Russia’s ongoing occupation of Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula and support of separatist hostilities in the eastern provinces of Donbas have resulted in 1.5 million internally displaced persons, 3,000 civilians killed, and a growing list of alleged violations of international law and socio-economic hardship.

But Ukraine is struggling in its efforts to hold Russia accountable – either as a state or through individual criminal responsibility - as it cannot unilaterally ask any international court to give an overall judgment on the conflict.

So it focuses on narrower issues, referring them to authorised adjudication and arbitration platforms such as the International Court of Justice (ICJ), European Court of Human Rights, UNCLOS arbitration, and the International Criminal Court (ICC). These options are limited, but still worth taking - and their relevance is proving to be far wider than the Russia-Ukraine conflict.

Policy of cultural eradication

In 2017, Ukraine initiated proceedings against Russia at the ICJ on the basis of two international treaties: the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (CERD), with regard to Crimea; and the International Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism (ICSFT), with regard to Donbas.

Under the CERD, Ukraine alleges Russia has carried out a policy of cultural eradication of ethnic Ukrainians and Crimean Tatars in Crimea, including enforced disappearances, no education in the Ukrainian and Crimean Tatar languages, and the ban of the Mejlis, the main representative body of the Crimean Tatars.

Under the ICSFT, Ukraine alleges Russia has supported terrorism by providing funds, weapons and training to illegal armed groups in eastern Ukraine. In particular Ukraine alleges Russian state responsibility - through its proxies - for downing the infamous MH17 flight.

Both these treaties are binding upon Ukraine and Russia and entitle an individual state party to refer a dispute concerning them to the ICJ, but certain procedural pre-conditions must first be exhausted. These include a failed attempt to settle a dispute either through negotiations or the CERD Committee (for the CERD) or unsuccessful negotiations and arbitration (for the ICSFT).

Russia challenged Ukraine’s compliance with the pre-conditions, but the ICJ disagreed with Russia’s submission that Ukraine had to resort both to negotiations and to the CERD Committee. For the first time, the court clarified these procedures under the CERD were two means to reach the same aim, and therefore alternative and not cumulative.

Requiring states to avail of both procedures before going to the ICJ would undermine the very purpose of the CERD to eliminate racial discrimination promptly, and ensure the availability of effective domestic protection and remedies.

The relevance of this clarification transcends the Ukraine-Russia dispute. With the rise of discriminatory practices, from populist hate-filled rhetoric endangering vulnerable communities to large-scale persecution such as that of the Rohingyas, the UN’s principal judicial body is sending a clear larger message to the world: such practices are unacceptable and must be dealt with expeditiously and efficiently. If states fail to do so, there are now fewer procedural impediments to do it internationally.

The ICJ also confirmed Ukraine had complied with both procedural preconditions under the ICSFT and that it would give judgement on the alleged failure of Russia to take measures to prevent the financing of terrorism. The outcome of this will be of great importance to the international community, given the general lack of international jurisprudence on issues of terrorism.

The court’s interpretation of knowledge and intent in terrorism financing, as well as clarification of the term ‘funds’, is particularly relevant both for the Ukraine-Russia case and for international law.

As the final judgement may take several years, the ICJ granted some provisional measures requested by Ukraine in April 2017. The court obliged Russia to ensure the availability of education in Ukrainian and enable the functioning of the Crimean Tatar representative institutions, including the Mejlis.

When Russia contested Ukraine’s references to the alleged Stalin-ordered deportation of the Crimean Tatars and the rule of law in the Soviet Union being hypocritical, by arguing that history did not matter, the court disagreed.

In fact, Judge James Crawford emphasised the relevance of the ‘historical persecution’ of Crimean Tatars and the role of Mejlis in advancing and protecting their rights in Crimea ‘at the time of disruption and change’.

These conclusions are important reminders that the historical inheritance of injustices inflicted on vulnerable groups should be taken into account when nations address their imperial legacies.

The court’s provisional measures and Judge Crawford’s position are particularly relevant in light of Russia’s policy of the total - territorial, historical, cultural – ‘russification’ of Crimea, as they highlight the role of the historical background for assessing the alleged discriminatory and prosecutorial policy of Russia’s occupying authorities against the Crimean Tatars.

The ICJ’s judgement on the merits of this as well as other human rights, and terrorism issues of Crimea and Donbas will be an important consideration for the international community in its view of the Russia-Ukraine armed conflict and the sanctions policy against Russia.

The development of this case also has a mutually catalysing impact on Ukraine’s efforts to establish those individually criminally responsible for atrocities in Crimea and Donbas, through domestic proceedings and through the International Criminal Court.

Ukraine’s attempts to seek individual criminal responsibility for gross abuses in Donbas and Crimea at the International Criminal Court (ICC) are assessed in part two of this series, coming soon.

International criminal justice provides a stark reminder that state sovereignty is not an absolute, and that the world’s most heinous crimes should be prosecuted at an international level, particularly where domestic systems lack the capacity or will to hold perpetrators to account. 

The post-Cold War period witnessed a dramatic rise in the number of international tribunals with jurisdiction over war crimes and serious human rights abuses in countries including Cambodia, East Timor, Rwanda, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Yugoslavia. With these processes approaching, or having reached the end of their dockets, many have called for the creation of new tribunals to address more recent conflicts, including the army crackdown in Myanmar in 2017 that resulted in evidence of crimes against humanity against the Rohingya. 

In January this year, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) imposed emergency provisional measures on Myanmar, instructing it to prevent genocidal violence against its Rohingya minority. But a final judgement is expected to take years and the ICJ has no way of enforcing these interim measures. Myanmar has already responded defiantly to international criticism. 

Model for justice

Myanmar is not the first country to face scrutiny for such crimes in Southeast Asia. The Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC), more commonly known as the Khmer Rouge Tribunal was established in 1997 to prosecute Khmer Rouge leaders for alleged violations of international law and serious crimes perpetrated during the Cambodian genocide. This provides an opportunity to consider whether the Tribunal can act as a ‘hybrid’ model for justice in the region. 

