Senior Economist, Chief Trade Economist Unit,
European Commission
Most debates over protectionism
look only at the direct effects of “Buy National” laws — how do those laws
help specific domestic producers, and how do they raise costs and reduce
choice?
The European Commission is taking
a new approach. Building on other
transnational studies, the Commission has undertaken a multi-year effort to
assess the economy-wide impact of
domestic preferences in procurement.
Through this effort, the European Commission will be able to predict the
costs, direct and indirect, of new “Buy National” laws around the world.
Please join Zornitsa Kutlina-Dimitrova, a senior trade economist at the European Commission, in an interactive discussion of this important development in international trade.
On May 30, 2019, there will be a conference on U.S. – EU environmental issues in Rome; the program for the colloquium, which will cover issues from climate change to sustainability in procurement, may be downloaded below.
Dr. G. Antonelli (B.A., M.A., J.D., LL.M, Ph.D.); Prof. M.V. Ferroni (Prof. of Administrative Law and Environmental Law at Sapienza University Department of Political Science); Prof. F. Giglioni (Prof. of Administrative Law, Environmental and Health Law. Director of the Ph.D. Program in Public, Comparative and International Law at Sapienza University Department of Political Science)
The conference was launched by Dr. Giovanni Antonelli, of the “Sapienza” University of Rome, with the support of Prof. F. Giglioni and Prof. M.V. Ferroni of the University’s Department of Political Science, and the Center for American Studies. Dr. Antonelli writes:
For over the last year we have
been thinking how to engage some of the most eminent international experts for
empowering our common interest and work towards potential models of sustainable
development.
Built upon the shared belief
that the current political divide felt over our continents is polarizing and
alienating not only our cultures but often
it is even estranging groups and movements that have similar values and
goals, the “U.S.–E.U. Environmental Law Colloquium” aims to encourage participation
and collaboration between American and European Scholars on a regular basis, to
share the progress of our researches and to launch new initiatives and projects
for the implementation of the environmental policies.
For the organization of this first
edition we do want to acknowledge the important role played by the Sapienza
University Department of Political Science and by the Center for American
Studies of Rome, without whose fundamental support this international project
would not have been carried out.
We would like to thank all the speakers who have decided to join our project, with a specific regard to Prof. J. Freeman (Harvard Law School), Prof. M. Gerrard (Columbia Law School), Prof. M. Scanlan (Vermont Law School), Prof. C. Yukins (GWU School of Law) and Prof. J. Dernbach (Widener University).
The all-day colloquium will begin at 9:30 a.m. on May 30, 2019, at the Center for American Studies, Via M. CAETANI, 32, Rome.
For information and reservations: giovanni.antonelli@uniroma1.it
Professor Andrea Sundstrand of Stockholm University will be
visiting GWU Law School this week to teach on European procurement law.
We will meet in Law Learning Center (LLC) Room 006, 2028 G
Street NW (across the street from the main law school building) on the
following days and times:
Wednesday, Feb. 20 – noon to 2 pm – Intro to EU Procurement
Thursday, Feb. 21 – noon to 2 pm – EU Bid Protests
Friday, Feb. 22 – 6-8 pm – EU Contracting (canceled)
This is a very nice (and rare) opportunity to learn about Europe’s approach to procurement law, first-hand. We hope to see you there.
On April 5, 2019, scholars from Pace University, the University of Copenhagen and George Washington University hosted an all-day roundtable on emerging issues in sustainable public procurement, through Pace University’s Elisabeth Haub School of Law.
The First Annual Transatlantic Roundtable on Sustainable Public Procurement was hosted by:
Pace Environmental Law and the Elisabeth Haub School of Law,
The Centre of Enterprise Liability, Faculty of Law, University of Copenhagen, and
The George Washington University Law School’s Government Procurement Law Program.
Researchers and renowned specialists from around the globe discussed recent developments in the field of sustainable public procurement. The global value of public procurement spending is enormous. OECD countries alone spend a total of a trillion U.S. dollars per year, and each year their governments spend around 14-19% of GDP on the purchase of services, works and supplies. In many sectors such as energy, transport, waste management, social welfare, education and health services, public authorities are the principal buyers. The sheer scale of public procurement spending can literally create and shape markets, impact lives of citizens across the country, and foster greater sustainability in terms of environmental protection, public health, and economic equality.
