Blog

What is a Customs Union like SACU about?

From a legal and technical point of view the Southern African Customs Union (SACU) is a Customs Union (CU) and an international organization with legal personality. Since a CU is an except... read more

Southern African Customs Union (SACU)’s trade and tariff profile

The members of SACU are Botswana, Lesotho, Eswatini, Namibia and South Africa. SACU’s objectives include to, inter alia, facilitate cross-border movement of goods between member sta... read more

Revenue sharing in the Southern African Customs Union (SACU)

All customs, excise and additional duties (trade taxes) collected in the SACU Common Customs Area are paid into the Common Revenue Pool and shared among member states. Member states’ sha... read more

The Process for Amending or Reviewing the SACU Agreement

There are strong indications that the SACU Agreement may be amended – or “reviewed” – during the next year.[1] Why has this become necessary and what would such a process entail? H... read more

SACU’s operational Challenge

What does the 2002 SACU Agreement promise in terms of how the Organization would function? What did the Member States subsequently do in order to ensure that the agreed formula would be im... read more

Reflections on COP24

The 24th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework on Climate Change (COP24) is currently taking place in Katowice, Poland from 2-14 December 2018. COP24 is hosted under th... read more

The Buenos Aires G20 Meeting: Has Rules-based global Trade survived?

The communiqué issued at the end of the Group of 20 meeting in Buenos Aires recently (30 November and 1 December 2018) reads like the to-do list for the world’s leading countries. It al... read more

Investor-state dispute settlement in Africa and the AfCFTA Investment Protocol

African countries have frequently appeared as respondents before international arbitration tribunals for violating their investment treaty obligations, mostly provisions on expropriation. ... read more

Where to for Africa’s Silicon Valley?

Approximately a year ago, tralac published a working paper that overviewed South Africa’s software development industry cluster in the Western Cape Province[1]. The Western Cape Software... read more

Termination of the South Africa-Zimbabwe bilateral trade agreement: What does it mean for South Africa-Zimbabwe trade?

The Bilateral Trade Agreement between South Africa and Zimbabwe will be terminated on 20 November 2018. The termination of the Agreement will affect certain imports from South Africa ... read more

Regional Integration as a building block for the Multilateral Trading System

The signing of the Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA) by African countries earlier this year was a momentous decision which could potentially alter the economic growth trajectory of... read more

Assuring Continuation of Effective WTO Dispute Settlement

Until the past few years, for many there was widespread complacency over the existence and state of the liberal world trading system. If progress was needed that could not be achieved at t... read more

WTO Trade Facilitation Agreement: An African perspective

Trade facilitation discussions at the World Trade Organisation (WTO) began in December 1996, at the Singapore Ministerial Conference, when the member states instructed the WTO Council for ... read more

Is it time for a new Global Order?

The policies of President Trump have brought a new urgency to the debate about the future of the global economic and geopolitical order. American tariffs on Chinese goods[1], the withdrawa... read more

Modernisation of the multilateral trading system – WTO reforms

The multilateral trading system and the World Trade Organisation (WTO) are today under threat. The system is being shaken by increasing protectionism and the imposition of non-tariff barri... read more

African Responses to Global Crises

How do African governments and Africa collectively respond to the crisis in the global trading system? Are joint policies being developed? By whom? How will such a process be coordinated a... read more

A WTO multilateral investment facilitation agreement: An African perspective

Investment at the WTO Investment was introduced onto the World Trade Organisation (WTO) agenda in 1996 at the First WTO Ministerial Conference held in Singapore, when member states propos... read more

American mid-term Elections: What International Implications?

The American mid-term elections took place during the first week of November 2018 and were keenly watched. Many have hoped that control by the Democratic Party of the House of Representati... read more

The 2018 Global Food Security Index: What does the picture look like?

Food security is the state in which all people at all times have physical and economic access to adequate, safe and nutritious food that meet their dietary needs and food preferences for a... read more

The Settlement of Trade Disputes: Where do we stand and what can be done?

The crisis in the dispute settlement arrangement of the World Trade Organization (WTO) has a paralysing effect on the multilateral trade system. While the workload of the Dispute Settlemen... read more