The first lesson that can be taken from the Cambodian context is that the state must have the political will and commitment to pursue accountability. It was indeed the Cambodian government itself, who requested international assistance from the United Nations (UN), to organize a process for holding trials. The initial recommendation of the UN-commissioned Group of Experts was for the trial to be held under UN control, in light of misgivings about Cambodia’s judicial system. Prime Minister Hun Sen rejected this assessment and in prolonged negotiations, continued to spearhead the need for domestic involvement (arguably, in order to circumscribe the search for justice). This eventually resulted in the creation of a hybrid body consisting of parallel international and Cambodian judges and prosecutors with supermajority decision-making rules.   

It is worth noting that the Hun Sen government initially chose to do business with former Khmer Rouge leaders, until it became more advantageous to embrace a policy of putting them on trial. It is possible to infer from this that there will be no impetus for action in Myanmar until it is domestically advantageous to do so. At present, this appetite is clearly lacking, demonstrated by de-facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi shying away from accountability and instead defending the government’s actions before the ICJ.

One unique aspect of the Khmer Rouge Tribunal has been the vast participation by the Cambodian people in witnessing the trials as well as widespread support for the tribunal. This speaks to the pent-up demand in Cambodia for accountability and the importance of local participation. While international moral pressure is clear, external actors cannot simply impose justice for the Rohingya when there is no domestic incentive or support to pursue this. The reality is that the anti-Rohingya campaign has galvanized popular support from the country’s Buddhist majority. What is more, the Rohingya are not even seen as part of Myanmar so there is an additional level of disenfranchisement.

Secondly, the Cambodian Tribunal illustrates the need for safeguards against local political interference. The ECCC was designed as national court with international participation. There was an agreement to act in accordance with international standards of independence and impartiality, but no safeguards in place against serious deficiencies in the Cambodian judicial system. Close alliances between judges and the ruling Cambodian People’s Party, as well as high levels of corruption meant the tribunal effectively gave Hun Sen’s government veto power over the court at key junctures. Despite the guise of a hybrid structure, the Cambodian government ultimately retained the ability to block further prosecutions and prevent witnesses from being called. 

In Myanmar, political interference could be a concern, but given there is no popular support for justice and accountability for crimes committed against the Rohingya, the prospects of a domestic or hybrid process remain unlikely. However, there are still international options. The investigation by the International Criminal Court (ICC) into crimes that may have taken place on the Myanmar–Bangladesh border represents a potential route for justice and accountability. The UN Human Rights Council has also recently established the Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar (IIMM), mandated to collect and preserve evidence, as well as to prepare files for future cases before criminal courts.

Finally, the Cambodian case illustrates the culture of impunity in the region. The ECCC was conceived partly as a showcase for international standards of justice, which would have a ‘contagion effect’ upon the wider Cambodian and regional justice systems. 

Cambodia was notorious for incidents in which well-connected and powerful people flouted the law. This culture of impunity was rooted in the failure of the government to arrest, try and punish the Khmer Rouge leadership. The Tribunal, in holding perpetrators of the worst crimes to account, sought to send a clear signal that lesser violations would not be tolerated in the same way. Arguably, it did not achieve this in practice as Cambodia still has a highly politicized judicial system with high levels of corruption and clear limits to judicial independence. 

What this illustrates is that the first step towards accountability is strengthening domestic institutions. The United Nation’s Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar has urged domestic authorities to embrace democracy and human rights, highlighting the need to reform the judicial system in order to ensure judicial independence, remove systemic barriers to accountability and build judicial and investigatory capacity in accordance with international standards. Based on this assessment, it is clear that domestic institutions are currently insufficiently independent to pursue accountability.

The ECCC, despite its shortcomings, does stand as proof that crimes against humanity will not go completely unpunished. However, a process does not necessarily equal justice. The region is littered with justice processes that never went anywhere: Indonesia, Nepal, and Sri Lanka. International recourse is also challenging in a region with low ratification of the ICC, and the absence of regional mechanisms like the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, the European Court of Human Rights, and the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights (although their remit is not mass atrocity prosecutions). 

The Cambodian case study illustrates the challenges of ensuring justice and accountability within the region. The end of impunity is critical to ensure peaceful societies, but a purely legalistic approach will fail unless it is supported by wider measures and safeguards. It is these challenges, that undermine the prospects for ensuring justice for the Rohingya within Myanmar.

A controversial debate during COVID-19 is the state of readiness within governments and health systems for a pandemic, with lines of the debate drawn on the issues of testing provision, personal protective equipment (PPE), and the speed of decision-making.

President Macron in a speech to the nation admitted French medical workers did not have enough PPE and that mistakes had been made: ‘Were we prepared for this crisis? We have to say that no, we weren’t, but we have to admit our errors … and we will learn from this’.

In reality few governments were fully prepared. In years to come, all will ask: ‘how could we have been better prepared, what did we do wrong, and what can we learn?’. But after every crisis, governments ask these same questions.

Most countries have put in place national risk assessments and established processes and systems to monitor and stress-test crisis-preparedness. So why have some countries been seemingly better prepared?

Comparing different approaches

Some have had more time and been able to watch the spread of the disease and learn from those countries that had it first. Others have taken their own routes, and there will be much to learn from comparing these different approaches in the longer run.

Governments in Asia have been strongly influenced by the experience of the SARS epidemic in 2002-3 and - South Korea in particular - the MERS-CoV outbreak in 2015 which was the largest outside the Middle East. Several carried out preparatory work in terms of risk assessment, preparedness measures and resilience planning for a wide range of threats.

Case Study of Preparedness: South Korea By 2007, South Korea had established the Division of Public Health Crisis Response in Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC) and, in 2016, the KCDC Center for Public Health Emergency Preparedness and Response had established a round-the-clock Emergency Operations Center with rapid response teams. KCDC is responsible for the distribution of antiviral stockpiles to 16 cities and provinces that are required by law to hold and manage antiviral stockpiles.

And, at the international level, there are frameworks for preparedness for pandemics. The International Health Regulations (IHR) - adopted at the 2005 World Health Assembly and binding on member states - require countries to report certain disease outbreaks and public health events to the World Health Organization (WHO) and ‘prevent, protect against, control and provide a public health response to the international spread of disease in ways that are commensurate with and restricted to public health risks, and which avoid unnecessary interference with international traffic and trade’.

Under IHR, governments committed to a programme of building core capacities including coordination, surveillance, response and preparedness. The UN Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk highlights disaster preparedness for effective response as one of its main purposes and has already incorporated these measures into the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and other Agenda 2030 initiatives. UN Secretary-General António Guterres has said COVID-19 ‘poses a significant threat to the maintenance of international peace and security’ and that ‘a signal of unity and resolve from the Council would count for a lot at this anxious time’.

