4) Where the original arbitration panel or some of its members are unable to attend further meetings, the procedures set out in Article 50 shall be applied. The time-limit for delivering a ruling shall be 45 days from the date on which the request referred to in paragraph 2 was submitted.
5) The reasonable time-limit may be extended by mutual agreement between the Parties.
Article 55. Re-examination of the Measures Taken to Achieve Compliance with the Arbitration Panel Ruling
1) The Party complained against shall notify the other Party and the EPA Committee before the end of the reasonable time period of any measures it has taken to comply with the arbitration ruling.
2) In the event of a disagreement between the Parties concerning the compatibility of the measures notified under paragraph 1 with the provisions of this Agreement, the complaining Party may make a written request for an arbitration panel ruling on the matter. The request shall indicate the specific measures in question and explain why they are incompatible with the provisions of this Agreement. The arbitration panel shall communicate its ruling within 90 days from the date on which the request was submitted. In urgent situations, including cases in which perishable and seasonal foodstuffs are in question, the panel shall deliver its ruling within 45 days of the request being submitted.
3) Where the original arbitration panel or some of its members are unable to attend further meetings, the procedures set out in Article 50 shall be applied. The time-limit for notifying aruling shall be 105 days from the date on which the request referred to in paragraph 2 was submitted.
Article 56. Temporary Remedies In the Event of Non-compliance
1) If the Party complained against fails to notify measures it has taken to comply with the arbitration panel ruling before the expiry of the reasonable time-limit, or if the arbitration panel rules that the measures notified under Article 55(1) are not compatible with that Party's obligations under the provisions of Article 53, the Party complained against shall, if so requested by the complaining Party, present an offer for temporary compensation.
2) If the Parties do not agree on compensation within 30 days of the end of the reasonable time-limit or of the ruling by the arbitration panel referred to in Article 55, according to which the compliance measures which were taken are not compatible with the provisions referred to in Article 53, the complaining Party shall be authorised, after notifying the other Party, to adopt appropriate measures. By adopting such measures, the complaining Party shall endeavour to choose measures which have the least possible impact on the achievement of the objectives of this Agreement, and shall take into consideration their impact on the economy of the Party complained against.
In any case, the appropriate measures adopted pursuant to this paragraph shall not affect the provision of development assistance for Côte d'Ivoire.
3) The UK shall show moderation in its requests for compensation or when adopting the appropriate measures in accordance with paragraphs 1 and 2 and shall take account of the fact that the Ivorian Party is a developing country.
4) Appropriate measures or compensation are temporary and shall be applied only until the measure recognised to be in infringement of the provisions of Article 53 has been revoked or amended to bring it into line with the aforementioned provisions, or until the Parties have agreed to settle their dispute.
Article 57. Examination of the Compliance Measures Following on from the Adoption of Appropriate Measures
1) The Party complained against shall notify the other Party and the EPA Committee of the measures which it has taken to achieve compliance with the arbitration panel ruling, and in the notification shall ask the complaining Party to discontinue the application of the appropriate measures.
2) If the Parties do not reach an agreement on the compatibility of the notified measures with the provisions of this Agreement within 30 days of the notification being submitted, the complaining Party shall make a request in writing for the arbitration panel to rule on the matter. The request shall be notified to the other Party and to the EPA Committee. The arbitration panel shall announce its decision to the Parties and to the EPA Committee within 45 days of the request being submitted. If the arbitration panel rules that any measures taken to achieve conformity do not comply with the provisions of this Agreement, it shall decide whether the complaining Party may continue to apply the appropriate measures. If the arbitration panel rules that measures taken to achieve conformity comply with the provisions of this Agreement, the appropriate measures shall be discontinued.
3) Where the original arbitration panel or some of its members are unable to attend further meetings, the procedures set out in Article 50 shall be applied. The time-limit for notifying a ruling shall be 60 days from the date on which the request referred to in paragraph 2 was submitted. Section HI Common provisions
Article 58. Mutually Satisfactory Solution
Under this Title, the Parties may at any time agree on a mutually satisfactory solution to a dispute. They shall notify the EPA Committee of any such solution. The arbitration proceedings must be terminated when a mutually satisfactory solution is adopted.
Article 59. Rules of Procedure
1) The dispute settlement procedures set out in Chapter 3 shall be subject to the rules of procedure adopted by the EPA Committee three months after its establishment.
2) The meetings of the arbitration panel shall be open to the public in accordance with the tules of procedure, unless the arbitration panel decides otherwise on its own initiative or at the request of the Parties.
