Supply Chains, COVID-19 and the GATT Security Exception: Legal Limits of ‘Pandemic Exceptionalism’

Abstract

Initial shortages of medical equipment and pharmaceutical products caused by COVID-19’s global supply chain disruption greatly hindered national public health responses to combat the pandemic, exposing security vulnerabilities within national supply chain capabilities. This has been further compounded by delays in vaccine production and uneven global distribution, prompting national calls to develop local capabilities in critical supply chains by ‘reshoring’ production in order to promote economic self-sufficiency in times of emergency. Calls for ‘reshoring’ have arisen at a time when the relationship between trade and security is undergoing transformation, particularly since the United States (US) justified its steel tariffs on national security grounds of economic self-sufficiency. This paper examines the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) security exception through supply chain reshoring in order to show the limited capacity for COVID-19 to enable an indeterminate expansion of the security exception in creating a permanent state of exceptionalism (‘pandemic exceptionalism’).

Keywords: GATT, Covid-19, supply chains