Author: Richard Gibb.

The European Union-South Africa Trade, Development and Cooperation Agreement, signed in October 1999, is an important symbol of South Africa's formal reintegration into the world economy after many years of debilitating isolation. However, the negotiations to establish the most important component of this Agreement, the free trade area, were protracted and acrimonious. This article examines the key issues at the heart of these negotiations. A central contention of the paper is that the multilateral regulatory environment governing the world economy had a determining influence over the content and character of this Agreement and, in so doing, acted to reinforce a profoundly unfair trading relationship. This case study is a microcosm of events taking place on a larger scale, with many African states being integrated into the global economy on unequal and disadvantageous terms.