Governing Cross-Border Data Flows: Reconciling Eu Data Protection and International Trade Law

Governing Cross-Border Data Flows explores how the European Union can simultaneously reconcile and pursue two important legal and policy objectives, namely: protecting fundamental rights guaranteed under the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights (EU Charter) concerning privacy and personal data, while also maintaining and developing a binding, rules-based global trading system to ensure appropriate access to foreign digital markets for EU businesses.

The book demonstrates a significant conflict between international trade law and European data privacy law when it comes to the governance of cross-border flows of personal data. To resolve the tensions caused by this clash, the book proposes concrete and detailed ways to ameliorate the situation from both ends (international trade and personal data protection), specifically through reforms of both international trade and chapter V of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). To explain how such reforms could be effectuated, Yakovleva examines the role of discourse in the evolution of trade law in the last two decades. The book also paves the way for the further research necessary to design a fully-fledged reform proposal of the EU framework for the transfer of personal data outside the European Economic Area.

Svetlana Yakovleva, Senior Associate, De Baruw Blackstone Westbroek

Dr Svetlana Yakovleva is a Senior Associate at De Brauw Blackstone Westbroek and a fellow Institute for Information Law (IViR), University of Amsterdam. This book was prepared for publication during Dr Yakovleva’s appointment as Postdoctoral Researcher at the IViR. She holds a PhD (cum laude) from the University of Amsterdam, a Research Master’s degree in Information Law from the IViR, an LL.M in Law and Economics from the Erasmus University, Rotterdam and the University of Hamburg, and a degree in law (with distinction) from the National Research University Higher School of Economics (Moscow).