The chapter explores the question of how different domestic and international law approaches to regulating the international transfer of personal data deal with cybersecurity threats. It examines the 2016 EU General Data Protection Regulation, the 2021 UK National Security and Investment Act, and the 2018 United States, Mexico and Canada Agreement, as representing distinct approaches for regulating international data transfers, namely data protection legislation, investment screening legislation, and digital trade agreements. The analysis demonstrates that a lack of uniformity in terms of what constitutes an adequate level and design of data protection mechanisms has left the issue of how to distinguish between acceptable and non-acceptable data-transfer restrictions largely unresolved.

Mexico’s 1982 announcement that it would be unable to make its debt payment set off Latin America’s “Lost Decade.” All over the region, economies stagnated and millions of people suffered. The international response, spearheaded by the United States, International Monetary Fund, and World Bank, initiated market reforms that would cut state spending, privatize state-run industries, dismantle tariffs, and construct free trade agreements. The neoliberal era had been launched. The reforms and trade agreements that accompanied this new era reflected continued U.S. hegemony but also the ways in which economic power was supplanting military power. Latin America initially found few alternatives to the neoliberal model. At the end of the twentieth century Latin American economies were growing once again, but in many cases they were only returning to where they had been before the crash. With millions feeling economic pain, neopopulist leaders gained momentum. Commitment to free trade agreements also waned as leaders like Donald Trump questioned their benefits. This chapter explores the region’s political economy of the last 50 years.

Data flows are at the core of digital trade debates, as they are key to the data-driven economy, while at the same time posing a number of challenges to state sovereignty and the protection of individual rights. While adaptation at the WTO has been slow, states have turned to preferential trade venues to address the new set of issues that the era of big data has posed. The chapter, based on a comprehensive dataset, traces the developments in preferential trade agreements, in particular those of relevance to cross-border data flows. It zooms in on the recent trade deals ofthe CPTPP and the USMCA and provides a detailed analysis of the current state of global digital trade law.

The big question for policymakers is how to allow for data to flow freely across borders while maintaining strong data protection laws and regulations are necessary to a high degree of trust among individuals, firms and governments. International trade agreements seek to regulate data flows through provisions aiming to facilitate the cross-border trade of goods and services built on data, such as data processing and other computing services.

This chapter offers a detailed analysis of these CPTPP/USMCA digital trade provisions that pertain to data flows in order to identify the constraints they could impose on national data regulation.

To do so, it uses Canada as an example, because it is a party to both trade agreements and it seeks to build a high-trust data environment for consumers and businesses. The analysis leads to the conclusion that Canada’s CPTPP and USMCA commitments could ultimately negate the effectiveness of future data protection policies that the Canadian federal government might want to adopt to achieve its ‘trust in the digital age’ objective.

This chapter provides the assessment of the intersection – that between international economic law and indigenous rights – coined in this book as international indigenous economic law. The author asserts that there is an important place for indigenous rights within the field of international economic law. Indeed, an international indigenous economic law, one that focuses on the vulnerable and marginalized, can provide a limited yet important pathway for improving the unequal distribution of the benefits of globalization and for moving beyond the standard conversations among mainstream and classical economists and policymakers that the redistribution of wealth and power should be purely domestic policy responses. This claim has implication for international economic law and indigenous rights scholars alike.

In Chapter 1, John Borrows argues that the resurgence of Indigenous peoples’ law means that agreements are being evaluated against criteria which are not just formed by nation states or international instruments. The emergence of Indigenous normativity as an aspect of international investment and trade thus challenges communities and investors who must negotiate this new terrain. In making these points, Professor Borrows examines the role of Indigenous peoples’ law in implementing international investment and trade, including the impact of domestic law in recognizing and affirming Indigenous constitutional and statutory protections.

In Chapter 10, Risa Schwartz discusses the development of a trade and Indigenous peoples chapter, looking at the development of provisions that provide for set-asides and carve-outs in earlier FTAs to more modern provisions that recognize Indigenous rights. The chapter traces how advocacy of Indigenous peoples in international trade and investment laid the groundwork for both Canada and New Zealand to substantively address Indigenous rights. Although we have yet to see the establishment of a new chapter specifically for trade and Indigenous peoples, the USMCA, which is undergoing ratification, is the first agreement to include a General Exception that protects the rights of Indigenous peoples for all signatories. These new preferences and protections for Indigenous peoples in Canada, Mexico and the United States signal a new relationship between Indigenous peoples and international trade.

In Chapter 3, James Hopkins cautions that modern trade agreements benefit an elite few and that the agreements are reliant upon overly ambitious macroeconomic theories. There is a growing awareness that international trade’s net effect is widening the gap between economic winners and losers, much to the detriment of Indigenous peoples. In his chapter, Professor Hopkins examines the impacts of international trade on the Indigenous peoples of Mexico and provides some hope that the USMCA, if ratified, may be an improvement to the NAFTA, which has contributed to a dire human rights situation which threatens the lives and livelihoods of Indigenous peoples.

In Chapter 6, William David looks at the inter-linkages between trade and environment in various FTAs and provides a thorough examination of new provisions in the environment chapters of regional trade agreements and how they may impact Indigenous peoples. Particular emphasis is placed on an exploration of the North American Agreement on Environmental Cooperation (NAAEC), a side agreement of the NAFTA, as well as the CPTPP and the intersection between Indigenous rights, environmental law and ISDS under the NAFTA.