Speakers included:
Professor Jason J. Czarnezki, Kerlin Distinguished Professor of Environmental Law and Associate Dean, Elisabeth Haub School of Law at Pace University,
Marta Andhov, Assistant Professor, Faculty of Law, University of Copenhagen, Denmark,
Professors Steven Schooner and Christopher Yukins, George Washington University Law School, Washington, D.C., and
Nicole Darnall, Associate Dean and Professor, School of Sustainability Arizona State University
This event was held at Pace University’s Downtown Campus – 1 Pace Plaza, on the 18th floor in the North and South Boardrooms.
Introductions Jason J. Czarnezki –Kerlin Distinguished Professor and Associate Dean, The Elisabeth Haub School of Law at Pace University, New York
Marta Andhov – Assistant Professor, Faculty of Law, University of Copenhagen, Denmark; Haub Visiting Scholar at Pace University’s Elisabeth Haub School of Law
Session 1 : Does the United States need a sustainable public procurement legal framework?
U.S. Federal Public Procurement – A lack of interest in sustainable purchasing? – Steven Schooner, Nash & Cibinic Professor of Government Procurement Law, The George Washington University Law School
Do state level and local contracting authorities drive the sustainable procurement agenda in the United States? – Jason J. Czarnezki, Kerlin Distinguished Professor and Associate Dean, The Elisabeth HaubSchool of Law at Pace University, New York City
Sustainable Procurement in Local Governments – Nicole Darnall Associate Dean and Professor, School of Sustainability, Arizona State University
Session 2: European Union – A leader in sustainable purchasing?
How we got to the Strategic Public Procurement Agenda-Understanding the EU legal framework – Roberto Caranta, Professor of Administrative Law, University of Turin, Italy
All that glitters is not gold – Paradoxes of EU Public Procurement Law – Marta Andhov, Assistant Professor, Faculty of Law, University of Copenhagen, Denmark; Haub Visiting Scholar at the Pace University’s Elisabeth Haub School of Law
The Evolution of Sustainable Procurement in the United Kingdom: From Thatcherism to the Social Value Act and a widening and deepening policy agenda. Where next post-Brexit? – Michael Bowsher QC – Director of the Distance Learning Diploma and Masters in Public Procurement Law at King’s College London; Visiting Professor, Dickson Poon School of Law, King’s College London; Barrister (Monckton Chambers), England & Wales, Northern Ireland, Republic of Ireland
Session 3: WTO & UNCITRAL
SPP: International perspectives, including under the UNCITRAL Model Law and the WTO Government Procurement Agreement – Christopher R. Yukins – Professor of Public Procurement Law and Co-Director, Government Procurement Law Program, George Washington University Law School
Sustainable public procurement under the OECD and the multilateral development banks- Carol Cravero, PhD student at the University of Turin, Italy and University of Paris Nanterre (CRDP), France
Sustainable procurement at UNOPS –Benedetta Audia, Corporate Legal Advisor, Head of the Commercial and Institutional Law Practice, Legal Group, United Nations Office for Project Services, New York
Session 4: Selected Countries and Their Experiences
Canadian experience with Sustainable Public Procurement –Paul Emanuelli,General Counsel and Managing Director, Procurement Office, Toronto
Challenges and the future of sustainable public procurement in Poland – Michal Kania, Professor, Silesian University, Poland; Fulbright Visiting Scholar The George Washington University Law School
Brazilian experience with SPP – Luciana Stocco Betiol, Professor – Department of Social and Legal Sciences, São Paulo School of Business Administration – FGV/EAESP
Effective international trade in government procurement depends on predictable legal structures, including those that address corruption and misconduct in tender processes. But at this point, the purchaser’s primary tools to maintain integrity — debarment or exclusion — remain wildly out of sync on both sides of the Atlantic. This annual free symposium on transatlantic issues in procurement, hosted by King’s College London and George Washington University Law School, focused this year on debarment and exclusion. In a highly successful day of frank and collegial discussions, judges, officials, attorneys and professors from the multilateral development banks, the European Union and the United States joined to discuss the best ways forward to harmonize a common approach to debarment in international trade.
Please note (see below) that because of the strong interest in this program, it was moved to a larger room at Gray’s Inn.