Article 60. General and Technical Information
At the request of a Party or on its own initiative, the arbitration panel may obtain information from any source, including the Parties concerned by the dispute, if it deems this to be appropriate for the arbitration proceedings. The arbitration panel shall also be authorised to obtain the opinion of experts where deemed appropriate. The Parties concerned shall have the option of submitting briefs on an amicus curiae basis to the arbitration panel in accordance with the rules of procedure. All information thus obtained must be disclosed to both Parties and subjected to their comments.
Article 61. Language of Submissions
Oral and written submissions shall be in English or French. However, the Parties shall take account of the fact that the Ivorian Party is a developing country, particularly in relation to translation difficulties.
Article 62. Rules of Interpretation
The arbitration panel shall interpret the provisions of this Agreement in accordance with the customary rules of interpretation of public international law, including the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties. The decisions of the arbitration panel shall neither add to nor diminish the rights and obligations set out in this Agreement.
Article 63. Arbitration Panel Rulings
1) The arbitration panel shall endeavour to make consensus-based decisions. However, if it is impossible to reach a decision by consensus, the dispute shall be settled by a majority vote, but the diverging opinions of the arbitrators shall under no circumstances be published.
2) The decision shall expound the substantive findings, the applicability of the relevant provisions of this Agreement, and the reasoning underpinning the findings and conclusions reached by the arbitration panel. The EPA Committee shall make the arbitration ruling known to the public, unless it decides otherwise.
Chapter 4. General Provisions
Article 64. List of Arbitrators
1) Three months at the latest following the application of this Agreement, the EPA Committee shall draw up a list of 15 people willing and able to act as arbitrators. Each Party shall select five people capable of being arbitrators. The two Parties shall also agree on the choice of five individuals who are not nationals of either Party and could be called upon to chair the arbitration panel. The EPA Committee shall ensure that this list is always complete.
2) The arbitrators shall possess specialist knowledge or experience of law and international trade. They shall be independent, act individually and not under the instructions of an organisation or government, shall not be affiliated with the administration of either Party, and shall observe the code of conduct annexed to the rules of procedure.
3) The EPA Committee may draw up an additional list of 15 people with specialist sectoral knowledge of relevance to the specific matters covered by this Agreement. Where there is recourse to the selection procedure of Article 50(2), the Chairperson of the EPA Committee may use such a sectoral list, subject to the agreement of both Parties.
Article 65. Links with the WTO Obligations
1) The arbitration panels set up under this Agreement shall not deal with disputes relating to the rights and obligations of each Party pursuant to the Agreement establishing the WTO.
2) Recourse to the dispute settlement provisions of this Agreement shall be without prejudice to any possible action in the WTO framework, including a dispute settlement action. However, when a Party has initiated a dispute-settlement procedure with regard to a given measure, either under Article 49(1) or under the Agreement establishing the WTO, it may not initiate a dispute-settlement procedure for the same measure before the other forum before concluding the first procedure. For the purposes of this paragraph, a Party is considered to have initiated a dispute-settlement procedure under the Agreement establishing the WTO once it has requested the establishment of a panel pursuant to Article 6 of the WTO Dispute Settlement Understanding.
3) This Agreement cannot prevent a Party from applying the suspension of obligations authorised by the WTO Dispute Settlement Body.
Article 66. Time-limits
1) The time-limits set out in this Title, including time-limits for the notification of decisions by the arbitration panels, shall be counted in calendar days from the day following the act or event to which they relate.
2) All time-limits in this Title may be extended by mutual agreement between the Parties.
Article 67. Amendment of Title V
The EPA Committee and each of the Parties shall be entitled to request the amendment of Title V. Amendment requests shall be examined by the EPA Committee. Amendments shall take effect only after approval by the Parties.
Title VI. GENERAL EXCEPTIONS
Article 68. General Exception Clause
Subject to the requirement that such measures not be applicable in a manner which would constitute a means of arbitrary or unjustifiable discrimination between the Parties where like conditions prevail, or a disguised restriction on trade in goods, services or establishment, this Agreement shall not be construed as preventing the adoption or enforcement by the Parties of measures which:
a) are necessary to ensure the protection of public security, public morality or to maintain public order;
b) are necessary to protect human, animal or plant life or health;
c) are necessary to ensure compliance with laws and regulations and which are not incompatible with the provisions of this Agreement, including those relating to:
i. the prevention of deceptive or fraudulent practices and means to deal with the effects of a default on contract payments;
ii. the protection of the privacy of individuals in relation to the processing and dissemination of personal data and the protection of confidentiality of individual records and accounts;
iii. safety;
iv. the application of customs rules and procedures; or
v. the protection of intellectual property rights;
d) concern the import or export of gold or money;
e) are necessary for the protection of national treasures of artistic, historic or archaeological value;
f) concern the conservation of natural, non-renewable resources where these measures involve restrictions on domestic production or consumption of goods, domestic supply or consumption of services and on domestic investors;
g) relate to the products of prison labour; or
h) are incompatible with Article 19 on national treatment, provided that the difference in treatment is aimed at ensuring effective or fair imposition or collection of direct taxes on the economic activities of investors or service suppliers of the other Party.
