The end of the multifibre agreement : a case study of South Africa and China

[摘要] The Multifibre Agreement (MFA) regulated textile trade until 1 January 2005. It waspredominantly focused on curtailing textile exports from developing countries, like SouthAfrica and China. With the end of the MFA, a textile crisis occurred in South Africa due tothe domination of the domestic market by more affordable Chinese textile products. Thiscase study is applied to illustrate the inadequacy of domestic legislation to provide for theresolution of an international trade dispute that affects an industry. No legislation refers tothe resolution of the trade dispute by entering into a Memorandum of Understanding(MOU), or recourse to the neutral dispute settlement body of the World TradeOrganisation (WTO). Due to the absence of legislation that directly addresses eitherforum, all the power is vested�?in the government to determine the appropriate course ofaction. Applications brought by textile industry representative bodies like TEXFED,CLOTRADE and SACTWU were inadequately investigated due to the limited powers ofthe independent investigative body, ITAC, and were ultimately abandoned. Thegovernment entered into a MOU with the Chinese government and in doing so violatedinternational agreements, rights and obligations. An analysis of the inadequacy of theMOU that was entered into and the suitability of the WTO as dispute settlement body isconducted. It is concluded that the current legislation is inadequate in that it doesn'tprovide for recourse to the WTO and in that it doesn't clearly set out the obligations ongovernment and the independent powers of an independent body.

[发布机构] North-West University