1. INTRODUCTION

This Statement describes how and why the Trade Law Centre (tralac) collects and uses personal data and provides information about individuals’ rights in relation to their personal data.

2. COLLECTION AND USE OF PERSONAL DATA BY TRALAC

tralac adheres to the highest standards of ethical practices in all its operations to ensure the protection of your personal information collected.

PERSONAL INFORMATON COLLECTED

All personal information collected and used by tralac is received directly from users of its website, participants in its programmes and events.

Information collected in relation to the tralac website includes:

• Names
• E-mail addresses
• Job titles and company details
• Location (Country of residence)
• Access dates and times

Information collected in relation to tralac’s programmes and events includes:

• Names
• E-mail addresses
• Job titles and company details
• Location (Country of residence)

The abovementioned personal information is collected through the use of webforms, registrations forms for tralac programmes and events and from website cookies.

PURPOSE OF COLLECTION

Personal information collected by tralac is used primarily for the monitoring and evaluation of its capacity building programmes and reporting purposes. tralac only uses personal information where it is in the legitimate interest of pursuing the activities of tralac as a capacity building and research organization and to personalize and continually improve the use of its website and its programmes and events. tralac does not sell, barter, give away, rent, or permit anyone outside the Trade Law Centre to use or access such personal information.

PROTECTION OF PERSONAL INFORMATION

tralac is committed to the protection of the personal information collected. As such, to minimise the risk of loss, theft or misuse, all personal information collected by tralac is securely stored. The tralac website is also SSL activated and regularly monitored.

3. RIGHTS AND CONDITIONS OF USE

You have the right to:

• Request a copy of the personal information we have of you.
• Update or correct your personal information or to request an update to/or correction of your personal information collected and used by tralac.
• Request that tralac delete your personal information records from its database.

By visiting the tralac website and/or participating in tralac programmes and/or events you accept the conditions in section 2 above. The Trade Law Centre shall not be liable under any circumstances for injury or damages resulting from the use of information collected in relation to the tralac website or tralac’s programmes and events.

Should you have any questions regarding the collection and use of your personal information or if you believe tralac has erroneous or incomplete information about you, or if you wish to request tralac to delete your personal information from its databases, please contact us by sending an email to: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

pdf tralac Privacy Statement (140 KB)

Last updated: June 2021

Introduction

These terms and conditions become effective when you access our website for the first time and constitute a binding agreement between tralac and yourself, which will always prevail.

The services offered by this website (www.tralac.org) are provided to you free of charge: on an “as is” and “as available” basis. tralac uses its best efforts to maintain the quality of its services, but you should not assume that the site is error-free or that it will be suitable for the particular purpose which you have in mind when using it.

The information, ideas and opinions expressed on this site are of a general nature and should not be regarded as professional advice. Prior to taking any action based on, or in relation to, information, ideas and opinions expressed on this site you need to obtain professional advice appropriate to your planned action.

Limitation of Liability and Disclaimers

The Trade Law Centre (tralac) shall not be held responsible for any injury, loss, expense or damage of any kind whatsoever suffered or incurred by you as a result of the accessing this website, utilising any service offered on this website or relying on any information contained on this website for any reason whatsoever including but not limited to any injury, loss or damage suffered as a result of:

1. errors or discrepancies in the information provided;

2. any unauthorised access or amendment of this website by third parties;

3. any breakdown or failure of any equipment or medium of access to this website;

4. any failure or unavailability of this website or any third parties’ facilities or systems resulting in the inability to access this website or process any transaction referred to or offered on this website;

5. the destruction or accessing of your data or equipment, or the data or equipment belonging to any third used by you to access the site; or

6. any alteration, modification, upgrade or update of this website or any technology, hardware or software modification that may form part of this website.

You hereby indemnify tralac against any demand, claim or action for either direct, indirect, punitive or consequential damages or order against tralac relating to or in connection with your use or accessing of this website whether such demand, claim or action was caused directly or indirectly for any reason whatsoever.

tralac reserves the right in its absolute discretion to alter, modify, upgrade, update, suspend or withdraw this website or any part hereof at any time.