Case Study of Preparedness: United States The National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Center for Disease Control (CDC) established PERRC – the Preparedness for Emergency Response Research Centers - as a requirement of the 2006 Pandemic and All-Hazards Preparedness Act, which required research to ‘improve federal, state, local, and tribal public health preparedness and response systems’. The 2006 Act has since been supplanted by the 2019 Pandemic and All-Hazards Preparedness and Advancing Innovation Act. This created the post of Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response (ASPR) in the Department for Health and Human Services (HHS) and authorised the development and acquisitions of medical countermeasures and a quadrennial National Health Security Strategy. The 2019 Act also set in place a number of measures including the requirement for the US government to re-evaluate several important metrics of the Public Health Emergency Preparedness cooperative agreement and the Hospital Preparedness Program, and a requirement for a report on the states of preparedness and response in US healthcare facilities.

This pandemic looks set to continue to be a grave threat to humanity. But there will also be future pandemics – whether another type of coronavirus or a new influenza virus – and our species will be threatened again, we just don’t know when.

Other disasters too will befall us – we already see the impacts of climate change arriving on our doorsteps characterised by increased numbers and intensity of floods, hurricanes, fires, crop failure and other manifestations of a warming, increasingly turbulent atmosphere and we will continue to suffer major volcanic eruptions, earthquakes and tsunamis. All high impact, unknown probability events.

Preparedness for an unknown future is expensive and requires a great deal of effort for events that may not happen within the preparers’ lifetimes. It is hard to imagine now, but people will forget this crisis, and revert to their imagined projections of the future where crises don’t occur, and progress follows progress. But history shows us otherwise.

Preparations for future crises always fall prey to financial cuts and austerity measures in lean times unless there is a mechanism to prevent that. Cost-benefit analyses will understandably tend to prioritise the urgent over the long-term. So governments should put in place legislation – or strengthen existing legislation – now to ensure their countries are as prepared as possible for whatever crisis is coming.

Such a legal requirement would require governments to report back to parliament every year on the state of their national preparations detailing such measures as:

• The exact levels of stocks of essential materials (including medical equipment)
• The ability of hospitals to cope with large influx of patients
• How many drills, exercises and simulations had been organised – and their findings
• What was being done to implement lessons learned & improve preparedness

In addition, further actions should be taken:

• Parliamentary committees such as the UK Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy should scrutinise the government’s readiness for the potential threats outlined in the National Risk register for Civil Emergencies in-depth on an annual basis.
• Parliamentarians, including ministers, with responsibility for national security and resilience should participate in drills, table-top exercises and simulations to see for themselves the problems inherent with dealing with crises.
• All governments should have a minister (or equivalent) with the sole responsibility for national crisis preparedness and resilience. The Minister would be empowered to liaise internationally and coordinate local responses such as local resilience groups.
• There should be ring-fenced budget lines in annual budgets specifically for preparedness and resilience measures, annually reported on and assessed by parliaments as part of the due diligence process.

And at the international level:

• The UN Security Council should establish a Crisis Preparedness Committee to bolster the ability of United Nations Member States to respond to international crisis such as pandemics, within their borders and across regions. The Committee would function in a similar fashion as the Counter Terrorism Committee that was established following the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the United States.
• States should present reports on their level of preparedness to the UN Security Council. The Crisis Preparedness Committee could establish a group of experts who would conduct expert assessments of each member state’s risks and preparedness and facilitate technical assistance as required.
• Regional bodies such as the OSCE, ASEAN and ARF, the AU, the OAS, the PIF etc could also request national reports on crisis preparedness for discussion and cooperation at the regional level.

COVID-19 has been referred to as the 9/11 of crisis preparedness and response. Just as that shocking terrorist attack shifted the world and created a series of measures to address terrorism, we now recognise our security frameworks need far more emphasis on being prepared and being resilient. Whatever has been done in the past, it is clear that was nowhere near enough and that has to change.

Case Study of Preparedness: The UK The National Risk Register was first published in 2008 as part of the undertakings laid out in the National Security Strategy (the UK also published the Biological Security Strategy in July 2018). Now entitled the National Risk Register for Civil Emergencies it has been updated regularly to analyse the risks of major emergencies that could affect the UK in the next five years and provide resilience advice and guidance. The latest edition - produced in 2017 when the UK had a Minister for Government Resilience and Efficiency - placed the risk of a pandemic influenza in the ‘highly likely and most severe’ category. It stood out from all the other identified risks, whereas an emerging disease (such as COVID-19) was identified as ‘highly likely but with moderate impact’. However, much preparatory work for an influenza pandemic is the same as for COVID-19, particularly in prepositioning large stocks of PPE, readiness within large hospitals, and the creation of new hospitals and facilities. One key issue is that the 2017 NHS Operating Framework for Managing the Response to Pandemic Influenza was dependent on pre-positioned ’just in case’ stockpiles of PPE. But as it became clear the PPE stocks were not adequate for the pandemic, it was reported that recommendations about the stockpile by NERVTAG (the New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group which advises the government on the threat posed by new and emerging respiratory viruses) had been subjected to an ‘economic assessment’ and decisions reversed on, for example, eye protection. The UK chief medical officer Dame Sally Davies, when speaking at the World Health Organization about Operation Cygnus – a 2016 three-day exercise on a flu pandemic in the UK – reportedly said the UK was not ready for a severe flu attack and ‘a lot of things need improving’. Aware of the significance of the situation, the UK Parliamentary Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy launched an inquiry in 2019 on ‘Biosecurity and human health: preparing for emerging infectious diseases and bioweapons’ which intended to coordinate a cross-government approach to biosecurity threats. But the inquiry had to postpone its oral hearings scheduled for late October 2019 and, because of the general election in December 2019, the committee was obliged to close the inquiry.

In April 2020, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres called for a global ceasefire in order for communities and states to focus efforts on responding to the coronavirus outbreak. The consequences of armed conflict – including displacement, detention, lack of access to health services and disrupted social infrastructures – mean that those in conflict-ridden areas are amongst the most vulnerable to the virus. Observing international humanitarian law (IHL) could be one way of safeguarding against, at least, the provision of vital medical supplies and personnel for vulnerable groups. Against the backdrop of a growing health and economic emergency that is otherwise dominating government agendas, how do we emphasise the importance of humanitarian action and guarantee - or improve - compliance?

