The tension between global public procurement law and nationalist/populist tendencies: proposals for reform
| Autor | Javier Miranzo-Díaz |
| Cargo | Professor of Administrative and Public Procurement Law at the University of Granada (Granada, España) and at the University of Castilla-La Mancha (Cuenca, España) |
| Páginas | 355-400 |
Licenciado sob uma Licença Creative Commons
Licensed under Creative Commons
The tension between global public procurement law and
nationalist/populist tendencies: proposals for reform*
A tensão entre o direito global de compras públicas e as
tendências nacionalistas/populistas: propostas de reforma
JAVIER MIRANZODÍAZ I, II, **
I University of Granada (Granada, España)
II University of Castilla-La Mancha (Cuenca, España)
javier.miranzo@uclm.es
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3186-2848
Recebido/Received: 18.06.2020 / June 18th, 2020
Aprovado/Approved: 30.10.2020 / October 30th, 2020
Rev. Investig. Const., Curitiba, vol. 7, n. 2, p. 355-400, maio/ago. 2020. 355
Revista de Investigações Constitucionais
ISSN 2359-5639
DOI: 10.5380/rinc.v7i2.74570
Como citar esse artigo/How to cite this article: MIRANZO-DÍAZ, Javier. The tension between global public procurement law
and nationalist/populist tendencies: proposals for reform. Revista de Investigações Constitucionais, Curitiba, vol. 7, n. 2,
p. 355-400, maio/ago. 2020. DOI: 10.5380/rinc.v7i2.74570.
* This article has been prepared within the framework for I+D Administrative Law Beyond the State national plan (PGC2018-
101476-B-I00).
** Professor of Administrative and Public Procurement Law at the University of Granada (Granada, España) and at the University
of Castilla-La Mancha (Cuenca, España). He holds a PhD in Public procurement and two Masters in the elds Public Procurement
and environmental law by the University of Castilla-La Mancha. He is Member of the Spanish Observatory for Public Procure-
ment, and has carried out research stays in the University of Oxford and the European University Institute. He is Member of the
Local Committee for Public Procurement in Cuenca (Spain), and has developed consulting activities concerning the EU coverage
of the GPA, the anti-corruption system for public procurement in Mexico, or public procurement implementation projects in
north Africa. E-mail: javier.miranzo@uclm.es.
Abstract
GPA had a main objective from its very beginning: con-
fronting discrimination between bidders on national or
geographical grounds and opening the system up to
greater competence between private actors. The World
has experienced a gradual liberalization of public natio-
nal markets that was almost perceived as a natural pro-
cess. But this other time thought never-ending process
is experiencing serious diculties. The global political
panorama seems to be moving again towards the once
forgotten nationalist ideologies; a fact that has brought
back again the old host of economic protectionism to
Resumo
O Acordo de Contratação Pública (ACP) teve um objetivo
principal desde o seu início: enfrentar a discriminação en-
tre licitantes por motivos nacionais ou geográcos e abrir
o sistema para maior competência entre atores privados.
O mundo experimentou uma liberalização gradual dos
mercados públicos nacionais que quase foi percebida como
um processo natural. Mas este processo está passando por
sérias diculdades. O panorama político global parece es-
tar se movendo novamente em direção às ideologias nacio-
nalistas outrora esquecidas; um fato que trouxe de volta o
antigo hospedeiro do protecionismo econômico à linha de
JAVIER MIRANZODÍAZ
Rev. Investig. Const., Curitiba, vol. 7, n. 2, p. 355-400, maio/ago. 2020.
356
CONTENTS
1. Introduction; 2. Global public procurement and the concept of the common interest; 3. Reinforced
concepts of community identity: the rise of populisms; 4. Some eects of populisms in the process
towards a global public procurement; 4.1. Free Trade Agreements and the crisis of TTIP; 4.2. Brexit and
the EU; 4.3. The Covid-19 crisis: Temporary Instabilities or Paradigm Shift? 5. Regulatory vs Non-Regu-
latory Barriers In Public Procurement; 6. Addressing Non-Regulatory Barriers Under International Law;
6.1. The GPA and its oversight mechanisms; 6.2. Review mechanisms of administrative decisions in
breach of international law; 7. The tension between the globalisation process and populist movements;
8. Conclusions; 9. References.
1. INTRODUCTION
Over the last 70 years a gradual process of globalization has taken place at many
levels of legal and economic action1. The initially economic course gave place to the
creation of international bodies in charge of the safeguarding of international peace
and democracy (e.g. United Nations), to foster free trade and economic cooperation
(e.g. WTO) or with both economic and peacekeeping goals (EEC, EU), resulting in a ste-
ady homogenization of values, principles, freedoms and rights2. From a legal perspec-
tive, globalisation puts pressure on the harmonization of rules. After the fall of the Ber-
lin’s Wall, some scholars even adventured themselves to identify a phenomenon that
they named as “the end of history”3 –which has its legal matching in the concept of the
1
INNERARITY, Daniel. El nuevo espacio público. Madrid: Espasa Libros, 2006, p. 224; GOLDMAN, David.
Historical Aspects of Globalisation and Law. In: DAUVERGNE, Catherine (ed.). Jurisprudence for an Intercon-
nected Globe. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2003, p. 43.