You are entirely responsible for all content that you access, upload, post, email or otherwise transmit via tralac. We are not liable for loss of any content you transmit and you should keep a backup copy of all such content.

Privacy Policy

tralac is committed to the protection of the privacy of the users of its website. We adhere to the highest standards of ethical practices in all our operations and is dedicated to protecting the privacy of all visitors to our website. We do not sell, barter, give away, rent, or permit anyone outside the Trade Law Centre to use or access your personal information.

We only use personal information where it is in the legitimate interest of pursuing the activities of tralac as a capacity building and research organization and to help us personalize and continually improve your experience on our website.

By visiting the tralac website you are accepting these conditions. If you do not agree with this explanation of our privacy policy, please do not use the tralac website. The Trade Law Centre shall not be liable under any circumstances for damages resulting from the use of information collected by visitors to its website.

If you have any questions regarding the use of your personal data or if you believe tralac has erroneous or incomplete information about you, please send an e-mail to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Intellectual Property

We retain all copyright and other intellectual property rights in all material, including logos and other graphics and multimedia works published on or via the site. You are authorised to view and download one copy to a local hard drive or disk, print and make copies of such printouts, provided that:

• the material is for personal use to consider the use of the online services and not for any commercial purposes;

• any reproduction of our proprietary material from this site or portion of it must include our copyright notice in its entirety.

The logos and trademarks shown on this site are our registered and unregistered trademarks or that of third parties. Nothing on this site should be construed as granting any licence or right to use any trademark without our prior written permission and/or that of third parties, as the case may be. You may not, without our prior written permission, use our intellectual property or that of third parties for any other purposes.

An application to use our intellectual property must be submitted to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Upon receiving your application we will do our best to respond and enter into further discussions with you. If you don’t get a written response from us within five business days, consider your request as having been rejected.

If you submit any content to this website, you grant by the submission of such content a transferable, perpetual, world wide and royalty free license to use the content in any manner whatsoever. If the intellectual property rights of any content submitted by yourself is owned by a third party, you undertake to notify tralac immediately of the situation and you indemnify tralac upon submission against any claims that such third party may bring against tralac for the use of third party content submitted to the website by yourself.

Permission to Link to Site

Nobody may establish a hyperlink, frame, metatag or similar reference, whether electronically or otherwise (collectively referred to as linking), to this site or any subsidiary pages before receiving our prior written approval, which may be withheld or granted subject to the conditions we specify from time to time.

An application for linking must be submitted to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Once received we will do our best to respond and enter into further discussions with you. If you don’t get a written response from us within five business days, consider your request as having been rejected.

Links to Third Party Sites

The website contains links to other websites with information and material produced by other parties. While we endeavour to provide links only to reputable websites, we cannot accept responsibility or liability for the information provided on other websites. A link from our site to any other website does not mean that we have scrutinised or endorsed the owners or administrators of the websites or their business or security practices and operations

General Matters

We may amend these conditions from time to time. By accessing this site you are bound to the version of the conditions published here at the time of any visit to this site. You agree to view the current version each time you access the site.

A certificate signed by the administrator responsible for maintaining this site will be prima facie proof of the date of publication and content of the current version and all previous versions of the conditions.

Nothing on this site should be treated as an offer but merely as an invitation to do business with us.

The laws of the Republic of South Africa applies to these terms and conditions as well as the relation between yourself and tralac as far as it concerns the use of our website or any matter that may arise from such use.

Breach of these conditions entitles us to take legal action without prior notice to you and you agree to reimburse the costs associated with such legal action to us on an attorney and own client scale.

Last updated: June 2018

The Trade Law Centre NPC (tralac) is an independent, capacity building think tank. Established in 2001, tralac is a non-profit organization, registered in South Africa. tralac builds trade-related capacity in Africa; assisting countries to improve trade governance and inclusive policy processes to ensure that trade contributes to sustainable development outcomes.

tralac has a core-network business model. The tralac core is lean, with a team of trade experts and a professional team to provide financial, administrative, and logistical support for the design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of tralac’s work program. A network of tralac Associates, Alumni and Partners provides additional specialist expertise for the delivery of tralac’s work program. The tralac Board provides governance oversight, and the tralac Advisory Board provides advice and guidance on the tralac work program.

tralac is funded by international donors through core or program funding. From time to time tralac is requested to undertake specialist small projects by, for example, government departments or regional secretariats. These are usually also donor funded.

