An exploration of the current state of global trade law in the era of Big Data and AI. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.

This book focuses on the PRC’s cross-border data transfer legislation in recent years, as well as the implications for international trade law. The book addresses the convergence of industries and technologies notably caused by digitization; the issue of conflicts between goods and services; and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) as well as the difficulty of classifying service sectors under WTO members’ commitments. The book also examines the FTAs that entered into force after 2012 that regulate digital trade beyond the venue of the WTO and analyzes their rules of relevance for cross-border data flows and international trade. It asks whether and how these FTAs have deliberately reacted to the increasing importance of data flows as well as to the trouble of governing them in the context of global governance

Provides the first systematic analysis of new Asian regionalism as a paradigm shift in international economic law.

Digital transformation is revolutionising economies and societies with rapid technological advances in AI, robotics and the Internet of Things. Low and middle-income countries are struggling to gain a foothold in the global digital economy in the face of limited digital capacity, skills, and fragmented global and regional rules.

Written by a renowned expert on data protection law, this work examines the history, policies, and future of transborder data flow regulation, and is the only text to provide a detailed legal analysis of its global implications.

This report improves the evidence base on the role of Data Driven Innovation for promoting growth and well-being, and provide policy guidance on how to maximise the benefits of DDI and mitigate the associated economic and societal risks.

The classification of services in the digital economy proves critical for doing business, but it appears to be a particularly complex regulatory matter that is based upon a manifold set of issues. In the context of the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS), when the services classification scheme was drafted in the early 1990s, convergence processes had not unfolded yet and the internet was still in its infancy and not a reality in daily life. Therefore, policy makers are now struggling with the problem of regulating trade in electronic services and are in search of a future-oriented solution for classifying them in multilateral and preferential trade agreements. In late fall 2011, the authors of this study were mandated by the European Union, Delegation to Vietnam, in the context of the Multilateral Trade Assistance Project 3 (MUTRAP 3), to work out a report clarifying the classification of services in the information/digital economy and to assess the impact of any decision regarding the classifications on the domestic and external relations policy of Vietnam, as well as to discuss the relevant issues with local experts during three on-site visits.

In Ruling Capital, Kevin P. Gallagher demonstrates how several emerging market and developing countries (EMDs) managed to reregulate cross-border financial flows in the wake of the global financial crisis, despite the political and economic difficulty of doing so at the national level. Gallagher also shows that some EMDs, particularly the BRICS coalition, were able to maintain or expand their sovereignty to regulate cross-border finance under global economic governance institutions. Gallagher combines econometric analysis with in-depth interviews with officials and interest groups in select emerging markets and policymakers at the International Monetary Fund, the World Trade Organization, and the G-20 to explain key characteristics of the global economy. Gallagher develops a theory of countervailing monetary power that shows how emerging markets can counter domestic and international opposition to the regulation of cross-border finance. Although many countries were able to exert countervailing monetary power in the wake of the crisis, such power was not sufficient to stem the magnitude of unstable financial flows that continue to plague the world economy. Drawing on this theory, Gallagher outlines the significant opportunities and obstacles to regulating cross-border finance in the twenty-first century.

Takes stock of current challenges to the world trading system and develops scenarios for the future.