The chapter explores data-related provisions in preferential trade agreements and analyzes trends and patterns in their evolution based on a comprehensive dataset. The chapter explores in particular indicators aggregated from the data that attempt to capture various salient dimensions of the data flow–related provisions in PTAs and uses those indicators to enquire into the trends over time, exploring the rule-makers’ roles through both text-as-data analyses and manual coding of data-related design features. The chapter concludes by outlining possible next research avenues in the area of digital trade governance.

Over the past thirty years, international trade has grown constantly and since 2008 it has increased by 26 per cent (World Trade Organization 2019). In the same period, foreign direct investment (FDI) grew more than 20 per cent before 2000, 8 per cent in 2000–7, and has shown slow growth since 2008, averaging about 1 per cent growth per year for a decade (UNCTAD 2019b, xi). We have also observed (but lack systematic data) a spectacular growth of trade in parts and components and a substantial increase of trade in services, reflecting companies’ investment and sourcing decisions, increasing the web of global and regional supply chains. The “death of distance” through lower transport costs and advancements in information technology has contributed to accelerating these developments. Integration into the world economy has also become an important element of foreign aid policy. All of these economic and political processes have been underpinned since the end of the Cold War by a liberal consensus.

The last couple of years have been an eventful time for trade policy and in particular for major preferential trade agreements (PTAs), such as the so-called mega-regionals. Early 2016, twelve Pacific Rim countries, including Canada and the United States (USA), signed the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement. Around the same time, Canada and the European Union (EU) agreed at the level of negotiators to conclude the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA). Finally, the USA and the EU continued their efforts to find common ground in the negotiations towards the proposed Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) treaty.

The introductory chapter outlines key factors that we expect to shape global trade regulation for years to come. We briefly discuss how these factors put pressure on trade governance to adapt and to change. We also summarize the rationale for the various sections and the individual contributions to the volume.

International migration is a relative newcomer on the “trade and” agenda and has hitherto received relatively little attention in trade and migration studies alike. The inclusion of labour migration as one essential mode of cross-border trade in services, so-called Mode 4 in the GATS, opened the agenda for more far-reaching developments at the level of regional and bilateral free-trade agreements . This chapter shows that this deepening of the trade-migration nexus is intricately linked to power shifts in the global economy and the rise of regionalism. For the international trade regime in 2025, this means that, in combination with the ongoing power transitions, the trade-related mobility agenda is likely to expand beyond what the former sponsors of the GATS agreement, the European Union (EU) and the United States, originally intended.