Farris Lecture 2024/25 by Dr. Ljiljana Biuković

How to Thwart Economic Coercion and Protect States Under Pressure: Rise of National Initiatives and Gaps in International Law

The increasing use of measures of economic coercion by politically and economically powerful states has caused their trading partners to review existing trade alliances as well as their ability to resist such pressure. International organizations have raised concerns about the destabilizing effects of economic coercion on the security and functioning of the international legal order and the multilateral trade system but they have not provided effective protection to states targeted by coercive measures. There are no international instruments of collective action against economic coercion and the existing international law remedies and countermeasures do not provide rapid relief to individual states against coercive trade and investment measures. This presentation examines legislative and economic policy responses to coercion by several individual states including Canada, China, and the United States, and one regional bloc – the European Union. It evaluates ability of new measures to resist economic coercion and to build economic resilience without violating rules of international law, including international customary law and the law of the World Trade Organization.

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*This event is eligible for 1 hour of Law Society of British Columbia CPD credits.

Speaker

Dr. Ljiljana Biuković is a Professor in the Allard School of Law. She teaches Contract Law, European Union Law, and International Trade Law. Her research interests are in the areas of international economic law and European Union integration. She publishes regularly on topics of legal transplantation of international norms and standards by national governments, the impact of regionalism on multilateral trade negotiations, mega-regional trade and investment agreements, and the development of European Union. She acted as a co-investigator in the Major Collaborative Research Initiative research project on Coordinated Compliance of International Trade Law and Human Rights funded by SSHRC from 2011 to 2018. Her work focused on the interaction between international trade rules and local human rights norms and practices in the context of performance of international trade agreements and cooperation among developing countries. At present, Dr. Biuković examines issues on collective memories and international law as a part of a new research project funded by Franklin Lew Innovation Fund.