Legal Regulation of E-commerce Agreements

To engage in electronic or digital commerce, participants must first develop the necessary technological infrastructure, develop the necessary policy, legal, and regulatory frameworks, and place these new frameworks in the appropriate negotiating context. Equally important, participants must develop the political will to start up and, perhaps more importantly, to remain open to new developments in electronic commerce. Bringing together more than 70 members of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade and other trading nations to address the complex issues involved in electronic commerce will certainly present challenges, but these members and trade-related organizations are committed to initiating a task of this magnitude.These issues are controversial, complex, ever-changing, and cannot be addressed or negotiated in separate forums, especially when the majority of participants are members of the World Trade Organization (WTO). The World Trade Organization is the best forum in which to address concerns surrounding electronic commerce. Without it, members would have to negotiate these issues anew and the task of setting common rules and regulations would be colossal – perhaps overwhelming and perhaps technically impossible. Economic liberalization and the technological wonders of the new millennia have sparked a revolution in the ways people work, manage their lives, and interact with others.