Institute for Internet Policy & Law @ Beijing Normal University

The Public-Private Dialogue on Existing and Emerging issues related to E-commerce and the Digital Economy was held in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea on 3rd March, 2018, along with the APEC Senior Official Meetings. At the meeting, the participants discussed the development and dissemination of new technologies (cloud computing and big data), introduce the views to provisions related to Online Consumer Protection, Personal Information Protection, Electronic Authentication and Electronic Signatures, Unsolicited Commercial Electronic Messages, and reviewed the development of electronic transmitted content in APEC Economies.

Prof. Xue, appointed by the Ministry of Commerce as the national e-commerce expert, joined the conference and presented on the progress of the Chinese Draft E-Commerce Law, UNESCAP Framework Agreement on Facilitation of Cross-Border Paperless Trade and correlation of domain name system and internaitonal trade. Prof. Xue also exchanged the views with many other international experts and other economies’ governmental delegates.

2^nd Working Conference of 2^nd Expert Committee of APEC E-Commerce Business Alliance

  APEC Expert Committee for E-Commerce Business Alliance held its 2017 annual conference on 16^th December, 2017 in Maison Albar Hotel, Chengdu, China. The conference was hosted by China International Electronic Commerce Center and  APEC E-Commerce Business Alliance Secretariat, organized by China International Electronic Commerce Co. LTD and Intelligence Industry Committee of APEC-ECBA, and supported by Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) and Ministry of Commerce of the People’s Republic of China. APEC Research Center for Innovation and Development of Cross-border E-Commerce,  Chengdu Chengshi Culture Communication Co. LTD. and Sichuan Haidiya Technology Co. LTD were the co-organizers.

Prof. Xue gave a keynote presentation at the Conference on Chinese Draft E-Commerce Law and highlighted the key characteristics of the upcoming new Law that will be essential for the development of digital economy in the world as well as in China. Prof. Xue also actively took part in the expert discussion on global inclusive trade and pointed out that trade should not only benefit all the stakeholder involved (inclusive of currently disfranchised MSMEs, women and LDCs) but low or even eliminate barriers for accessing the global market. E-commerce’s potential to enable any business to access the borderless global access should not be reined by the traditional regulatory measures on exports and imports. New trade facilitation mechanisms, such as the enabling cross-border paperless trade through the UN Framework Agreement in Asia the Pacific , should be implemented for e-commerce and digital economy. Arbitrary distinctions and compliance measures (between goods and items or traders and buyers) should be reformed. Unification, simplification, digitization and automation should be the trend of development.

Agenda

Topic 1：APEC E-Commerce Development Report (2017) studying and best practice cases sharing

Moderator：Wang Jian, Chair of the Expert Committee, APEC-ECBA,  Director of APEC Cross-Border E-Commerce Innovation and Development Research Center

Armirudin Abdul Wahab, CEO Cyber Security Agency of Science, Technology and Innovation, Malaysia

“Embracing The Growth and Trending Demand of E-Commerce in Malaysia”

Xue Hong, Director of Beijing Normal University Institute for Internet Policy & Law (IIPL) , Co-Director of UNCITRAL-BNU Joint Certificate Program on International E-Commerce Law

“An Overview of China’s Draft E-Commerce Law”

Qiu Qiong, Associate Dean, Research Institute of CIECC

“Global E-Commerce Report”

ž   Ouyang Cheng, Director of Cross-Border E-commerce Research Center of Alibaba Research Institute, Senior Expert of Alibaba Research Institute

“Report of Inclusive Trade Development and Chinese E-Commerce Practices”

Li Qian, VP- Public Affair and Policy, Amazon China

“Amazon China Releases the Cross-Border Online Shopping Trend Report 2016”

