Entrepreneurial lawyering for digital trade

In March 2017 I attended Geneva Global Goals Innovation Day to visit a pop-up shop set up by the EcomCoop, a pro bono client of Sidley Austin’s Emerging Enterprise Pro Bono Program. Displaying colourful handicrafts from all across Africa, this makeshift arrangement sought to familiarize potential customers with the products of African small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) that soon will be available for purchase online in the European Union (EU) and the United States. I took advantage of the opportunity and bought a Rwanda-made wallet of cow leather, tanned in neighbouring Burundi.