In a world of heightened geopolitical and geoeconomic tensions, the aim of this article is to contribute to the line of scholarship that looks at the ways in which investment screening measures interact with other fields and asks how such measures govern/interact with technology transfers. The US, EU, and UK investment screening measures have as their main goal the protection of national security and are often premised on the need to protect the technological lead of the adopting country/economy by stopping/limiting the access of countries of concern to critical technologies. This is not a new phenomenon and had also guided Western strategies during the Cold War. The article argues that the different investment screening regimes cannot be analysed in isolation. This is because they are part of larger economic and national security strategies of the adopting countries/economies and there is significant coordination between the US and its allies, such as the EU and UK. Furthermore, due to the importance of critical technologies the screening regimes analysed cover/have the potential to cover a wide array of tech transfers, be they formal, informal, business-to-business (B2B), university-to-business (U2B), tangible or intangible.
Two World Trade Organization (WTO) disputes regarding China’s enforcement of intellectual property rights (IPR) related to standard essential patents (SEP), both brought by the EU, have brought to the fore a systemic crisis: a breakdown of the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS Agreement) and its vision for a coordinated patent system that promotes technological innovation. As regional power struggles and judicial overreach intensify, the global standard-setting framework in which SEPs operate is being undermined by national interests. Balancing SEP owners’ incentives to innovate and implementers’ access to that technology is crucial for scientific advancement and the global distribution of those advancements.
This article provides the first comprehensive and critical assessment of the environmental governance gaps within the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA). It argues that the AfCFTA’s limited and defensive trade and environment provisions risk undermining its own sustainable development objectives. Through a comparative legal and policy analysis, it identifies key areas where the AfCFTA falls short of integrating environmental considerations. It then develops a broad and innovative analytical framework for embedding substantive and procedural trade and environment provisions into the legal and institutional architecture of the AfCFTA. The findings offer important insights for the better alignment of regional economic integration initiatives with environmental sustainability in Africa and beyond.
This article critically assesses the treatment of third country bidders in EU public procurement considering the recent developments in EU public procurement law, driven by evolving interpretations from the Court ofJustice of the European Union (CJEU) and revised guidance from the European Commission. These legal and policy shifts are examined considering their potential to advance two key policy objectives: enhancing competition within public procurement and expanding market access for EU bidders in third countries. The article evaluates the mechanisms designed to enforce reciprocity, including the International Procurement Instrument (IPI) and its emerging enforcement practices. The paper further investigates recent CJEU rulings that signal a departure from the long-standing practice of de facto equal treatment of third country bidders, suggesting a more assertive stance on reciprocity. Finally, the study considers the European Commission's revised approach to third country bidders and assesses its likely impact on the declared policy objectives of market competition and reciprocity.