The panellists will discuss the remit and limitations of international humanitarian law and how the pandemic might complicate compliance. What is the framework for humanitarian action under international humanitarian law? What are the challenges to delivering relief? And how has COVID-19 impacted humanitarian action in conflict-ridden areas?

This event is for Chatham House members only. Not a member? Find out more.

When powerful liberal democratic states are found to be complicit in extreme violations of human rights, how do they respond and why do they respond as they do? Drawing on the example of the United Kingdom's complicity in torture since 9/11, this article demonstrates how reluctant the UK has been to permit a full reckoning with its torturous past. We demonstrate that successive UK governments engaged in various forms of denial, obfuscation and attempts to obstruct investigation and avoid accountability. The net effect of their responses has been to deny the victims redress, through adequate judicial processes, and to deny the public adequate state accountability. These responses are not simply aimed at shielding from prosecution the perpetrators and those who have oversight of them, nor preventing political embarrassment. The various forms of denial and obstruction are also designed to ensure that collusion can continue uninterrupted. A core concern of intelligence officials and ministers has been to prevent any process that would lead to a comprehensive prohibition on involvement in operations where torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment are a real possibility. The door remains wide open, and deliberately so, for British involvement in torture.

Video: Marianne Schneider-Petsinger and Dr Yu Jie discuss key themes from the research paper

Summary

• The underlying driver of the ongoing US–China trade war is a race for global technological dominance. President Trump has raised a number of issues regarding trade with China – including the US’s trade deficit with China and the naming of China as a currency manipulator. But at the heart of the ongoing tariff escalation are China’s policies and practices regarding forced technology transfer, intellectual property theft and non-market distortions.
• As China’s international influence has expanded it has always been unlikely that Beijing would continue to accept existing global standards and institutions established and widely practised by developed countries based on ‘the Washington Consensus’.
• China’s desire to be an alternative champion of technology standard-setting remains unfulfilled. Its ample innovation talent is a solid foundation in its quest for global technology supremacy but tightening controls over personal freedoms could undermine it and deter potential global partners.
• It is unclear if Chinese government interventions will achieve the technological self-sufficiency Beijing has long desired. China’s approach to macroeconomic management diverges significantly from that of the US and other real market economies, particularly in its policy towards nurturing innovation.
• Chinese actors are engaged in the globalization of technological innovation through exports and imports of high-tech goods and services; cross-border investments in technology companies and research and development (R&D) activities; cross-border R&D collaboration; and international techno-scientific research collaboration.
• While the Chinese state pushes domestic companies and research institutes to engage in the globalization of technological innovation, its interventions in the high-tech sector have caused uneasiness in the West.
• The current US response to its competition with China for technological supremacy, which leans towards decoupling, is unlikely to prove successful. The US has better chances of success if it focuses on America’s own competitiveness, works on common approaches to technology policy with like-minded partners around the globe and strengthens the international trading system.
• A technically sound screening mechanism of foreign investment can prevent normal cross-border collaboration in technological innovation from being misused by geopolitical rival superpowers.

2019 has seen a record number of people migrating from Central America’s Northern Triangle – an area that covers El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras. Estimates from June 2019 have placed the number of migrants at nearly double of what they were in 2018 with the increase in numbers stemming from a lack of economic opportunity combined with a rise in crime and insecurity in the region. The impacts of migration can already be felt within the affected states as the exodus has played a significant role in weakening labour markets and contributing to a ‘brain drain’ in the region. It has also played an increasingly active role in the upcoming US presidential election with some calling for more security on the border to curb immigration while others argue that a more effective strategy is needed to address the sources of migration. 

What are the core causes of Central American migration and how have the US, Central American and now also Mexican governments facilitated and deterred migration from the region? Can institutions be strengthened to alleviate the causes of migration? And what possible policy alternatives and solutions are there that could alleviate the pressures individuals and communities feel to migrate?   

Anita Isaacs, professor of Political Science at Haverford College and co-director of the Migration Encounters Project, and Juan Ricard Ortega, principal advisor for Central America at the Inter-American Development Bank, will join us for a discussion on the core drivers of migration within and across Central America.

Attendance at this event is by invitation only. 

The forum aims to develop substantive and actionable policy recommendations for the future direction of global trade in a context of changing geopolitical dynamics and rapid technological transformations.

At the core of the Chatham House Global Trade Policy Forum will be the Chatham House Global Trade Conference, a series of roundtable meetings which address the range of regional and systemic trade matters, and a series of written outputs. The activities will culminate in an annual Global Trade Policy Review Briefing paper.

Our unique position in London, and as a world-leading source of independent analysis and with unparalleled convening capacity, enables Chatham House to engage with a committed network of action-oriented policymakers, business leaders, academics, and representatives from the media and civil society to develop trade policy insights. We are committed to the promotion of sustainable growth and more inclusive governance.

The forum’s work is supported by AIG (founding partner), Clifford Chance LLP, Diageo plc, and EY (supporting partners).

View our current work on International Trade and the World Trade Organization (WTO).

 

On Thursday, the US House of Representatives passed a resolution affirming its authority under the War Powers Resolution Act, and reminding the president, the American people and the world that when it comes to the use of military force, Congress must be taken into account. 

President Donald Trump replied by retweeting John Bolton, his former national security advisor, who tweeted that the War Powers Act was ‘unconstitutional’, effectively dismissing Congressional efforts to rein in the president.

This round of legal Twitter diplomacy came days after the president tweeted that ‘legal notice (to Congress) is not required, but it is given nevertheless’ and that ‘should Iran strike any US person or target, the United States will quickly and fully strike back, and perhaps in a disproportionate manner.’ 

President Trump’s overt attacks on Congressional authority and disregard for the law are not normal for a US president, but legal constraints over the president’s authority to use military force have been eroding for several years.

In 1973, Congress passed the War Powers Act, requiring the president to report to Congress and acquire Congressional approval for continued overseas troop deployments. But Congressional authority over the use of military force has continued to diminish, especially since the 9/11 attacks. 

Now, Congress is pushing back – a resolution similar to that passed by the House is likely to be voted on by the Senate soon. Given the intense frustration of some senators over the president’s handling of the current conflict, this resolution may pass, though the president is still likely to veto. 