Members of the “GWU” team at the symposium at Gray’s Inn (left to right): Professor Michal Kania (Fulbright scholar), Program Director Karen Thornton, Ruairi Macdonald (alumnus), John Pachter (alumnus and panelist), Paul Khoury (alumnus and panelist), Collin Swan (alumnus and panelist), Alix Town (alumna), and Professor Christopher Yukins (symposium co-chair)Collin Swan (World Bank), Michal Kania (University of Katowice) and Dominique Casimir (Arnold & Porter, Washington DC)
Panel II: Sanctions and Exclusions at the Multilateral Development Banks (11:30-12:30)
Panel II: Lisa Miller (World Bank), Prof Christopher Yukins (GWU), Collin Swan (World Bank) and Paul Kearney (European Bank for Reconstruction and Development)
Panel III: John Pachter (Smith Pachter, McLean VA), Paul Khoury (Wiley Rein, Washington DC), Vera Eiro (Linklaters, Lisbon), Michael Bowsher QC (symposium co-chair/moderator, Monckton Chambers & King’s College, London) and Pascal Friton (BLOMSTEIN, Berlin).
John Pachter, Christopher Yukins & Jessica Tillipman, U.S. Debarment: An Introduction (discussion draft 24 February 2019), forthcoming in Cambridge Handbook of Compliance (Cambridge University Press, Daniel Sokol & Benjamin van Rooij eds.).
Pascal Friton, Debarment in EU Public Procurement Law – Tentative progress or treading water? (presented at Thomson Reuters Government Contracts Year in Review (Feb. 2019))
Panel V: Judge Marc Steiner (Swiss Federal Administrative Court), Judge Christopher Vajda (Court of Justice for the European Union), Prof Carl Baudenbacher (former Chief Judge of the EFTA Court, Monckton Chambers), Michael Bowsher QC (Monckton Chambers/King’s College, London), Judge Katja Hoegh (Chair, Ostre Landstret (High Court of Eastern Denmark), Copenhagen), Judge Helena Rosen Anderrson (Swedish Supreme Administrative Court)
Emmanuelle Auriol & Tina Søreide, An Economic Analysis of Debarment, 50 Int’l Rev. L. & Econ. 36 (2017) (arguing that debarment needs to be rethought in light of its competitive impacts)
Christopher R. Yukins & Michal Kania, Suspension and Debarment in the U.S. Government: Comparative Lessons for the EU’s Next Steps in Procurement, 19-2 UrT 47 (2019), available at https://ssrn.com/abstract=3422499
Background materials by panelists (from a fall 2018 seminar at GWU):
Visiting Fulbright scholar Professor Michael Kania (Silesian University) will present on European Defense Procurement at George Washington University Law School, Law Learning Center 006, 2028 G Street NW, Washington, DC, from 6-8 pm on Tuesday, November 6, 2018. His presentation is linked above. If you would like to attend this open seminar, please reserve a space with Cassandra Crawford, ccrawford@law.gwu.edu.
The European Commission has proposed expanding the European Defence Fund, an initiative to fund defense technology developed in Europe. As a general matter, only European firms would have access to the fund for development, and participating European nations would need to commit themselves to purchasing the defense materiel developed under the fund. In effect, this could lock U.S. firms out of billions of euros worth of European defense procurement over the coming years—despite long-standing reciprocal agreements under which the U.S. and its European allies agreed to open their defense markets. The fund was announced quietly last year and now, in the shadow of a trade war launched by the Trump administration, has evolved into a substantial potential barrier in the transatlantic defense market, and potentially another brick in a rising wall of protectionism between the U.S. and Europe.
In response to the Trump administration’s demands that Europe spend more on its own defense, and as part of a broader hardening of trade positions between the United States and Europe as a result of the Trump administration’s trade policies, Europe is moving forward with the European Defence Fund, which will block non-European firms (including U.S. firms) from billions of dollars in European defense spending. (Ironically, the Trump administration’s own“Buy American” initiative in procurement apparently has been stalled over the past year, and the Trump administration has pushed recently to expand foreign military sales by U.S. defense firms.) The European initiative, which goes beyond the protections of the 2009 European defense directive, may be a violation of the many reciprocal defense procurement agreements between the United States and its European allies. European officials have defended these bars against non-European contractors as “reciprocity” for U.S. security constraints on foreign ownership and control in the U.S. defense industrial base, but the protectionism of the European initiative appears to go well beyond normal security concerns — inspired, perhaps, by the Trump administration’s expansive use of “national security” as a rationale for protectionism.
An interesting comment by Jean Grier on the ongoing EU-U.S. debate over procurement trade data, and the impact that debate is having on TTIP negotiations. Ms. Grier was previously the lead negotiator on procurement for the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, and is an internationally recognized expert on procurement and trade.
In response to the Trump administration’s