Topic 2： ”Jinjiang Proposal” Framework and 2018 Work Plan

Moderator：Wang Jian, Chair of the Expert Committee, APEC-ECBA

ž   Framework based on “Jinjiang Proposal” by Wang Jian

ž   Discussion on the framework

随着全球电子商务的发展，保护生产商和消费者权益愈来愈成为电子商务领域关注的焦点。为进一步发挥专业委员会作用，搭建行业专家交流平台，推动国际电子商务争议解决机制的研究和建立，促进形成以我为主的规则制定氛围，国际商会中国国家委员会仲裁委员会于2017年12月15日下午在国际商会大厦506会议室召开电子商务争议解决研讨会暨国际商会中国国家委员会（ICC China）仲裁委员会2017年下半年工作会议。ICC China仲裁委员会副主席、贸仲委副秘书长李虎博士，北京师范大学互联网政策与法律研究中心主任薛虹教授，ICC仲裁院委员、方达律师事务所合伙人师虹律师，阿里巴巴集团法务部樊俊伟高级法务等电子商务争议解决领域的专家在研讨会主题发言。薛虹教授介绍了我国《电子商务法》（草案）二次审议稿中关于电子商务争议解决章节的内容，深入分析该法的实施对于电子商务企业（特别是平台企业）的影响及我国网上争议解决制度的重大发展。薛教授还讨论了欧盟关于消费者非诉讼性争议解决指令及网上争议解决法规的主要内容及实施情况，分析了联合国国际贸易法委员会曾经存在的网上争议解决工作组及其所形成的“非约束性、仅供参考”的技术指南等国际法律文件。

与参会代表共同探讨全球电子商务争议解决的需求、现状和方式选择，并介绍和发布《当事人与仲裁庭在国际商会仲裁规则下参与仲裁程序的指引》、讨论ICC仲裁委员会2017年秋季会议成果等。薛教授详细解答了与会的企事业代表关于电子商务立法情况的各类问题。

Along with other six distinguishing universities in AP region, BNU IIPL & UNCITRAL-BNU JCP jointly organized the Public Lecture on “Facilitation of International Digital Trade through UNCITRAL Texts and Chinese E-Commerce Law” on 24 November 2017 at BNU Law School Auditorium To memorize 2017 UNCITRAL Asia Pacific Day. The lecture is supported by UNCITRAL Regional Center for Asia and the Pacific (RCAP).

Organizers: Beijing Normal University Institute for Internet Policy & Law; and, UNCITRAL RCAP and BNU Joint Certificate Program on International E-Commerce Law

Moderator: Prof. dr. Hong Xue, Director of Beijing Normal University Institute for Internet Policy & Law

Lecturers: Ms. Hin Kwok, Legal Expert of UNCITRAL RCAP;

Prof. dr. Hong Xue, Director of Beijing Normal University Institute for Internet Policy & Law

 More 30 LLM, JM and PhD students from China, Belgium, Italy, Pakistan, Togo and other countries joined the Public Lecture and had the active interactive discussion with the lecturers.

2017年11月24日星期五晚，北京师范大学互联网政策与法律研究中心（IIPL）主办的国际数字化贸易法律研讨会在后主楼1922会议报告厅举办。本次会议是为了纪念联合国国际贸易法委员会亚太日，日本、澳大利亚、印度、中国香港等六所知名大学也在同一时间举办了纪念活动。本次活动由北京师范大学互联网政策与法律研究中心主任薛虹教授现场主持，联合国国际贸易法委员会亚太中心法律专家郭轩女士（Ms. Hin Kwok）作为嘉宾出席并讲话，共同参加这次学习、研讨的还有来自法学院的研究生以及中国法硕士生及其他留学生与访问、交换生。会议开始，首先由薛虹教授介绍了联合国国际贸易法委员会亚太中心与北京师范大学国际电子商务法联合认证项目的发展历程以及发展成果，并介绍了此次会议的目的是学习并讨论联合国国际贸易法委员会关于国际数字化贸易立法的经验。 随后出席会议的Ms. Hin Kwok专家介绍了联合国国际贸易法委员会，并围绕电子商务立法经验、电子交易法基础原则、电子通信公约、电子交易记录示范法以及发展前景等做了详细的阐述。接下来，薛虹教授结合国际社会数字化贸易中立法司法实践中取得的进展及经验，探讨了当前中国电子商务法立法中的困难以及发展方向。在研讨会的最后环节，在场的同学们与Ms. Hin Kwok专家和薛虹教授展开了激烈的讨论，研讨会气氛热烈。研讨会结束后，薛虹教授代表法学院向Ms. Hin Kwok专辑赠送了法学院纪念品，并与会成员进行合照，本次大会圆满结束。

