Between Digital Trade Commitments and Sovereignty: Asian Developing Members’ Approaches to the CPTPP’s Cross-Border Data Transfers

Abstract The Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) set an advanced benchmark for digital trade rules by mandating cross-border data transfers and prohibiting data localisation requirements. This article examines how three Asian developing members, Vietnam, Malaysia, and Brunei Darussalam, have implemented these stringent obligations. It shows that the binding CPTPP data-related provisions have driven domestic data law reforms across all three jurisdictions. Although ensuring compliance with the CPTPP’s commitments, all domestic data legal regimes retain varying degrees of restrictiveness by preserving their national regulatory autonomy. I argue that while such domestic data measures do not fundamentally breach the CPTPP, they run counter to its liberal spirit of facilitating cross-border data flows and impede digital trade liberalisation in the long term.