The development of new digital technologies has resulted in significant transformations in daily life, from the arrival of online shopping to more fundamental changes in the ways we work and communicate. Many of these changes raise questions that transcend market access and liberalisation, and demand cooperation and coherent regulatory design. International trade regulation has hitherto not reacted in a forward-looking manner to the digital revolution and, particularly at the multilateral level, legal engineering has yielded few tangible results. This book examines whether WTO laws possess the necessary flexibility and resilience to accommodate the changes brought about by burgeoning digital trade. By revealing both the potential and the limitations of the WTO framework, it provides a broad picture of the interaction between digital technologies and trade regulation, links the often disconnected discourses of international trade law, intellectual property and cyberlaw and explores discrete problems in different domains of global trade regulation.
Author(s): Mira Burri, Thomas Cottier
Edition: 1
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Year: 2012
Language: English
Commentary: TruePDF
Pages: 502
Tags: Foreign Trade Regulation; Corporate Governance; International Law; World Trade Organization; Electronic Commerce: Law And legislation; General Agreement On Tarif s And Trade (Organization)
Cover
Half title
Title
Copyright
Contents
Tables and Figures
Contributors
Preface
Abbreviations
1 - Introduction: Digital technologies and international trade regulation
Part I - Conceptualising trade 2.0
2 - Principles for trade 2.0
3 - Global information law: Some systemic thoughts
PART II - Old and new buzzwords in the digital trade discourse
4 - Convergence:A buzzword to remain?
5 - Network neutrality:The global dimension
6 - Fostering innovation and trade in the global information society: The different facets and roles of interoperability
Part III - The state of play in trade and trade regulation: Prospects for change
7 - GATS classification issues for information and communication technology services
8 - Towards coherent rules for digital trade: Building on efforts in multilateral versus preferential trade negotiations
9 - Better regulation of digital markets: A new look at the Reference Paper
10 - Googling for the trade–human rights nexus in China:Can the WTO help?
11 - The puzzling interaction of trade and public morals in the digital era
PART IV - The impact of digital technologies on the global intellectual property regime
12 - TRIPS encounters the Internet: An analogue treaty in a digital age, or the first trade 2.0 agreement?
13 - Country clubs, empiricism, blogs and innovation:The future of international intellectual property norm making in the wake of ACTA
14 - New forms of governance for digital orphans:Copyright litigation, licences and legal information
Part V - Digital technologies, intellectual property and development
15 - From consensus to controversy:The WIPO Internet Treaties and lessons for intellectual property norm setting in the digital age
16 - The global digital divide as impeded access to content
17 - Harnessing information and communication technologies for development: The trade-related technical assistance perspective
18 - Making use of e-mentoring to support innovative entrepreneurs in Africa
Index