The withdrawal of the United States from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) process, and the current deep freeze of U.S.-EU negotiations on a Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) has generated gaps in plurilateral efforts to promote the Digital Economy through targeted policy initiatives and regional commercial frameworks. It has become difficult to address emerging digital challenges in areas like privacy and intellectual property in key economic sectors such as healthcare, financial services, and government procurement despite agreement among all parties that measures to support the cross-border flow of data are central to economic growth and innovation.

A related objective of this first dialogue held in Washington DC on November 6-7, 2017, co-organized by Asia and Europe Dialogue on Growing the Digital Economy and John Hopkins University SAIS Center for Transatlantic Relations was to mobilize a network of academic experts on the Digital Economy across Europe and Asia. Improved and sustained interaction among the scholarly, business, government, and NGO communities is likely to contribute to the development of sound policies supportive of growth and continued innovation in digital markets. Prof. Xue took part in the Dialogue and chaired the Session I:  Moving from an “Internet” to a “Digital” Economy and gave a keynote in Session V:  Managing Transformative Digital Technologies.

As stated by Prof. Xue, more than 800 million Chinese are online. China boasts the largest online consumer market and is second only to the United States in the size of its B2B online commerce. Malaysia’s Central Bank has just introduced guidelines for mobile payments and the country is among the largest centers for data processing globally. Japan is investing heavily in next generation technologies, prominently AI and robotics. The Republic of Korea boasts global industry leaders, such as Samsung and Naver. India has also fully embraced the potential of the Digital Economy. A recent example is the government’s push to reduce the amount of paper money in circulation and grow the digital payments space.

Yet overall the Asia-Pacific region is less connected digitally among its constituent parts, and less connected to North America and Europe than the other two regions are connected to each other. Europe has the largest share of interregional data flows of all regions, and is pushing international norms on a series of issues related to the digital economy that could have significant repercussions in the Asia-Pacific region. European companies account for 21% of Internet of Things (IoT) companies globally, compared to a 5% share for Chinese and Japanese companies. European companies account for 32% of big data companies globally, compared to 6% for Chinese and Indian companies and 2% for Japanese and Korean companies. Yet Europe suffers problems of fragmentation, scale, and divisions between “network-ready” western and northern Europe and less-ready countries in southern and eastern Europe.

Asia-Pacific views on the Digital Economy are rooted more in an economic imperative than a social perspective. There are also significant implications flowing from the EU’s view of data protection as a fundamental human right in sharp contrast to China’s view of data security as a fundamental state right. The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), to be implemented by the EU in May 2018, has sparked deep concerns across the Asia-Pacific region regarding regulatory costs, market access and the impact on innovation and growth. European views on privacy and Asian concerns about the extent to which such views may be pushed via regulation might be addressed in part, but not fully, through better technology. National and regional regulation needs to be grounded in how the technology actually operates. The diversity in approaches to the management of data seen in Asia may be more functional than the conformity demanded by the European approach. “Adequacy” provisions are moving forward between the EU and Japan, and most likely between the EU and the Republic of Korea, with uncertain implications for other Asia-Pacific countries or broader international norms.

The event helped to frame and energize a dialogue between Asian and European scholars with the goal of supporting parallel discussions in government and private sector policy circles on the tools and processes essential to the management and growth of the Digital Economy.  The outcomes from this meeting will be further developed at subsequent sessions planned for Tokyo (Spring 2018) and Brussels (Fall 2018).