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22 Utrecht L. Rev. 1 (2026)

handle is hein.journals/utrecht22 and id is 1 raw text is: Utrecht!aWRevieW INTRODUCTION THOMAS VERELLEN Achieving security has reemerged as a leading objective of the economic policies of states.1 As the international environment is perceived as less stable, and international partners as less reliable, countries are revisiting core assumptions of their economic policies. The post-Cold War globalisation paradigm, with its emphasis on liberalising trade flows to build a global marketplace in which companies can compete on equal terms, has withered away.z The belief that economic interdependence serves as an insurance policy against interstate military conflict has largely collapsed) The logic that the mutual financial costs of disrupting trade would deter coercion has been replaced by the realisation that these very connections can be weaponised.4 In this new paradigm, openness to trade and investment is no longer seen solely as a source of prosperity, but as a strategic vulnerability. As global supply chains and financial flows are increasingly exploited for geopolitical leverage, even the most dedicated advocates of free trade have pivoted towards doctrines defined by strategic autonomy, resilience and economic security. As Mark Carney, Canada's prime minister, put it to a stunned audience at the World Economic Forum in Davos: 'You cannot live within the lie of mutual benefit through integration, when integration becomes the source of your subordination'.5 1 In the United States, the 2017 national security strategy proclaimed that 'economic security is notional security'. See white House, 'Nationol Security Strategy of the United States of Americo' (December 2017) <https://trumpwhitehouse.orchives.gov/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/NSS-Final-12 -1 8-2017-0905.pdf> occessed 2 May 2026. Japan was on early adopter of the economic security paradigm following Chinese restrictions on the export of critical raw materials to Japan in 2010. See generally Robert S Ozaki, Japan's Foreign Relations: A Global Search For Economic Security (Routledge 2019). On this development in the EU, see Thomas verellen, 'Economic Security and the Transformation of EU Trade Policy' in Research Handbook on the EU's Common Foreign and Security Policy (2nd edn, Edward Elgar Publishing forthcoming). 2 For a contemporary defence of the globalisation paradigm, see perhaps most famously Thomas L Friedman, The World Is Flat: The Globolized World in the Twenty-First century (updated and expanded edn, Penguin 2007). 3 See seminally Robert Owen Keohane and Joseph S Nye, Power and Interdependence (Longmon 2012), arguing that in a world of complex interdependence, the use of military force becomes less effective and more costly. 4 See here Henry Farrell and Abraham Newman, 'Weaponized Interdependence: How Global Economic Networks Shape State coercion' (2019) 44 International Security 42 <https://doi.org/10.1162/isec a 00351>; Henry Farrell and Abraham Newman, Underground Empire: How America Weaponized the World Economy (Henry Halt and Co 2023). 5 'Davos 2026: Special Address by Mark carney, PM of canada' (World Economic Forum, 20 January 2026) haneps://ww we6oru m 0org/stories/2026/01/dvos-2026specil-oddress-by-mark-corny-prime-minister-of- conodo/.> accessed 6 May 2026. CORRESPONDING AUTHOR: Thomas Verellen Utrecht University, NL t.e.verellen@uu.nl KEYWORDS: economic security; European Union; de-risking; strategic autonomy TO CITE THIS ARTICLE: Thomas Verellen, 'Questioning Economic Security: Introduction to a Utrecht Law Review Special Issue' (2026) 22(1) Utrecht Law Review 1-5. DOI: https://doi.org/10.36633/ ulr.1349