Our Vision: Trade contributes to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for all African countries

Our Mission: To build trade governance capacity in Africa, supporting trade and regional integration for just and sustainable development outcomes, at national, regional, continental, and multilateral levels

Our values: Integrity, Respect, Rules-based Governance and Sustainability – keep us focused so that our collective effort can contribute to Africa’s achievement of the SDGs through trade.

Our values provide a foundation for our vision, our strategic and specific goals. Our values are:

• Integrity

• Respect (for our colleagues, our partners, our beneficiaries)

• Rules-based governance

• Sustainability (sustainable development, lasting impact for our work, reducing our impact on the environment)

tralac promotes active debate on trade law and policy issues in the region. This is done through the tralac website, social media such as Facebook and Twitter, and the weekly electronic newsletter. In addition, tralac hosts workshops and an annual conference which has become an important forum for discussing the region’s trade agenda.

tralac has worked with many organisations, including:

• SADC Secretariat
• SACU Secretariat
• EAC Secretariat
• COMESA Secretariat
• WTO Secretariat
• International Trade Centre
• World Bank
• Commonwealth Secretariat
• Department of Agriculture, Namibia
• Agriculture Trade Forum, Namibia
• Department of Trade and Industry (dti), South Africa
• Ministry of Industry, Trade and Marketing, Tanzania
• Ministry of Tourism, Trade and Industry, Uganda
• Ministry of Trade and Industry, Rwanda
• South African Institute of International Affairs
• Trade and Industrial Policy Strategies
• TradeMark Southern Africa

tralac engages in applied trade law and policy analysis, with the aim of addressing the most pressing trade matters for countries in the region. Our research is presented in different formats:

• News articles published daily on the tralac website: these report the most important current trade developments for the region.
• A weekly electronic newsletter, which includes a discussion note encouraging debate and dialogue on current trade developments.
• Trade Briefs – short, non-technical papers dealing with relevant trade law and policy issues, aimed at senior policy makers and non-state actors.
• Working Papers presenting a detailed analysis of trade issues and contributing to the body of intellectual capital on trade matters for the region with policy makers, analysts and advisors as the target market.
• Monographs – collections of papers presenting a detailed analysis of a range of related trade matters, written specifically for the region.

In brief, tralac develops trade law and policy intellectual capital: this involves monitoring trade negotiations, interpretation of agreements, contribution to debates and discussions on trade developments.

1. Content

The author reserves the right not to be responsible for the topicality, correctness, completeness or quality of the information provided. Liability claims regarding damage caused by the use of any information provided, including any kind of information which is incomplete or incorrect, will therefore be rejected.

All offers are not-binding and without obligation. Parts of the pages or the complete publication including all offers and information might be extended, changed or partly or completely deleted by the author without separate announcement.

2. Referrals and links

The author is not responsible for any contents linked or referred to from his pages – unless he has full knowledge of illegal contents and would be able to prevent the visitors of his site from viewing those pages. If any damage occurs by the use of information presented there, only the author of the respective pages might be liable, not the one who has linked to these pages. Furthermore the author is not liable for any postings or messages published by users of discussion boards, guestbooks or mailinglists provided on his page.

3. Copyright

The author intended not to use any copyrighted material for the publication or, if not possible, to indicate the copyright of the respective object.

The copyright for any material created by the author is reserved. Any duplication or use of objects such as diagrams, sounds or texts in other electronic or printed publications is not permitted without the author’s agreement.

4. Data security

If the opportunity for the input of personal or business data (email addresses, name, addresses) is given, the input of these data takes place voluntarily. The use and payment of all offered services are permitted – if and so far technically possible and reasonable – without specification of any personal data or under specification of anonymizated data or an alias.

5. Legal validity of this disclaimer

This disclaimer is to be regarded as part of the internet publication which you were referred from. If sections or individual terms of this statement are not legal or correct, the content or validity of the other parts remain uninfluenced by this fact.