Trade Restrictions Quantum Technology

Abstract

In the last ten years quantum technology has attracted billions of dollars worth of investment.
Propelled by the promises of significant speed-ups in calculating chemical interactions, improvements
in sensor technology, and obliterating the cryptographic protocols that currently secure our internet
communication, dozens of states have launched national training programmes to educate the next
cohort of scientists and engineers. These shifts can, of course, reshape the world’s military and
security landscape. How to manage the approach to the quantum future is now a pressing policy
agenda, and the go-to approach has been to apply trade-restrictive measures. In this article we
report on the pathways made possible to trade restriction by international trade law and show that
through the application of its export licensing scheme, the US has effectively divided the world into
four groups, applying pressure on other states to match its export policies. China, which belongs
to an unfavourable group, is forced to seek technology sovereignty and has responded with its own
export policy and controls on raw materials. We analyse this dynamic in terms of global trade,
through the perspective of the international laws written in the General Agreement of Tariffs and
Trade (GATT) treaty of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) agreements and conclude by asking
whether we are witnessing the last stages of international trade as a rule-based system.