Global Market Integration and the Creative Economy: The Paradox of Industry Convergence and Regulatory Divergence

From a macroeconomic perspective, the historical evolution of trade and commerce has been closely entangled in a two-way or paradoxical relationship with the evolution of laws, in which one is inextricably linked to the other and both mutually influence each other. At the microeconomic level, the same can be said about the relationship between businesses or industries and their underlying technologies. Recent changes, and notably, the accelerated pace at which we recognize change, has led to a widespread trend of ‘convergence’. Convergence has been recognized in different contexts, namely, in languages, technologies and industries, as well as in regulatory matters. The objective of this article is thus to first trace and describe this convergence from a linguistic, technological, and industrial perspective. Subsequently, in order to ponder the future regulatory challenges in the regulation of global trade under the aegis of the World Trade Organization (WTO), it will focus on the question of whether technological and industrial convergence should be met by a similar trend towards regulatory convergence through regulatory harmonization. Put differently, it will critically evaluate the present situation of regulatory divergence in the form of regulatory diversity and regulatory competition with a view to contributing to the debate about improving global trade regulation in the 21st century.