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Governing Digital Trade

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 April 2019

JOSHUA P. MELTZER
JOSHUA P. MELTZER*
Affiliation:
The Brookings Institution, Washington, DC
*
*Email: [email protected]
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Abstract

As global data flows and digital technologies transform international trade, governments and regulators have to determine how to benefit from these developments while maintaining the integrity of their domestic regulations. Currently, governments are increasingly restricting global data flows and requiring data localization, undermining the economic benefits of digital trade. To address this trend will require a system of digital trade governance that has two key elements. One element is new digital trade rules, some of which exist in the WTO and others which are being developed in free trade agreements. The other is international regulatory cooperation to develop standards and mutual recognition agreements in areas such as privacy and consumer protection that gives domestic regulators confidence that allowing data to leave their jurisdiction will not undermine achievement of domestic regulatory goals. In the absence of such regulatory cooperation, governments are likely to continue to restrict data flows, relying on the exceptions provisions to their digital trade commitments.

Type
Review Article
Information
World Trade Review , Volume 18 , Special Issue S1: Digital Trade , April 2019 , pp. S23 - S48
Copyright
Copyright © Joshua P. Meltzer 2019 

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Footnotes

I would like to thank Mira Burri, Daniel Crosby, Andrew Mitchel and Neha Mishra for their comments and feedback.

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110 TBT Agreement, Art. 2.1 & Art. 2.4.

111 WTO Trade Facilitation Agreement, Art. 3.

112 WTO Trade Facilitation Agreement, Art. 1.1 & 1.2.

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117 Request for consultations by the United States, China – Certain Measures Concerning the Protection of Intellectual Property Rights, WT/DS542/1, 26 March 2018.

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119 WTO Joint Statement on Electronic Commerce, 25 January 2019, WT/L/1056.

120 WTO Ministerial Conference (2017), WT/MIN(17)/60.

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122 Ibid. at p .7.

123 EC 2017, Art. 12 (as of July 2017).

124 CPTPP 2018, Art. 14.11; USMCA Art. 19.11, 19.12.

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126 CPTPP 2018, Art. 14.8; USMCA Art. 19.8.

127 A. Mattoo and J. P. Meltzer (2018), ‘International Data Flows and Privacy: The Conflict and Its Resolution’, Journal of International Economic Law, 21(4).

128 USMCA Art 20.J.11.

129 CPTPP 2018, Art. 18.66.

130 A. Chander (2014), ‘How Law Made Silicon Valley’, Amory Law Journal, 63: 639.

131 Authors Guild v. Google Inc., 804 F.3d 202 (2nd Cir. 2015).

132 USMCA Art. 19.17.

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136 CPTPP Annex 8.B Information and Communications Technology Products; USMCA Art. 12.C.2.

137 See generally R. Howse, ‘The World Trade Organization 20 years on: Global Governance by Judiciary’, European Journal of International Law, 27(1).

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140 Mattoo and Meltzer, supra n. 127.

141 USMCA Article 19.8.