2 AUBY, Jean-Bernard. Globalisation, Law and the State. 1st ed. Oxford: Hart Publishing, 2017, p. 1-28.
3
FUKUYAMA, Francis. The end of History and the Last Man. 1st ed. London: Penguin, 2012.
the front line of international public markets regulation.
The present paper analyses the existing situation from a
critical approach. Firstly, it carries out a study of the me-
chanisms and motives that lie behind populisms and its
relationship with international law legitimacy and tradi-
tional procurement bias. Secondly, it signals the central
role of GPA as the main international instrument to face
neo-protectionism, and focuses on the subtle nature
of most procurement barriers and how current review
mechanism fail to both eciently tackle potential infrin-
gements and to guarantee states’ autonomy. Finally, a
proposal for reform is made as to the functioning of the
GPA review mechanisms through the creation of a mixed
review system.
Keywords: public procurement; Global Administrative
Law; protectionism; free trade; nationalism.
frente da regulação dos mercados públicos internacionais.
O presente artigo analisa a situação existente a partir de
uma abordagem crítico. Em primeiro lugar, realiza-se um
estudo dos mecanismos e motivos que estão por trás dos
populismos e sua relação com a legitimidade do direito in-
ternacional e o viés tradicional de aquisição. Em segundo
lugar, sinaliza-se o papel central do ACP como o principal
instrumento internacional para enfrentar o neoprotecio-
nismo, e se concentra na natureza sutil da maioria das bar-
reiras de aquisição e como o mecanismo de revisão atual
não consegue enfrentar ecientemente possíveis infrações
e garantir a autonomia dos Estados. Por m, faz-se uma
proposta de reforma quanto ao funcionamento dos meca-
nismos de revisão do GPA através da criação de um sistema
de revisão mista.
Palavras-chave: contratação pública; Direito Administra-
tivo Global; protecionismo; livre comércio; nacionalismo.
The tension between global public procurement law and nationalist/populist tendencies: proposals for reform
Rev. Investig. Const., Curitiba, vol. 7, n. 2, p. 355-400, maio/ago. 2020. 357
“convergence of laws”4– acknowledged as the process of homogenization provoked by
globalization in both law and ideologies, which would eventually lead to a unique and
uniform international governance5. In terms of public procurement, the development
of an international or global public procurement has similarly relied for its develop-
ment on the liberal democracy values of international law, having the WTO and the GPA
as the main engines for development6.
However, reality evidenced during the last decades how the alleged homoge-
nization process deriving from globalization under the lead of liberal democracies is
far from being conclusive. The reluctance to communist-tradition countries to surren-
der to the liberal western standards (Russia, Cuba, Venezuela, etc.) or the emergence
of new non-democratic actors as main players of the international community (Qatar,
Arab Emirates, etc.) has evidenced that international aairs still need to gather a wide
variety of actors and ideologies7. From 2008 and the broke out of the economic cri-
sis, the main threats for the conventional supranational and international institutions,
standards, values and norms have come from the intensication of previously marginal
nationalist and protectionist movements in the very core of western liberal democra-
cies8, leading to a crisis of democratic legitimation in all spheres of action9. This has
resulted in a gradually increase on discriminatory interventions by states around the
Globe with the aim to protect their economies10. Whether this crisis was structural or
cyclical, the tendency seems to be aggravated by the Covid-19 crisis as States reactions
have been directed to export and import bans with dierent levels of explicitly11, up to
a point in which most European and occidental countries had adopted export bans. In
this context, this article tries to recognize the tensions between these tendencies and
global public procurement in order to identify lines of action for future developments.
4
DELMAS MARTY, Mireille. Trois dés pour un droit mondial. Paris: Le Seuil, 1997, p. 76.
5
SCHOLTE, Jan Aart. Global Civil Society. In: WOODS, Ngaire (ed.). The Political Economy of Globalization.
London: Macmillan, p. 173-201, 2000.
6
CLERC, Evelyne. La mondialisation des marchés publics. BATSELÉ, Didier et al. (eds.). Les marchés publics
à l’aube du XXIe siècle. Bruxelles: Bruylant, 2000, p. 145.
7
See in general CASTELLS, Manuel. The Power of Identity. 2nd ed. Malden: Wiley-Blackwell, 1997.
8
ERIXON, Fredrik; SALLY, Razeen. Trade, Globalisation And Emerging Protectionism Since The Crisis. ECIPE
Working Paper, n. 2, 2010, p. 3. Available at:
-wp-2010-02.pdf>.
9 CONSTANTINESCU, Cristina; MATTOO, Aaditya; RUTA, Michele. The Global Trade Slowdown: Cyclical or
Structural?. International Monetary Found, vol. 15, n. 6, Jan. 2015. Available at: < https://www.imf.org/exter-
nal/pubs/ft/wp/2015/wp1506.pdf >.
10
See the database in Ocial documents and media reports of the Global Trade Alert team, University of St
Gallen, (consulted on 20 May 2020), in which they report up to four hundred discriminatory interventions in
2019. See as well DISDIER, Anne-Célia; FONTAGNÉ, Lionel; ENXHI, Tresa. Public Procurement- Related Protec-
tion: Insights from the Global Trade Alert Database. European Commission Technical Report 2017.
11
See the examples addressed by BALDWIN, Richard E.; EVENETT, Simon J (ed.). COVID-19 and Trade Policy:
Why Turning Inward Won’t Work. London: Centre for Economic Policy Research, 2020.
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