Trade as a Confidence-building Measure

Examining past and present efforts of trade facilitation in three of the original four protracted conflicts in the region concerned (Transnistria, Abkhazia and South Ossetia), the main purpose of our investigation is to establish a robust evidence basis for constructive recommendations to the OSCE Chairmanship about the rolethe international community could play in facilitating meaningful and purposeful engagement between the conflict parties through trade. In the next section, we first define what confidence-building measures entail and briefly outline available scholarly literature on the relationship of trade interdependence and conflict. We then turn to a discussion of the cases concerned: Georgia-Abkhazia, Georgia-South Ossetia and Moldova-Transnistria, and analyse trade-focused confidence-building initiatives. In the final section, we offer a summary of our findings based on a comparative assessment of what accounts for the successes and/or failures of these initiatives and conclude with a number of policy recommendations.