- See also the Cotonou Agreement (1994) for the accord relating to the Liberian Civil War.
The Cotonou Agreement is a treaty which sets out the relationship between the European Union and the Pacific and African governments (the "ACP countries") of the signitories on foreign aid, trade, investment, human rights and governance.
The agreement was established in June 2000, in Benin suceeding the Lomé Convention which did not address human rights and governance issues. There are 77 signatories, the agreement came into force in 2002.
The Agreement provides for replacing the unilateral trade preferences that the EU accords to the ACP countries under the Lomé convention with Economic Partnership Agreements involving reciprocal obligations. Not only will the EU provide free access to its markets for ACP exports, but ACP countries will also have to provide free access to their own markets for EU exports. In addition to reciprocity, a second principle of the Cotonou Agreement is that of differentiation, whereby ACP least-developed countries (LDCs) are to be treated differently from ACP non-LDCs.
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