Lee A. Bygrave (red.) YULEX 2002 - Universitetet i Oslo

THE WORLD TRADE ORGANISATION AND
LEGAL REGULATION OF E-COMMERCE
SUSAN SCHIAVETTA
1 Introduction
The development of information and communications technology (ICT) has
produced an abundance of ways for the world to communicate. One of the
most important outcomes of this development is the Internet, which has provided
the platform for a new arena for trade and commerce. While the emergence
of this new trading arena is advantageous in respect of economic
growth, it has also created various challenges for governments. One challenge
of particular importance concerns how best to co-ordinate the various regulatory
responses of national governments to e-commerce. International organisations
have the potential to play a significant role in co-ordinating national
responses but the efficacy of some of them, such as the Organisation for Economic
Co-operation and Development (OECD), is hampered by the fact that
they are to a large extent merely support mechanisms lacking authority to
issue legally binding decisions. The World Trade Organisation (WTO), on
the other hand, is not hampered in this way. It thus stands forth as the one
international organisation that can play a decisive role in shaping the legal
regulation of e-commerce. In particular, the WTO is arguably the only international
organisation with requisite knowledge and authority to resolve the
major trading issue as to how e-products should be classified for the purpose
of collecting customs duties.
2 GATT
Trading internationally is a particularly profitable way of doing business, but
originally many believed that it had an adverse affect on national economies.
As a result, restrictions were employed to prevent, or at the very least control,
exports. Such restrictions can transpire through various obstacles; eg, enforcing
quantitative restrictions which limit the amount of goods that can be