Panel During the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) e-Week
“Overcoming the fragmentation of digital governance: what role for the Global Digital Compact and e-trade rules?”
Co-organized by the South Centre (SC) and the University of St. Gallen
7 December 2023
Geneva, Switzerland
Data Access and the EU Data Strategy: Implications for the Global South
By Marc Stuhldreier
This study explores the value of data in the digital economy and the challenges surrounding data ownership, access rights, and equitable distribution of the value. It examines the European Data Strategy and highlights its shortcomings as well as its implications for the Global South. This contribution emphasises the need for unlocking the potential of collected data by enhancing accessibility and challenging protectionist measures and discusses the importance of fair competition and innovation. It also discusses the importance of balancing access rights with legitimate privacy concerns, trade secrets, and intellectual property rights. The paper concludes by highlighting the importance for developing countries to introduce tailored regulations that suit their specific needs, empowering them to seize opportunities and navigate the digital economy effectively.
Submission to the Global Digital Compact
Apply Human Rights Online
South Centre
Geneva, April 2023
The South Centre’s Board approved in September 2022 its Programme of Work 2023-2025 where the policy dimensions of digital transformation are highlighted as one of the priority areas for developing countries, including the need to harness digital technologies in education, health and the production of goods and services, support the development of a domestic digital industry, improve their digital infrastructure, advance digital equity and inclusion, effectively tax the digital companies and contribute to shaping the digital governance architecture to advance the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Following the call made in the Declaration on the Commemoration of the Seventy-Fifth Anniversary of the United Nations (A/RES/75/1) for improved digital cooperation, the United Nations (UN) Secretary General’s Roadmap for Digital Cooperation and his report ‘Our Common Future’, the South Centre submits the following written contribution to the UN Secretary General ahead to the Summit of the Future with the objective of providing support to developing countries in the intergovernmental process concerning the digital transformation.
DATA FOR DEVELOPMENT: HOW TO LEGALLY CHARACTERIZE DATA?
SOUTH CENTRE’S CONTRIBUTION TO THE eTRADE FOR ALL LEADERSHIP DIALOGUE OF THE UNCTAD eCOMMERCE WEEK 2022
Radical technological changes have always challenged pre-existing legal frameworks as demonstrated, for instance, by the commercialization of computer software independently from hardware and the use of genetic information to develop biotechnological innovations in various areas such as health and agriculture. The emergence of big data is a new and outstanding example of such situations. With the growing digitalization of multiple activities, ranging from education and health to ‘smart farming’ and the supply of the most diverse goods, the production and storage of data have exploded. Individuals, businesses and governments are generating an immense amount of data and this will only continue to grow in the future. Yet, the legal characterization of data is still a matter of considerable divergencies and debate. Policy makers and scholars are still searching for legal approaches suitable to address the complex relationships among producers, processors, controllers and users of data…