The bigger problem, of which this is one part, is the expansion of executive authority, and it predates this presidency. Many argue that executive power is greatest on matters of foreign policy, and that in this domain the US president is unconstrained. As partisanship has increased and the demands on Congress have made it harder for its members to cultivate foreign policy expertise, the power of the president has grown.

So the fact that Congress is taking active steps to check the president’s power not only on the question of impeachment, but also on foreign policy, is significant, even if the law is not likely to restrain President Trump. But Congress is also playing a long game. And its growing determination to assert its authority matters not only for this presidency, but also for the future.

Political constraints

In the short term, other constraints matter more. Even if President Trump rejects legal restraints – and shuns diplomatic pressure that might have mattered to other presidents – he is not impervious to political restraint.

Already there are signs that Trump listens to his key Republican allies in Congress. When Senator Lindsay Graham pushed back against the president’s threat to attack cultural heritage sites in Iran, and the Pentagon failed to shore up the president’s threat, the president changed his position. The threats also provoked an overwhelming response in Europe, and across the Middle East, but the president has shown that he is willing to disregard international admonishment. Not so for domestic allies.

Nor is this the first time that Senator Graham’s views have mattered. When the president announced his decision to pull troops from northeast Syria, effectively abandoning the Kurds, a key partner to the US in its fight against ISIS, Senator Graham and Senator Mitch McConnell pushed back and it mattered. 

Public opinion also matters to the president, especially Republican public opinion, and this is likely to affect the president’s next steps. Recent polls suggest that Americans feel less safe as a result of the killing of General Qassem Soleimani by a considerable margin of 55% to 24%.

But the same survey also shows that a majority of Americans support the decision to kill Soleimani. Already Vice President Mike Pence has spoken at a rally in Ohio designed to bolster support for this Presidential action.  

So what might change public opinion and will this alter the president’s future steps?

Americans are very reluctant to support further deployments of troops overseas. President Trump knows this and he has consistently stated that he seeks to pull US troops out of the Middle East.

In fact, the opposite has happened. And once again, the decision to kill General Soleimani is pulling the US further into the Middle East and putting into stark light the inconsistency of Trump’s foreign policy ambitions. In recent days, the United States has committed to sending thousands of troops to the region.

Continued US troop deployments may not play well with Trump’s base, though they currently support his Iran policy. But absent an obvious justification, this could change, so it is not surprising that this has become a rallying point for Vice President Pence.

An even greater political risk, and one that will matter to the president, is the risk to US military personnel and civilians overseas. Public support for the killing of Soleimani and increased US presence in the region is bound to dissipate if Americans are killed.

But it isn’t clear how the president will respond, and already the death of one American in the militia attack on 27 December seems to have been a critical factor in Trump’s decision to authorize the assassination of General Soleimani.  

So far, Iran’s response appears to be calibrated to avoid this kind of public backlash, and keep the door open to some sort of managed resolution of the current crisis.

But the considerable risk of miscalculation and mistakes has already been born out. A week after the killing of Soleimani, the world is tuning in to the tragic news that a civilian airliner departing Iran for Ukraine appears to have been accidentally shot down by an Iranian missile, resulting in the deaths of all 176 people on board, including 82 Iranians and 63 Canadians.

Whether the US president is constrained is a critical question for Americans, for US democracy and for the rest of the world. Trump is different, but he is not unconstrained. Steps taken by Congress along with diplomatic and political pressure mean he is still operating within boundaries. But it is clear that these boundaries are being redefined.

Conventional wisdom says that foreign policy takes a backseat role in US elections. But last autumn’s Democratic primary debates suggest a potential shift is taking place in the conventional view. While healthcare dominated the discussion (Democrats attribute their 2018 midterm gains to the issue), through November foreign policy followed closely behind in second place in terms of minutes devoted to the discussion.

This trend is consistent with President Donald Trump’s America First approach to foreign policy, in which an eye is always kept on how decisions abroad play for the domestic audience. One former Trump administration official has called this dynamic the ‘recoupling’ of foreign policy with domestic policy.

The US–China trade conflict, which commanded headlines throughout 2019, is perhaps the best example of this recoupling, tying trade imbalances less with the geopolitical than with domestic impact on farmers. Immigration is another policy area in which Trump has linked domestic implications and indeed domestic opinion with foreign policy. It’s in the title: America First.

Now, for better or worse, the targeted killing of Qassem Soleimani, Iran’s response and the subsequent fallout may make US foreign policy towards Iran and the US role in the Middle East a central issue for the 2020 US elections. As it comes just ahead of the Democratic presidential primaries, voters will be looking to the candidates to differentiate their foreign policy experience and proposals for America’s Middle East policy.

To President Donald Trump, Soleimani’s assassination represents a campaign promise kept to confront Iran’s aggression.

The Trump administration initially justified the action by citing intelligence of an imminent threat to US personnel and targets, but after Defense Secretary Mark Esper called this into question, Trump tweeted that ‘it doesn’t really matter because of [Soleimani’s] horrible past’. Ultimately, Trump’s message, on the campaign trail and any general debate stage he agrees to be on, is that he has overseen a new national security strategy for Iran.

Soleimani’s removal from the Iranian calculus is just a part of this broader policy, which also includes neutralizing the Iranian government’s destabilizing influence in the Middle East, denying Iran and especially the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ access to funding for its malign activities, and rallying the international community against domestic human rights violations and unjust detentions.

To counter Trump, Democrats and democratic presidential candidates would be best-served by offering a simple argument that too links domestic interests and foreign policy: the killing of Soleimani and Trump’s national security strategy for Iran have not made the US or its interests safer.

Iran’s ballistic missile attack on US forces in Iraq, which Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei called a ‘slap in the face’ for the US, makes the risks to US assets and personnel abundantly clear. Even if Iran reverts entirely to covert, proxy efforts to counter US interests, the current US–Iran tensions remain unresolved and will likely continue to persist through the 2020 elections in November.

As a matter of the first order, Soleimani was replaced by his deputy Brigadier General Esmail Ghaani within a day of the former’s death, with Khamenei saying that the Quds Force will be ‘unchanged’.