Article 69. Security Exceptions
1) Nothing in this Agreement shall be construed:
a) as requiring the Parties to supply information the disclosure of which they consider contrary to their essential security interests;
b) as preventing the Parties from taking any action they deem necessary for the protection of their essential security interests:
i. relating to fissionable or fusionable materials or the materials from which they are derived;
ii. relating to economic activities undertaken directly or indirectly for the purpose of delivering supplies or provisions to a military establishment;
iii. connected with the manufacturing of, or trade in, weapons, ammunition and war materiel;
iv. relating to government procurement essential to national security or for national defence purposes; or
v. taken in time of war or other emergency in international relations; or
c) as preventing the Parties from taking any action in order to carry out obligations they have accepted for the purpose of maintaining international peace and security.
2) The EPA Committee shall be kept informed as far as possible of the measures taken pursuant to subparagraphs 1(b) and 1(c) and of the date of their termination.
Article 70. Taxation
1) This Agreement or any arrangement adopted under this Agreement shall not be construed as preventing the Parties from distinguishing, in the application of the relevant provisions of their fiscal legislation, between taxpayers who are not in the same situation, in particular with regard to their place of domicile or the place where their capital is invested.
2) This Agreement or any arrangement adopted under this Agreement shall not be construed as preventing the adoption or enforcement of any measure aimed at preventing the avoidance or evasion of taxes pursuant to agreements to avoid double taxation or other tax arrangements or national fiscal legislation.
3) This Agreement shall not affect the rights and obligations of the Parties under any tax convention. In the event of any inconsistency between this Agreement and any such convention, that convention shall prevail to the extent of the inconsistency.
Title VI. INSTITUTIONAL, GENERAL AND FINAL PROVISIONS
Article 71. Continuation of Negotiations and Implementation of this Agreement
1) The Parties shall continue negotiations in accordance with the provisions of this Agreement.
2) When negotiations are complete, the resulting draft amendments shall be submitted for approval to the relevant internal authorities.
Article 72. Definition of the Parties and Fulfilment of Obligations
1) The Contracting Parties of this Agreement shall be the Republic of Côte d'Ivoire, referred to as the "Ivorian Party" or "Côte d'Ivoire", of the one part, and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, referred to as the "United Kingdom" or the "UK", of the other part.
2) For the purposes of this Agreement, the term "Party" shall refer to Côte d'Ivoire or the UK, as appropriate. The term "Parties" shall refer to Côte d'Ivoire and the UK.
3) The Parties shall adopt any general or specific measures required for them to fulfil their obligations under this Agreement and shall ensure that they comply with the objectives laid down in this Agreement.
Article 73. EPa Committee
1) For the purposes of implementing this Agreement, an EPA Committee shall hereby be established.
2) The Parties agree that the composition, organisation and operation of this EPA Committee will respect the principle of equality. The Committee shall determine the rules governing its organisation and operation.
3) Except as otherwise provided for in paragraph 4, the EPA Committee shall be responsible for the administration of all the fields covered by this Agreement and for the achievement of all the tasks mentioned in this Agreement.
4) The EPA Committee shall not be responsible for political dialogue, consultations held or measures taken (as referred to in Annex 3) relating to the essential and fundamental elements of this Agreement.
5) In order to facilitate communication and ensure the effective implementation of this Agreement, each Party shall designate a correspondent within the EPA Committee.
6) The EPA Committee meetings may be open to third parties. The West African Economic and Monetary Union (WAEMU) and ECOWAS Commissions may be invited to the EPA Committee meetings, in accordance with their internal procedures.
7) Any decisions adopted by the EPA Committee established by the EU-Côte d'Ivoire Stepping Stone EPA before that agreement ceased to apply to the UK shall, to the extent those decisions relate to the Parties to this Agreement, and unless the Parties agree otherwise, be deemed to have been adopted, mutatis mutandis, by the EPA Committee which the Parties establish under paragraph 1.
In this Article a reference to decisions adopted by the "EPA Committee established by the EU-Côte d'Ivoire Stepping Stone EPA" shall be understood as also including decisions adopted by any special committees or bodies established by that Committee.
