The Joint Statement on E-commerce: Is this glass half empty or half full?

• Main Author: GAO, Henry S.
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 2024
• Subjects: E-Commerce; International Trade Law
• Online Access: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/sol_research/4559; https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/context/sol_research/article/6517/viewcontent/JointStatementE_commerce_av.pdf
• Institution: Singapore Management University

On July 26, 2024, participants in the Joint Statement Initiative (JSI) on E-commerce released the “stabilised text” of the Agreement on Electronic Commerce (“the agreement”) after a marathon negotiation spanning more than five years. The process leading up to what is the first global agreement on e-commerce has been rife with surprises from beginning to end. The biggest initial surprise was China’s last-minute decision to join when the negotiation was launched in January 2019: China wanted to shape the rules from the inside and avoid the cold shoulder it faced when trying to join the Trade in Services Agreement negotiations in 2013. The biggest surprise toward the off end of negotiations was the October 2023 announcement by the United States that it would withdraw its long-standing support of pro-business provisions on data flows, data localization and source code, ostensibly in an effort at “balancing the right to regulate in the public interest and the need to address anticompetitive behavior in the digital economy.” But despite the many hiccups along the way, the final package is quite impressive. With 38 provisions and an annex and spanning 24 pages, the agreement covers a wide range of issues from digital trade facilitation and regulatory framework to consumer protection and dispute settlement, making it the most comprehensive global agreement on e-commerce ever.