: http://www.igtn.org/Cotonou/WIDE%20Gender%20and%20Cotonou.pdf (last accessed 22 May 2005).Google Scholar
55 Cotonou Agreement (note 1), Article 50(1).Google Scholar
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57 Id., Article 50(3).Google Scholar
58 Id., Article 2.Google Scholar
59 Article 131 of the Treaty of Rome.Google Scholar
60 Ambassador Mary Whelan of Ireland recently declared: “On behalf of the European Union, I wish to reiterate our commitment to the Right to Development, as set out in the Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action. It is also a commitment that is manifested in the development cooperation partnerships and agreements that we have with countries throughout the world.” See address delivered by Ambassador Mary Whelan, Ambassador of Ireland to the United Nations, on the Right to Development at the 60th Session of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights on 23 March 2004. See also Karin Arts, Implementing the Right to Development? An Analysis of European Community Development and Human Rights Policies, in Human Rights in Developing Countries Yearbook, 59 (P. Baehr ed., 1996).Google Scholar
61 CESCR General Comment 3 on the Nature of States Parties Obligations, 14 December 1990, para 14.Google Scholar
62 Goals 1 and 8 of the UN MDGs emphasises poverty eradication and the need to build a global partnership for development. The United Nations MDGs are available at: http://www.developmentgoals.org/ (last accessed 22 May 2005).Google Scholar
63 According to Tomasevski, “much as with other donors, the practice was punitive and arbitrary.” See K. Tomasevski, Between Sanctions and Elections: Aid Donors and their Human Rights Performance, 48 (1997).Google Scholar
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67 CESCR General Comment 8, On the Relationship between Economic Sanctions and Respect for Economic Social and Cultural Rights, para 3.Google Scholar
68 See, for example, the EU sanctions against the Regime of Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe, which included travel ban on the President and members of his cabinet.Google Scholar
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70 Council Reply to EP question 593/92, rendered 22 October 1992, EPCD Bull., 1992, 490.Google Scholar
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76 For an update on the state of negotiations see Trade Negotiation Insight, available at: http://www.acp-eu-trade.org/tni.html (last accessed 22 May 2005).Google Scholar
77 Cotonou Agreement (note 1), Article 34(1).Google Scholar
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85 Id., Article 14.Google Scholar
86 Id., Article 15(1).Google Scholar
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