Saturday, March 15, 2014
Sales Conference (Omni Shoreham)
This paper focuses on the success of the European Union (EU) using trade to prevent conflict in Libya between 2000 and 2012. EU foreign policy specifies that trade is a tool that is to be used to prevent conflict from taking place in an external country, when dealing with that external country. In the period under examination, EU-Libyan trade grew exponentially as the EU’s policy towards Libya encapsulated the 2000 Barcelona Process, the European Neighborhood Policy and the Common Foreign and Security Policy, all of which implored and reiterated that it is EU policy to use trade to prevent conflict. However, the EU did not take into account the Iran and Libya Sanctions Act, which was lifted in 2003, former President Muammar Gadaffi’s rule, the unrest and nine-month civil conflict which constituted Libya’s experience of the Arab Spring, the sanctions put in place during the civil conflict and the ensuing unrest under the National Transition Council, all of which paint a picture of ongoing conflict and thus a failure of the policy. Therefore if it is to succeed in the future, then the EU-Libyan policy must take these elements into account. This study analyzes primary government and inter-governmental material, private and public sector trade deals and agreements, along with secondary and tertiary accounts of Libya in this timeframe, to prove how this EU-Libyan policy failed between 2000 and 2012.
