Asia-Pacific Regional E-Commerce Agreement
UNESCAP, the United Nations Economic Commission on the Asia-Pacific region, has been working on a regional trade agreement focusing on electronic commerce. The agreement, once made, could affect the interests of businesses in Canada and the US (and other countries in that region…).
There is a meeting in Bangkok in November to make some decisions about the document. It would be helpful for anyone who wants to influence the document to get on the record before then, in order to have a place in the conversation in the later stages.
So: I invite anyone interested to comment. Should the Canadian government (or your government, if not in Canada) care about this? Say something officially?
The documents about the draft agreement are:
- Draft Agreement/Framework Agreement on Facilitation of Cross-border Paperless Trade for the Asia Pacific Region, available at http://www.unescap.org/tid/projects/draft-ra-subreg.pdf.
- Explanatory Note, available at http://www.unescap.org/tid/projects/draft-ra-egmnote.pdf.
- UNESCAP Resolution 68/3 (background only) available at http://www.unescap.org/tid/escap-reso683.pdf.
It is very helpful to read the draft agreement with the Explanatory Note in hand. (However, please note that the Explanatory Note, prepared in June, and the current version of the draft Regional Agreement, which was prepared on August 19th by the Secretariat, do not directly match. The August draft of the Regional Agreement reflects changes made after a series of governmental consultations held between UNESCAP and a number of the Commission Member States. That mismatch does not significantly affect the reading of the two documents together.)
The International Trade Subcommittee of the Cyberspace Committee of the ABA will be holding a conference call to discuss the draft agreement next Wednesday, October 16th, at 9:00 a.m. Eastern time. Anyone who would like to call in (toll-free in North America) should let me know and I’ll provide the call-in information.
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