In its final declaration, the ACP Council (21-22 June 2005) calls for the establishment of development benchmarks to ensure that trade liberalisation works in favour of sustainable human development. This follows the Cape Town declaration, unanimously adopted by the ACP-EU Joint Parliamentary Assembly in March 2002. APRODEV, in cooperation with ICTSD has taken this challenge seriously and has published a report on the question of what a benchmarking approach could look like, identifying three dimensions of the EPA negotiations: market access and free trade, policy space for competitive and equitable policies, and additional development resources. The paper emphasises the need for a non-partisan monitoring mechanism, and proposes to base a review mechanism or monitoring system on development benchmarks using four steps.