8) Nothing in paragraph 6 prevents the EPA Committee established by this Agreement from making decisions which are different to, modify, revoke or supersede the decisions deemed to have been adopted by each of them under that paragraph.
Article 74. Entry Into Force and Denunciation
1) This Agreement shall be signed, ratified or approved in accordance with the constitutional tules specific to each Party.
2) Each of the Parties shall notify the other in writing, through diplomatic channels, of the completion of the procedures required by its law for the entry into force of this Agreement.
3) This Agreement shall enter into force on the later of:
a) the date on which the EU-Côte d'Ivoire Stepping Stone EPA ceases to apply to the United Kingdom; or
b) the date of the later notification by which the Parties notify each other that they have completed their respective legal requirements and procedures; or
c) from such other date as the Parties agree.
4) Pending entry into force of the Agreement, the Parties may agree to apply it provisionally, in accordance with their respective laws or by ratification of the Agreement.
a) Such provisional application shall take effect from the later of:
i. the date on which the EU-Côte d' Ivoire Stepping Stone EPA ceases to apply to the United Kingdom;
ii. the date of the later notification by which the Parties notify each other that they have completed their respective legal requirements and procedures for provisional application; or
iii. from such other date as the Parties agree.
b) A Party may terminate the provisional application of the Agreement by giving written notice to the other Party. Such termination shall take effect on the first day of the first month following notification.
c) If a Party intends not to provisionally apply a provision of this Agreement, it shall first notify the other Party of the provisions that it will not provisionally apply, and the Parties shall enter consultations promptly to reach an agreement in writing of those provisions exempt from provisional application. The provisions that are not subject to a notification by a Party and agreement by the other Party shall provisionally apply from the date provisional application of this Agreement comes into effect under subparagraph (a).
5) If this Agreement or certain provisions of this Agreement are provisionally applied pending its entry into force, unless this instrument provides otherwise, all references in this Agreement to the date of entry into force shall be deemed to refer to the date that such provisional application takes effect.
6) The United Kingdom shall submit notifications under this Article to Côte d'Ivoire's Ministry of African Integration and Ivorians Abroad or its successor. Côte d'Ivoire shall submit notifications under this Article to the United Kingdom's Department for International Trade or its successor.
7) Notwithstanding paragraph 4, the UK and Côte d'Ivoire may apply the agreement, in whole or in part, before its provisional application, to the extent that this is possible under their national legislation.
8) Either Party may give written notice to the other of its intention to denounce this Agreement. Denunciation shall take effect six months after notification to the other Party.
9) This Agreement shall be superseded by a global EPA concluded at regional level with the UK on the date of its entry into force. In this case, the Parties shall endeavour to ensure that the global EPA at regional level preserves most of the benefits obtained by Côte d'Ivoire under this Agreement.
Article 75. Territorial Application
1) This Agreement shall apply, (a) on the one hand, to the territory of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the following territories for whose international relations the United Kingdom is responsible, to the extent that and under the conditions which the EU-Côte d'Ivoire Stepping Stone EPA applied immediately before it ceased to apply to the United Kingdom:
i. Gibraltar; and
ii. the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man;
(b) and, on the other hand, to the territories of Côte d''voire.
2) References in this Agreement to "territory" shall be understood in this sense, unless explicitly stated otherwise.
Article 76. Dialogue on Financial Issues
The Parties agree to foster dialogue and transparency and to share best practices in the area of fiscal policy and administration.
Article 77. Cooperation In the Fight Against Illegal Financial Activities
The UK and Côte d'Ivoire shall be committed to preventing and combating illegal, fraudulent and corrupt activities, money laundering and terrorist financing. To this end, the Parties shall take the necessary legislative and administrative measures to comply with international standards, including those laid down in the United Nations Convention against Corruption, the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organised Crime and its Protocols, the United Nations Convention for the Suppression of Terrorist Financing and the Financial Action Task Force recommendations. The UK and Côte d'Ivoire agree to exchange information and cooperate in these areas.
Article 78. Relationships with other Agreements
The Parties agree that this Agreement does not require them to act in a manner inconsistent with their WTO obligations.
Article 79. Authentic Languages
This Agreement is drawn up in duplicate in the English and French languages, each of these texts being equally authentic.
Article 80. Annexes
The Appendices, the Annexes and the Protocols to this Agreement shall form an integral part thereof.
Conclusion
IN WITNESS WHEREOF, the undersigned, being duly authorised thereto, have signed this Agreement.
DONE in duplicate at London, on this fifteenth day of October, Two thousand and twenty in the English and French languages, both texts being equally authentic.
For the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland:
RANIL JAYAWARDENA
For the Republic of Côte d'Ivoire:
SARA AFFOUE AMANI