Agreement Forthcoming? A Comparison of EU, US, and Chinese RTAs in Times of Plurilateral E-Commerce Negotiations

This paper discusses the results of a study into the evolution of electronic commerce-related provisions in regional trade agreements (RTAs) and supplements them with a tripartite comparison of the e-commerce provisions in Chinese, EU, and US RTAs. As trade barriers related to electronic commerce are becoming ever more important in the global trade landscape and no explicit provisions exist at the multilateral level, it can be expected that WTO Members increasingly include provisions addressing such barriers, and electronic commerce more generally, at the bilateral and regional levels. This study applies a term-frequency analysis to the whole body of RTAs that contain e-commerce-related provisions, mapping the evolution of e-commerce chapters over time. Subsequently, a legal analysis is conducted on the e-commerce terms that were found in Chinese, EU, and US RTAs. Based on these Members’ position at the multilateral level, the e-commerce topics covered in their RTAs, and the nature of the provisions included, the paper aims to assess the convergences and divergences in their approach to e-commerce at the bilateral level and to draw lessons for the ongoing WTO plurilateral negotiations on the trade-related aspects of electronic commerce.