Coalition Procurement for the Reconstruction of Iraq in the Crosshairs of WTO Law: The Obligations of the United States under the WTO Government Procurement Agreement

German Law Journal, Vol. 5, p. 257, 2004

26 Pages Posted: 10 Apr 2007

See all articles by Dirk Pulkowski

Dirk Pulkowski

Permanent Court of Arbitration

Abstract

In December 2003, Deputy Secretary of Defense, Paul Wolfowitz, announced that some of America's trading partners, among them Canada, France, Germany and Russia, would be altogether excluded from competition for major reconstruction projects in Iraq. Public opinion in Europe was quick to brand the United States an international law-breaker. Can one State simply reserve to itself the final word on the Iraqi reconstruction money? The public-opinion angle aside, from an international-law perspective the story is far from simple. At the outset, it should be recalled that there is no general prohibition of discriminatory treatment in international economic law. Sovereignty, according to the classical concept of international law, includes the right to trade with some States but not with others; to discriminate between friend and foe. Hence, while there is an obvious case of discrimination if a State restricts competition to some trading partners, such discrimination is only exceptionally forbidden. However, the WTO Agreements do away with some of this legal vacuum and prohibit certain forms of unequal treatment among its Members. This article assesses the consistency of the United States' procurement policies in Iraq with WTO law (in particular, with the Government Procurement Agreement).

Keywords: WTO, procurement, Iraq, reconstruction, development, trade

JEL Classification: K33, H57, N4

Suggested Citation

Pulkowski, Dirk, Coalition Procurement for the Reconstruction of Iraq in the Crosshairs of WTO Law: The Obligations of the United States under the WTO Government Procurement Agreement. German Law Journal, Vol. 5, p. 257, 2004, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=978849

Dirk Pulkowski (Contact Author)

Permanent Court of Arbitration ( email )

Peace Palace
Carnegieplein 2
The Hague, 2517 KJ
Netherlands

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