At the second order, Iraq’s parliament voted in favour of a nonbinding resolution to rescind the invitation to US forces, which led Trump to threaten sanctions and demands for reimbursement. Whether US troops will ultimately leave Iraq (following a ‘mistaken’ report that the US was preparing to depart) remains to be seen, but the destabilization of the US military presence in Iraq fulfils a key Iranian objective.

In the interim, the US-led coalition in Iraq and Syria fighting ISIS announced that it would at least temporarily cease its counterterrorism efforts to instead fortify its outposts and prepare for Iranian retaliation, opening a wider door for the resurgence of the terror group.

By arguing that the US, its troops and interest have not been made safer by Trump’s Middle East policy – from withdrawing from the Iran nuclear deal to the imposition of a ‘maximum pressure campaign’ to Soleimani’s killing – Democrats will be able to point to every post-Soleimani US injury, death, regional terrorism attack, asset compromise, cyberattack and shipping disruption as evidence.

Democratic presidential candidates also ought to be explicit about how they plan to manage tensions with Iran – strategic, diplomatic and military – particularly their position on the future of the nuclear deal.

Iran has made clear that the path to de-escalation is through sanctions relief. Asserting leverage need not always involve taking away all of your counterparty’s options (‘maximum pressure’). It also involves knowing what your adversary wants (sanctions relief) and showing a willingness to offer it (especially where it means less to you) in exchange for something of greater worth (avoiding war/a non-nuclear Iran).

Clarity around future policy of a potential Democratic president may bring de-escalation forward in a way that Trump’s statement of Iran standing down are unlikely to do.

In the aftermath of World War II, the United States cemented its role as the leader of a new global order, characterized by the creation of international institutions and treaties like the United Nations and North Atlantic Treaty Organization. More recently, however, the United States has appeared to take an inward turn, a trend which has been mirrored across the globe and has led to the international order being challenged more now than ever before.

As the Trump administration and US members of Congress attempt to address multiple challenges from a rising China and a disruptive Russia to a nuclear North Korea and shifting Middle East, Senator Chris Coons will offer his vision for restoring American leadership on the world stage.What is the role of Congress in setting and shaping US foreign policy?  How will the outcome of the consequential 2020 elections shape the future of America’s global role? Would a change in administration necessarily increase prospects of American reengagement, and if so, across which international spheres?

There are two well-established ideas in trade. Individually, they are correct. Combined, they can lead to a conclusion that is unfortunately wrong.

The first idea is that, across a range of economic sectors, the EU and the US have been engaged in a battle to have their model of regulation accepted as the global one, and that the EU is generally winning.

The second is that governments can use their regulatory power to extend strategic and foreign policy influence.

The conclusion would seem to be that the EU, which has for decades tried to develop a foreign policy, should be able to use its superpower status in regulation and trade to project its interests and its values abroad.

That’s the theory. It’s a proposition much welcomed by EU policymakers, who know they are highly unlikely any time soon to acquire any of the tools usually required to run an effective foreign policy.

The EU doesn’t have an army it can send into a shooting war, enough military or political aid to prop up or dispense of governments abroad, or a centralized intelligence service. Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has declared her outfit to be a ‘geopolitical commission’, and is casting about for any means of making that real.

Through the ‘Brussels effect’ whereby European rules and standards are exported via both companies and governments, the EU has indeed won many regulatory battles with the US.

Its cars, chemicals and product safety regulations are more widely adopted round the world than their American counterparts. In the absence of any coherent US offering, bar some varied state-level systems, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is the closest thing the world has to a single model for data privacy, and variants of it are being adopted by dozens of countries.

The problem is this. Those parts of global economic governance where the US is dominant – particularly the dollar payments system – are highly conducive to projecting US power abroad. The extraterritorial reach of secondary sanctions, plus the widespread reliance of banks and companies worldwide on dollar funding – and hence the American financial system – means that the US can precisely target its influence.

The EU can enforce trade sanctions, but not in such a powerful and discriminatory way, and it will always be outgunned by the US. Donald Trump could in effect force European companies to join in his sanctions on Iran when he pulled out of the nuclear deal, despite EU legislation designed to prevent their businesses being bullied. He can go after the chief financial officer of Huawei for allegedly breaching those sanctions.

By contrast, the widespread adoption of GDPR or data protection regimes inspired by it may give the EU a warm glow of satisfaction, but it cannot be turned into a geopolitical tool in the same way.

Nor, necessarily, does it particularly benefit the EU economy. Europe’s undersized tech sector seems unlikely to unduly benefit from the fact that data protection rules were written in the EU. Indeed, one common criticism of the regulations is that they entrench the power of incumbent tech giants like Google.

There is a similar pattern at work in the adoption of new technologies such as artificial intelligence and the Internet of Things. In that field, the EU and its member states are also facing determined competition from China, which has been pushing its technologies and standards through forums such as the International Telecommunication Union.

The EU has been attempting to write international rules for the use of AI which it hopes to be widely adopted. But again, these are a constraint on the use of new technologies largely developed by others, not the control of innovation.

By contrast, China has created a vast domestic market in technologies like facial recognition and unleashed its own companies on it. The resulting surveillance kit can then be marketed to emerging market governments as part of China’s enduring foreign policy campaign to build up supporters in the developing world.

If it genuinely wants to turn its economic power into geopolitical influence – and it’s not entirely clear what it would do with it if it did – the EU needs to recognize that not all forms of regulatory and trading dominance are the same.

Providing public goods to the world economy is all very well. But unless they are so particular in nature that they project uniquely European values and interests, that makes the EU a supplier of useful plumbing but not a global architect of power.

On the other hand, it could content itself with its position for the moment. It could recognize that not until enough hard power – guns, intelligence, money – is transferred from the member states to the centre, or until the member states start acting collectively, will the EU genuinely become a geopolitical force. Speaking loudly and carrying a stick of foam rubber is rarely a way to gain credibility in international relations.

This article is part of a series of publications and roundtable discussions in the Chatham House Global Trade Policy Forum.

The end of 2018 was a monumental year for Latin America’s two biggest economies. In December 2018, Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) was inaugurated as Mexico’s 58th president. The following month saw another political shift further south, as Jair Bolsonaro became Brazil’s 38th president. While sitting on opposite ends of the political spectrum, both AMLO and Bolsonaro were considered to be political outsiders and have upended the status quo through their election to office. 

