Historicising Trade Preferences and Development: The Case of the ACP-EU Canned Tuna Preference

Abstract

Preferential trade is a major aspect of the post-World War Two international economic environment. It includes the reciprocal liberalisation of trade between parties under free trade agreements (FTAs) and the non-r eciprocal liberalisation of market access by one party to those countries self-categorised as ‘developing’. 2 Mainstream narratives on African, Caribbean and Pacific group of states (ACP) trade with the EU claim that the non-reciprocal preference regime under the Lomé Conventions (1975–1999) failed to stimulate economic development. The typical alternative proposed is the reciprocal liberalisation of tariffs in combination with re -regulation in areas such as intellectual property rights and trade-related investment measures to enhance ‘competitiveness’ (e.g. DG TRADE and DG DEV 2002). A more heterodox view is that trade preferences did (and can) stimulate ACP development as part of a wider programme of strategic industrial policy, but this is contingent on the ACP maintaining policy space in several ‘contentious areas’ (e.g. Lui and Bilal 2009). This chapter offers a third perspective: while agreeing that preferences can support capitalist development, the history and ongoing institutional reproduction of ACP-EU trade preferences must be understood in the first instance as part of the accumulation strategies of particular European capitals (’domestic-societal’ interests). These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.

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