E-commerce and the Digital Economy

Course Description

This course considers the evolution of e-commerce and the growth of the digital economy, assessing the existing and emerging trade rules relating to e-commerce and considers some of the major issues, opportunities, and challenges as they relate to the Caribbean and other country settings. Included here will be assessments of the definitional issues, infrastructural and legal requirements, connection to other trade-related disciplines such as intellectual property rights and competition policy as well as the types of strategies select countries are currently pursuing with respect to creating an enabling environment for e-commerce. 

The course will also address how e-commerce has been treated under bilateral, regional, multilateral and plurilateral trade agreements, negotiations and frameworks. There will also be special emphasis on the Joint Statement Initiative (JSI) on the trade-related aspects of e-commerce currently being negotiated by a subset of World Trade Organization (WTO) Members.