Smart Cities and International Trade Law

Abstract

A ‘smart city’ is a buzz term and concept. The ‘smart city’ has mainly been discussed in the scholarly literature on urban planning, architecture, and geography. While the ‘smart city’ has been under-analyzed in international trade law, the term ‘smart city’ is commonly used in Asian trade policies. The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) established the ‘ASEAN Smart Cities Network’ and the ‘smart city’ is now an important market opportunity for exporting smart technologies and services to ASEAN. Against this backdrop, this article addresses how smart cities can be regulated and governed by international trade law. The trade law perspective facilitates a broader understanding of smart city governance, which includes under-explored ‘global’ regulatory dimensions concerning the interaction between local governments and foreign firms. This article selects three relevant trade areas for discussions: (1) Internet of Things in the context of trade in goods and services; (2) international standard-setting activities; and (3) data governance. It further considers what kinds of regulatory issues international smart city projects can add to the current digital trade discourse. Drawing on the smart city literature, the article points out additional problems concerning security and privacy that have not yet been acknowledged in digital trade.