To what extent does the election of AMLO in Mexico and Bolsonaro in Brazil represent a shift in those countries’ definitions of national interest and foreign policy priorities? How will this affect these states’ policies regarding international commitments and cooperation on issues such as human rights, environment and climate change, migration, and trade? To what extent do possible shifts reflect changing domestic opinions?  Will any changes represent a long-term shift in state priorities and policies past these administrations?

The US 2020 election season enters a potentially decisive next phase with the Super Tuesday primaries on 3 March. With these fifteen, simultaneously-held state elections, the Democrats hope to have greater clarity about their party’s likely nominee for the general race against President Donald Trump in November. Concerns around intraparty divisions in the Democratic party between progressives (represented by Senators Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders) and moderates (represented by former Vice President Joe Biden and former mayor Pete Buttigieg) have surrounded the primary races so far, and are unlikely to dissipate even if one candidate emerges from the field on 3 March.

Against this backdrop, Chatham House brings together a panel of experts to discuss the state of the Democratic primary race, implications for the general election, and the Trump campaign’s priorities ahead of its re-election bid. Will the Democratic party resolve its divisions and unite behind a progressive or moderate in light of the Super Tuesday election results? How is Trump positioned to fair against the Democratic candidates left in the race? Did Former Mayor of New York Michael Bloomberg’s primary gamble to focus on Super Tuesday pay off? And what policy priorities are likely to be pursued under either a Trump 2.0 or a Democratic administration?

Chatham House, the Council on Foreign Relations and Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service were founded after the close of World War I amid study of and debate about how to preserve international peace and extend liberal democracy in the aftermath of war. To mark the joint centennials of these three leading institutions for the study of international affairs, the Lloyd George Study Group was created in 2020 to discuss and debate the challenges of promoting global order. Supported by the Lloyd George family, the initiative honors British Prime Minister David Lloyd George and his role in guiding World War I to a close and crafting a new post-war order. 

This high-level meeting of the Lloyd George Study Group on Global Order brings together thought leaders from think tanks and universities to consider alternative approaches to promoting global stability in the twenty-first century.

This event is part of a series, held in the context of the Chatham House Centenary in 2020, bringing together historians, practitioners and current policymakers to discuss contemporary problems of international relations.

Trade and investment between the UK and Latin America is woefully underdeveloped. Latin America’s agricultural powerhouses Brazil and Argentina only accounted for a total of 1.6% of the UK’s agricultural market across eight sectors in 2018, all of those areas in which Argentina and Brazil have substantial comparative advantages. 

Conversely, UK exports to the large Latin American economies remain far below their potential.  To cite a few examples, in 2018 in the electrical equipment sector, the UK only exported $95.7 million of those products to Brazil, making the ninth largest economy in the world only the 42nd export market for those goods from the UK; Mexico only imported $91.4 million of UK-made electrical goods, placing it directly behind Brazil as UK’s market for those goods.

As we look to the future, any improvement to the relationship will depend on two factors: 1) how the UK leaves the EU and 2) whether Latin American agricultural producers can improve their environmental practices and can meet the production standards established by the EU and likely maintained by a potential post-Brexit Britain.

In the first meeting of the working group,  Chatham House convened a range of policymakers, practitioners and academics to explore this topic in depth, identify the key issues driving this trend, and begin to consider how improvements might best be made. Subsequent meetings will focus on specific sectors in commerce and investment.

We would like to thank BTG Pactual, Cairn Energy plc, Diageo, Equinor, Fresnillo Management Services, HSBC Holdings plc and Wintershall Dea for their generous support of the Latin America Initiative.

As coronavirus spreads across the globe, states grapple to find the ideal strategy for coping with the global pandemic. And, in China, Singapore, South Korea, the US, the UK, and Europe, divergent policies are a product of state capacity and legal authority, but they also reveal competing views about the optimal role of centralized state authority, federalism, and the private sector.

Although it is too soon to know the longer-term effects, the apparent capacity of centralized state authority in China, South Korea and Singapore to respond effectively and rapidly is making headlines. In the United States, the opposite has been true. 

America’s response is being shaped by its federal structure, a dynamic private sector, and a culture of civic engagement. In the three weeks since the first US case of coronavirus was confirmed, state leaders, public health institutions, corporations, universities and churches have been at the vanguard of the nation’s effort to mitigate its spread.

Images of safety workers in hazmat suits disinfecting offices of multinational corporations and university campuses populate American Facebook pages. The contrast to the White House effort to manage the message, downplay, then rapidly escalate its estimation of the crisis is stark.

Bewildering response

For European onlookers, the absence of a clear and focused response from the White House is bewildering. By the time President Donald Trump declared a national emergency, several state emergencies had already been called, universities had shifted to online learning, and churches had begun to close.

By contrast, in Italy, France, Spain and Germany, the state has led national efforts to shutter borders and schools. In the UK, schools are largely remaining open as Prime Minister Boris Johnson has declared a strategy defined by herd immunity, which hinges on exposing resilient populations to the virus.

But America has never shared Europe’s conviction that the state must lead. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention, the leading national public health institute and a US federal agency, has attempted to set a benchmark for assessing the crisis and advising the nation. But in this instance, its response has been slowed due to faults in the initial tests it attempted to rollout. The Federal Reserve has moved early to cut interest rates and cut them again even further this week.

But states were the real first movers in America’s response and have been using their authority to declare a state of emergency independent of the declaration of a national emergency. This has allowed states to mobilize critical resources, and to pressure cities into action. After several days delay and intense public pressure, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo forced New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio to close the city’s schools.

Declarations of state emergencies by individual states have given corporations, universities and churches the freedom and legitimacy to move rapidly, and ahead of the federal government, to halt the spread in their communities.

Washington state was the first to declare a state of emergency. Amazon, one of the state’s leading employers, quickly announced a halt to all international travel and, alongside Microsoft, donated $1million to a rapid-response Seattle-based emergency funds. States have nudged their corporations to be first movers in the sector’s coronavirus response. But corporations have willingly taken up the challenge, often getting ahead of state as well as federal action.

Google moved rapidly to announce a move allowing employees to work from home after California declared a state of emergency. Facebook soon followed with an even more stringent policy, insisting employees work from home. Both companies have also met with World Health Organization (WHO) officials to talk about responses, and provided early funding for WHO’s Solidarity Response Fund set up in partnership with the UN Foundation and the Swiss Philanthropy Foundation.

