Preferential Trade Agreements and Trade Liberalization Efforts in the OIC Member States
With Special Emphasis on the TPS-OIC
47
tween developing countries. For example, less than 10% of the agricultural trade is liberalised
in the Turkey-Tunisia agreement.
Implementation Schedules: Sub-paragraph C of paragraph 5 of Art.XXIV, states that: "...any
interim agreement referred to in sub-paragraphs (a) and (b) shall include a plan and schedule
for the formation of such a customs union or of such a free-trade area within a reasonable
length of time.". This is another source of wide interpretation. Once again it appears commonly
accepted that a reasonable length of time is in the order of 10 years, and that this period
should only exceed ten years under exceptional circumstances5. From the table above we have
seen that most of the agreements under the Enabling Clause for which there was the requisite
information appear consistent with this. However, equally this does not hold for a number of
FTAs signed after the conclusion of the Uruguay Round. For example the EU-Cariforum EPA
has varying schedules according to the degree of sensitivity of the products, and there are
some products with a 25 year implementation period. From around 192 RTAs surveyed,
Crawford (2012) finds that 65% of tariffs lines have transition periods of less than 10 years
(including those that are liberalised immediately). This suggests that the majority of the lines
tend to be liberalised under the accepted maximum implementation periods. However, there
are still 10% of lines that are liberalised beyond 16 years.
Therefore, it is still unclear what constitutes a reasonable length of time and also if it is
possible to have different implementation periods according to SDT. With regard to the latter,
one could argue that given that in the market access negotiations in the Uruguay round
different implementation periods were accepted under SDT, that this should also apply to Art
XXIV6. Similar conclusions can be drawn from the analysis of the coverage of certain free trade
agreements, where different levels and rates of commitments for developed and developing
countries can be found. For example, during the US-Jordan, US-Chile FTA, US-CAFTA7 and
Japan-Chile agreements common implementation periods of 10, 12 , 20 and 16 years
respectively were agreed. In the US-Panama FTA agreement, a 17 year implementation period
was agreed although Panama has some flexibility and their schedule for some products could
be extended until the 20th year after commencing implementation8. Asymmetry in favour of
developing countries is not always the case. Crawford (2012) finds that some agreements
present longer implementation periods for the developed partner (Crawford, 2012). This is
particularly the case for the agriculture sector when one or more of the developing partners
are important exporters of agricultural products.
5 WTO "Understanding on the interpretation of article XXIV on the General Agreement on
Tariff and Trade 1994"
6 In the Uruguay Round, developed countries had five years to adjust their bound tariffs while
developing countries had eight years. Similar provisions were present in the different modalities
during the Doha Round.
7 Agreements available at
pdf