The participation of the 42 African member states at the World Trade Organization is “nominal, minimal and largely ineffective, in relation to the group’s size, compared to non-African members, and even on their own identified priorities,” argues WTO Economic Affairs Officer and Graduate Institute Alumna Dr. Joan Apecu Laker.

In “African Participation at the World Trade Organization: Legal and Institutional Aspects 1995-2010” – the latest book published by the Graduate Institute in collaboration with Brill-Martinus Nijhoff – the author demonstrates that economic competitiveness is associated with active engagement and performance in the WTO. On this basis, she proposes a detailed and pragmatic roadmap for policy makers to drive enthusiasm for the export of goods, stimulate growth and encourage the rule of law in Africa.

“Our countries have been misled for a generation by those in the developed world and elsewhere who presented them with a menu of special and differential treatment provisions,” says Dr Apecu. “It was a ‘bad past’ and has no place in Africa’s future. We shall only begin to compete and ‘catch up’ when we learn that there is no alternative to competition. It is hard, but this is where the future for Africa's economic prosperity lies. We must stop feeling sorry for the continent.”

While Dr Apecu acknowledges that the 15-20 active members that set the groundwork for Africa’s participation at the WTO have made considerable improvements from 1995 to 2010, she urges the other African states to build on this foundation. Recognising the increasingly specialised nature of the global economy, she proposes reforms that include abandoning the predominant focus on special and differential treatment, and systemically deepening the engagement in the crucial area of dispute settlement.

The extensive and novel primary data that Dr. Apecu Laker has gathered spans all WTO member states and has been hailed by leading experts as “an important contribution to scholarship on the WTO” (Bernard Hoekman, Programme Director at the European University Institute and former Director of the International Trade Department at the WTO). Influential policy makers such as Pascal Lamy – former Director-General of the WTO and author of the book’s foreword – have endorsed Dr Apecu’s roadmap: “By carefully examining the past, Joan's work can help African countries build a bridge to an effective trade policy for the future. A must-read for policy makers and scholars interested in Africa's trade policy.”

Ugandan national Joan Apecu Laker is an Economic Affairs Officer in the Council and Trade Negotiations Committee Division of the WTO. She obtained a PhD Magna Cum Laude in International Law from the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva.

Apecu Laker, Joan. African Participation at the World Trade Organization: Legal and Institutional Aspects, 1995-2010. Geneva: Graduate Institute Publications and Leiden: Brill-Martinus Nijhoff, 2013.

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