[governance] Internet restrictions present,new trade barrier: WTO session

[Riaz K Tayob]

Internet restrictions present
new trade barrier: WTO session Provided by iPolitics Staff
Posted on Wed, Sep 21, 2011, 3:55 pm by BJ Siekierski

GENEVA – It’s connected every corner of the world and transformed the 
way business is done, but individual countries’ restrictions on the 
Internet have become the biggest new trade barrier, a WTO Public Forum 
Session argued on Wednesday.

“If you look at the tariff protectionism in the world, if you look at 
the big trading partners… all of them have a weighted average of around 
less than five per cent — even the ones who usually get labeled as 
protectionists,” said Hosuk Lee-Makiyama, director of the European 
Centre for International Political Economy.

Non-tariff trade barriers are hard to compare, said Lee-Makiyama, but if 
there was a tariff equivalents, many say it would be several hundred per 
cent.

William Echikson, the head of free expression at Google had a long list 
of trade barriers.

“Things like installing surveillance tools onto the Internet 
infrastructure, blocking online services outright — or regularly 
disrupting them,” Echikson said.

He said that imposing requirements on the online service providers 
without making these requirements public and issuing orders to online 
service providers without any legal process are also considered trade 
barriers.

Local data storage requirements are another aspect that Echikson said is 
particularly problematic.

Generally speaking, he said, any Internet regulation that favors local 
companies should be rooted out.

“A local presence requirement, that’s also a very important thing, 
because with Google we can serve local countries around the world 
without actually physically being there,” he said.

Moderator Edward Black, president and CEO of the Computer and 
Communications Industry Association, encouraged the World Trade 
Organization to address some of these issues.

“Clearly, I think we think the WTO needs to step forward and address 
Internet-centric issues in order to stay relevant,” Black said.

Black acknowledged there is an agreement (GATS) in place at the WTO to 
defend against these types of actions, but it remains to be seen how it 
will be enforced.

“Although the WTO dispute settlement appellate body rulings made clear 
that GATS does extend to services provided online, it’s unclear how far 
the GATS article 14 on public morals and security exemptions will extend 
this space,” Black said. “We need to test those limits and find out what 
they are.”

For Lee-Makiyama, who said 50 per cent of all cross-border trade would 
disappear if the Internet ceased to exist, it might be time to go a bit 
further than that.

“I think there is a serious case for a separate sector agreement,” he said.

© 2011 iPolitics Inc.


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