Trade Law Architecture after the Fourth Industrial Revolution

Abstract

Technology stands to fundamentally change almost every aspect of human existence, with international trade and the international trade law system being no exception. There are two primary ways in which this change is taking place. The first is the capacity of technology to fuel the creation of new goods and services that can enter the global marketplace and be traded with greater speed and ease than their more physically embodied counterparts. The second is the possibility for technology to facilitate the regulation of international trade in ways that are more efficient, cost-effective, and inclusive. While a considerable amount of attention is paid to this first change – how technology will impact the nature of what is traded – relatively little attention is paid to the way in which technologymight change themodes andmethods by which trade regulation is achieved. To the extent that future trade regulation has been considered, questions generally focus on how trade rules will change to adapt to technology, by modifying existing rules and including new disciplines. So far, there has been no examination of how a future World Trade Organization (WTO) might itself take advantage of technology to restructure how it manages trade and fulfils its mandate. That mandate includes serving as a facilitator of trade agreements and market access negotiations, a forum for resolution of trade disputes, and a watchdog for national trade policies. Therefore, this chapter will examine current predictions about how the ‘Fourth Industrial Revolution’ will change the nature of trade, and then consider how trade regulation functions currently undertaken by organisations such as the WTOmight be undertaken in future. To this end, in Section II the chapter first considers the emergence of a data-driven trade regime, brought about by emergent technologies,