Aspects of International Public Procurement Regulation

The public procurement market is classified as one of the most important segments of the world economy with share of 7-18% in the world GDP. The importance of this segment leads to continuous liberalization. Despite the existing legislative framework, the share of cross-border public procurement remains limited due to several obstacles including discrimination in public procurement that was raised by governments as one of the non-tariff barriers to international trade. Surveys of the European Commission or the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) indicate that there are many other obstacles to entry to international public procurement markets. These obstacles are discussed in the first chapter of this article. The goal of this paper is to review aspects of international public procurement regulation and find ways of eliminating the obstacles through this regulation. Therefore, the second, third, and fourth chapters of the paper analyse the WTO Government Procurement Agreement (GPA), the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL) Model Law on Public Procurement, and the role of regional trade agreements.