Paul Irwin Crookes speaks at BIICL conference on the political factors driving China’s international trade engagement with the UK and EU after the Brexit decision

Paul Irwin Crookes contributed to a conference entitled ‘Brexit, China and Other New Challenges to International Trade Law’, hosted by SOAS and co-organised by the British Institute of International and Comparative Law in London and the Centre for Chinese Law and Social-Legal Studies at the University of Surrey. The event brought together scholars from leading international and UK universities, legal practitioners and government officials.

Paul presented his latest research as part of a panel analysing recent trends in bilateral trade in goods and services between Europe and China. Examining the factors that are shaping China’s international trade engagement with both the European Union and the UK in light of Britain’s decision to leave the EU, Paul presented evidence to show how disputes between these major economies have become shaped by the variable geometry of EU decision making on the one hand and by the pace of Chinese economic reforms on the other, which together have reinforced ongoing tensions in the EU’s strategic partnership with China.