Data Flows versus Data Protection : Mapping Existing Reconciliation Models in Global Trade Law

With the increased role of data in societies, the interfaces between trade and privacy protection have become multiple and intensified, and raise important questions as to adequate regulatory design that can reconcile economic and non-economic concerns, national and international interests. This chapter is set against this complex backdrop and seeks to provide a better understanding and contextualization of the theme of data protection and its interfaces with global trade law. It addresses this task by looking first at the existing international, transnational, and selected national frameworks for privacy protection and briefly sketches their evolution over time. In a second step, the chapter explores the application of the rules of the World Trade Organization, which are still in a pre-internet state, to situations where privacy concerns are affected. The chapter then looks at the data-relevant rules that have emerged in free trade agreements with a focus on the reconciliation mechanisms that these treaties provide. The chapter concludes with an appraisal of the current state of affairs and some thoughts on the pros and cons of the available legal solutions for reconciling trade and privacy protection