An assessment of Botswana's compliance with regional trade agreements with specific reference to trade policy

Abstract

The study assessed Botswana’s compliance with regional trade agreements with specific reference to trade policy. The importance of this study is to evaluate whether Botswana’s trade policy complies with its regional integration obligations. In order to achieve the aforementioned, this study consists of a four folded study which includes: determining how trade agreements become part and parcel of Botswana’s national law, highlighting the regional trade agreements to which Botswana is a member state, analyzing the opportunities and challenges which Botswana’s trade policy faces and scrutinizing Botswana’s compliance with its regional trade agreements. The research method adopted to this end is a literature study. Various primary and secondary sources are scrutinized, these include journal articles, case law, legislation, textbooks, and electronic sources. In order to assess whether Botswana has complied with its regional trade agreements, the starting point is to determine whether the regional agreements have been incorporated into Botswana’s national law or not. Botswana is a member state to the SADC Protocol on Trade (2005), SACU Agreement (2002), the SADC, EAC, COMESA Tripartite Free Trade Area, the SACUM-UK Economic Partnership Agreement (2019), the EU-SADC Economic Partnership Agreement (2016), the Botswana-Zimbabawe Trade Agreement, the Botswana-Malawi Trade Agreement and a signatory to the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCTA). Botswana seeks to diversify its economy and comprehends that regional integration is an effective tool in achieving its goal of economic diversification. For the past previous decades, Botswana has been trading in good faith with its regional trading states. However, from the year 2018, Botswana has been implementing bans and restrictions on the importation of certain merchandise from its trading states. As evident from the study the bans and restrictions that Botswana has implemented are in violation of the regional trade agreements that Botswana is a member state of. This study, therefore, provides recommendations that Botswana could consider in order to comply with its regional trade agreements.