Revisiting the Securitization of Trade: Old and New Security Threats

Description

The objective of the workshop is to identify old, more recent and emerging aspects of the interrelationship between trade and national security and brainstorm about potential solutions that will allow a satisfactory balancing between the protection of economic interests and the safeguarding of security interests. In this regard, we are particularly interested in legal, economic and political economy insights that may have been neglected to date in existing IEL literature and public policy discourse at the domestic, regional or international level.
In recent years, national security rhetoric has gained prominence, partly due to the geo-economic and geopolitical developments that led to a rapid increase of strategic competition and the emergence of new forms of economic warfare. Ensuring a digital comparative advantage became more important than maintaining pure military power. The resilience of multilateral cooperation has been tested by unprecedented challenges related to cybersecurity, technological nationalism, climate change, supply chain crisis, and migration flows. The Russian invasion to Ukraine and States’ responses to the COVID-19 pandemic have further reinforced de-globalization and incited selective economic cooperation.
As these developments unfold, economic interdependence is for certain scholars and policymakers no longer viewed as a guarantee for growing prosperity and stability in the global order but as a source of risks, threatening national security. In response, countries focus on designing new industrial policies to boost their self-sufficiency and incentivize “reshoring” in key industries; strengthening ties with their allies (“friend-shoring”); and decreasing reliance on their economic and political adversaries (“decoupling” or “derisking”).
Based on these developments, it appears opportune to take stock of existing approaches and reflect on a series of research questions relating to the securitization of trade and its implications for global governance.

Period	25 Aug 2023
Event type	Workshop
Location	Tilburg, NetherlandsShow on map
Degree of Recognition	International