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Learning about Digital Trade: Privacy and E-Commerce in CETA and TPP

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 March 2019

ROBERT WOLFE
ROBERT WOLFE*
Affiliation:
School of Policy Studies, Queen's University
*
*Email: [email protected].
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Abstract

It is a truth universally acknowledged that every ambitious twenty-first century trade agreement is in want of a chapter on electronic commerce. One of the most politically sensitive and technically challenging issues is personal privacy, including cross-border transfer of information by electronic means, use and location of computing facilities, and personal information protection. States are learning to solve the problem of state responsibility for something that does not respect their borders while still allowing twenty-first century commerce to develop. A comparison of the Canada–European Union Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) and the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) allows us to see the evolution of the issues thought necessary for an e-commerce chapter, since both include Canada, and to see the differing priorities of the US and the EU, since they are each signatory to one of the agreements, but not of the other. I conclude by seeking generalizations about why we see a mix of aspirational and obligatory provisions in free trade agreements. I suggest that the reasons are that governments are learning how to work with each other in a new domain, and learning about the trade implications of these issues.

Type
Review Article
Information
World Trade Review , Volume 18 , Special Issue S1: Digital Trade , April 2019 , pp. S63 - S84
Copyright
Copyright © Robert Wolfe 2019 

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Footnotes

An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Columbia Law School Trade Seminar Series on 6 November 2017. I am grateful for insightful comments from Susan Ariel Aaronson, Henry Gao, Bernard Hoekman, Petros C. Mavroidis and Roy Santana, for the able research assistance of Grace Tahan, Sifat Syeda, and Maria Bridgemohan; and for confidential interviews in Geneva and Ottawa.

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