What might have been and could still be: the Trans-Pacific Partnership’s potential to encourage an open internet and digital rights

Herein I asses the implications for the Internet, digital rights, and digital trade of US abandonment of the Trans-Pacific Partnership or TPP. I focus on how the agreement attempts to regulate issues at the intersection of cross-border information flows and human rights. I focus on four chapters of the TPP. I show that these chapters may help internet users and policy-makers advance internet openness and make it harder for officials to restrict information flows but only in those cases where doing so would have a trade impact. TPP also contains transparency requirements that could bring much needed sunshine, due process, and increased political participation to trade (and internet related) policy-making in TPP countries such as Malaysia.However, TPP’s ability to limit censorship and filtering is limited. First, not all information flows are cross-border and hence subject to trade rules. Second, these agreements provide clear exceptions that allow governments to restrict information flows when they deem necessary to achieve important domestic policy goals. Third, many internet activists do not take kindly to the idea that trade agreements should become the main venue to regulate cross-border information flows.Meanwhile, TPP proponents have not developed compelling arguments as to how these agreements will benefit internet users and enhance human welfare. Until they do, internet users are unlikely to support efforts to regulate the global internet with trade agreements such as TPP.