Protectionism in the Pandemic – Webinar – April 21, 2020

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Tuesday, April 21, 2020, 9:00 ET/14:00 UK/15:00 CET/21:00 CST

Governments around the world are imposing trade controls that may cut off access to life-saving equipment. GW Law held an open webinar on protectionism in the COVID-19 pandemic – the barriers to imports and exports that threaten to deepen the pandemic. The program materials are below.

Program Recording –Instructions on Using Auto-Captioning in 100+ Languages

Program Slides Download

Program Chat Download

Background article (with key resources) for this webinar

The April 21, 2020 webinar had registrants from over 25 countries and five continents

The panelists discussed:

Understanding barriers to trade in COVID-19 critical supplies;
A new U.S. government order banning exports of essential medical supplies;
How humanitarian supplies can be shipped despite US export sanctions;
US threats to withdraw from the WTO Government Procurement Agreement; and,
Emerging approaches to assessing trade barriers’ economic impacts.

Presented with the kind cooperation of the National Foreign Trade Council

Table of Contents

Panelists

Simon Evenett, University of St Gallen (Switzerland) – Bio COVID-19 Trade Report

Robert Anderson, Hon. Professor, U. Nottingham (WTO-retired) – Bio – Works – Keeping markets open while ensuring due flexibility for governments in a time of economic and public health crisis: the role of the WTO Agreement on Government Procurement (GPA) (draft – forthcoming, Public Procurement Law Review)

Jean Heilman Grier, Djaghe Consulting (Washington DC) – Bio Works – Perspectives on Trade: ‘US Temporarily Lifts Procurement Ban’

Tom McSorley, Arnold & Porter (Washington DC) – Bio Humanitarian aid US Export Controls

Zornitsa Kutlina-Dimitrova, European Union – DG for Trade – Bio – Works

Moderators: Christopher Yukins, GW Law School; Vanessa Sciarra, National Foreign Trade Council; Laurence Folliot Lalliot (University of Paris Nanterre (joining from Dakar))