America’s leading research universities, uniquely positioned with in-house public health and legal expertise, have also been driving preventive efforts. Just days after Washington declared a state of emergency, the University of Washington became the first to announce an end to classroom teaching and move courses online. A similar pattern followed at Stanford, Harvard, Princeton and Columbia - each also following the declaration of a state of emergency.

In addition, the decision by the Church of the Latter Day Saints to cancel its services worldwide followed Utah’s declaration of a state of emergency.

The gaping hole in the US response has been the national government. President Trump’s declaration of a national emergency came late, and his decision to ban travel from Europe but - at least initially - exclude the UK, created uncertainty and concern that the White House response is as much driven by politics as evidence.

This may soon change, as the House of Representatives has passed a COVID-19 response bill that the Senate will consider. These moves are vital to supporting state and private efforts to mobilize an effective response to a national and global crisis.

Need for public oversight

In the absence of greater coordination and leadership from the centre, the US response will pale in comparison to China’s dramatic moves to halt the spread. The chaos across America’s airports shows the need for public oversight. As New York State Governor Cuomo pleaded for federal government support to build new hospitals, he said: ‘I can’t do it. You can’t leave it to the states.'

When it comes to global pandemics, we may be discovering that authoritarian states can have a short-term advantage, but already Iran’s response demonstrates that this is not universally the case. Over time, the record across authoritarian states as they tackle the coronavirus will become more apparent, and it is likely to be mixed.

Open societies remain essential. Prevention requires innovation, creativity, open sharing of information, and the ability to inspire and mobilize international cooperation. The state is certainly necessary, but it is not sufficient alone.

This event is part of the Inaugural Virtual Roundtable Series on the US, Americas and the State of the World and will take place virtually only.  Participants should not come to Chatham House for these events.

This event is part of the Inaugural Virtual Roundtable Series on the US, Americas and the State of the World and will take place virtually only.  Participants should not come to Chatham House for these events.

This event is part of the Inaugural Virtual Roundtable Series on the US, Americas and the State of the World and will take place virtually only.  Participants should not come to Chatham House for these events

This event is part of the Inaugural Virtual Roundtable Series on the US, Americas and the State of the World and will take place virtually only.  Participants should not come to Chatham House for these events.

This event is part of the Inaugural Virtual Roundtable Series on the US, Americas and the State of the World and will take place virtually only.

This  event is  part of the US and Americas Programme Inaugural Virtual Roundtable Series on the US and the State of the World and will take place virtually only.

Please note this event is taking place between 2pm to 3pm BST. 

This event is  part of the Chatham House Global Trade Policy Forum and will take place virtually only.

We would like to take this opportunity to thank founding partner AIG and supporting partners Clifford Chance LLP, Diageo plc, and EY for their generous support of the Chatham House Global Trade Policy Forum.

Please note this event is taking place between 2pm to 3pm BST. 

Global trade and the WTO – which has been at the heart of the rules-based international trade system since its creation in 1995 – faced a critical moment even before COVID-19. The Appellate Body’s demise in December 2019 led to a renewed focus on the future of the WTO. But the challenges facing the WTO run deeper than that – the organization has lost relevance as a negotiation forum, resulting in the global trade rules not having kept pace with changes in technology and the rise of China. While the WTO provides a forum for international cooperation to address the trade fallout from COVID-19, what implications will the pandemic have for the long-term reform of the global trade system?

Both the US and EU have proposed various WTO reform strategies and taken steps towards collaboration, but is a transatlantic partnership for WTO reform feasible? Do the US and EU believe that a rules-based international trade system is in their interest – especially in light of COVID-19? What are the biggest issues dividing the US and EU on reforming the WTO, and is there a common assessment of the key problems? What steps can the US and EU take to address the dispute settlement function of the WTO and to modernize the trade rules? Are there broader issues, such as environmental and social sustainability, that should be included in a transatlantic agenda for WTO reform?

This event is  part of the Chatham House Global Trade Policy Forum and will take place virtually only.

We would like to take this opportunity to thank founding partner AIG and supporting partners Clifford Chance LLP, Diageo plc, and EY for their generous support of the Chatham House Global Trade Policy Forum.

This event is part of the Chatham House Global Trade Policy Forum and will take place virtually only.

International trade has a crucial role to play in tackling climate change. The production and transport of goods is a major contributor to green-house gas emissions, as is the delivery of certain cross-border services. At the same time, it looks inevitable that the COVID-19 pandemic will lead to a radical re-think of global supply chains as companies and governments seek to build in greater resilience while at the same time preserving as far as possible the efficiency gains and lower costs that global supply chains generate when operating normally.

Future international trade rules will have a crucial role to play in addressing both challenges; they represent both an opportunity and a risk. If designed well, they could play a very important role in re-enforcing moves towards a more sustainable use of resources, greater overall alignment of economies with the Paris Agreement, and greater economic resilience. But they could also, if poorly designed and implemented, or overly influenced by strategic political considerations, have significant unintended and negative implications. These include: reduced economic efficiency, increased poverty, unnecessary economic decoupling and reduced consensus on the broader mitigation and adaptation measures required to meet the challenge of climate change.

Against this background, a number of key questions arise: In what areas, if any, do we need to modify or adapt key principles underlying the system of global trade rules in order to respond to the twin challenges of responding to climate change and building greater economic resilience?  Which are the most promising/practical areas on which trade policy experts should focus now to re-launch/re-energize discussions on WTO reform, including, for example, dispute settlement? What national economic policies will be needed to complement the development of new/reformed trade disciplines in these areas? How might future political changes, such as a change in the US administration, affect the prospects for and political momentum behind such deliberations? What in any eventuality is the best way to build the required political momentum?
 
This roundtable is convened by the Global Economy and Finance Programme and the US and the Americas Programme and it is part of the Chatham House Global Trade Policy Forum. The event will take place virtually only.

We would like to take this opportunity to thank founding partner AIG and supporting partners Clifford Chance LLP, Diageo plc, and EY for their generous support of the Chatham House Global Trade Policy Forum.

Please note this event is taking place between 2pm to 3pm BST.

This event is part of the US and Americas Programme Inaugural Virtual Roundtable Series on the US and the State of the World and will take place virtually only.

This event will take place from 14:00 – 15:00 BST.