Free-Flow of Data: Is International Trade Law the Appropriate Answer?

The paper - presented in a Conference organized in March 2020 at Dublin City University on "Data Protection Imperialism and Data Sovereignty" - points out that free-flow of data is a growing issue of contention in international relations and that there is an urgent need for agreements on the issue. It doubts however that traditional international trade law instruments (typically GATT and GATS, and related regional agreements) are the appropriate tools, while surely international trade fora have the experience to come up with ad hoc solutions based on national sovereignty, reciprocity and involvement of other international organizations such as ITU. The paper also posits that from a FFD perspective there is little difference – nor a significant difference can be made – between “personal data” and “non-personal data”.