[bestbits] IGF sessions concerning linking Internet and trade communities

[William Drake]

Hi

As people are sharing workshop announcements, and in light of the outcomes at the WTO’s MC11, I thought I’d pass along something I sent to another list.  If anyone’s interested in these issues please do come along or connect remotely.

Cheers

Bill


> As has been mentioned here before there’s growing discussion in various contexts (including several WTO Open Forums) about the need for greater openness/transparency in trade processes, particularly with respect to Internet issues, and the need for greater dialogue and shared analysis linking the trade community and the Internet communities writ large.  These themes will be touched on a bit at the Day -1 civil society meeting on Saturday 16 in Geneva http://bestbits.net/events/joint-cs-2017/ <http://bestbits.net/events/joint-cs-2017/> and at the Day 0 WEF session http://sched.co/CdaW <http://sched.co/CdaW>.  They will be explored more deeply at Day 2 sessions of the IGF, Tuesday 19th:
> 
> *09:00 - 10:00 in Room XXVII - E, UNCTAD will hold an Open Forum on "Digitalization and International Trade.” http://sched.co/CTrX <http://sched.co/CTrX>    There we’ll introduce the Information Economy Report https://goo.gl/F9b8ug <https://goo.gl/F9b8ug> to an IGF audience and then focus in on “Linking the Internet and Trade Policy Communities” and the idea of booting up multi-track cooperation on global commerce issues, including a multistakeholder track (linked to the session below)
> 
> *10:40 - 11:40 is the launch of the new multistakeholder Dynamic Coalition on Trade and the Internet http://sched.co/CTqt <http://sched.co/CTqt>  the information doc of which is here https://opendigital.trade/documents/58 <https://opendigital.trade/documents/58>.  Jeremy Malcom and EFF have been the catalysts here.
> 
> *15:00 - 16:30 in Room XXVI - E UNOG, I’ve organized a workshop on  "Data Localization and Barriers to Crossborder Data Flows: Toward a Multi-Track Approach.” http://sched.co/CTrV <http://sched.co/CTrV>   This will be a large-n roundtable discussion that includes some denizens of this list. The discussion will take off from a couple papers I’m preparing for the WEF, the first of could be released during WEF’s annual meeting in January.  The project proposes that in light of the political difficulties and substantive problems associated with addressing these issues solely through the mechanisms of international trade, we could consider pursuing an approach involving a) Track 1: Nonbinding Intergovernmental Processes, b) Track 2: Multistakeholder Processes, and c) Track 3: reformed Digital Trade Processes.
> 
> WEF intends to launch its own piece of this but what would be really ideal would be to establish a broader and more inclusive network involving several lead node organizations for orchestration.   It might be possible to engage certain international organizations but whether we could get significant engagement from the technical community and civil society networks, I dunno.  That’s the kind of thing I hope will get aired at the latter workshop.
> 

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William J. Drake
International Fellow & Lecturer
  Media Change & Innovation Division, IPMZ
  University of Zurich, Switzerland
william.drake at uzh.ch (direct), wjdrake at gmail.com (lists),
  www.williamdrake.org
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