CARIFORUM and UK EPA Study

establishment and Mode 4 temporary entry of services providers. As it relates to Mode 3 investment matters, both Parties sought to incorporate and enshrine the prevailing terms and conditions applicable to investors in their respective jurisdictions at the time of negotiation, and the Agreement seeks to protect the rights and benefits of investors within a defined and predictable framework for Investor-State dispute settlement. The provisions made for temporary entrants also go beyond the Parties’ WTO commitments, where express commitments and obligations were undertaken to provide temporary access for the provision of services by Contractual Services Suppliers (CSS), Independent Professions (IP), Intra Corporate Transferees (ICT) and Graduate Trainees (GT). However, important elements of the prevailing visa regimes, particularly in relation to the right of services providers to access visas to supply services in both parties, are still to be fully ironed out. Both EPAs also equally seek to protect the rights of the parties to the Agreement to regulate their domestic markets, without prejudice to the aforementioned rights and benefits that ought to accrue to investors. Consequently, the differences between the CF-EU and CF-UK EPAs mainly relate to a number of cross-cutting changes which have been made to the CF-UK EPA text, most notably in order to expunge references to the EU’s obligations and commitments from the now bilateral agreement, in order to create a tailor-made agreement that ensures continuity of each side’s obligations and commitments. The adjustments also sought to establish the UK’s direct responsibility for the costs associated with dispute settlement proceedings, as well as involved changes to the UK’s Air and Maritime Transportation services commitments by removing any licensing and registration requirements that extend to the EU territories, as well as any obligations related to Cabotage where references to EU internal waterways have also been removed.

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