An analytical point of view of emerging issues of e-commerce for the multilateral trading system

Legal aspects of e-commerce have recently been extensively explored in a number of academic fora. The subject matter of cyberlaw has increasingly gained the recognition of legal community as a distinct area of legal analysis at the national, regional and global levels with the EU directives relating to e-commerce being fine examples of regulatory framework under development, ratification and implementation. However, few studies have been dedicated to a relationship between e-commerce and the WTO agreements. Contrast to GATT, WTO agreements go beyond the tariff issue: non-tariff barriers and subsidies have been the focus of the 2003 WTO Cancun Ministerial and prior to the Doha Agenda, the Singapore issues, namely, investment, competition, government procurement and trade facilitation have been tabled for defining its modality of negotiation. This paper attempts to shed light on this aspect from an analytical point of view with an aim of drawing an approach which may constitute a conceptual departure from existing literatures, and to put major issues of e-commerce in the context of the multilateral trading system. The paper examines the case of GATS in order to illustrate the implications of newly emerging issues on ecommerce for the multilateral trading system. The paper asserts that three possible scenario could be envisaged: status quo with extension of current multilateral trading system into e-commerce areas; framework revision with amendment of provisions accommodating the needs of e-commerce-related issues; and finally, a round of a new digital trading system that could meet the new legal requirements of cyberspace.