BEUC News – 12 August 2024
 

On 26 July, 90+ countries agreed to make e-commerce easier for companies and safer for consumers after more than five years of negotiations. World Trade Organisation (WTO) Joint Statement Initiative (JSI) on E-Commerce provides a significant step towards establishing the first-ever global framework for digital trade that would shape the future of e-commerce. 

BEUC welcomes the efforts to enhance consumer trust online. It is positive that trade negotiators have heard the consumer voice brought by BEUC and Consumers International during these five years of negotiations.  

Through this deal, countries have agreed to put protection in place for consumers buying online. For example, by ensuring that goods sold online are safe and that consumers have access to redress if something goes wrong after an online purchase. The deal also empowers consumer protection authorities to team up across the globe to better protect consumers. This could help better protect European consumers buying online from foreign traders.  

Another good news for consumers: the agreement safeguards consumers’ data protection and privacy rights. Despite intensive industry pressure, the final text is thankfully free from risky obligations on the transfer of personal data across borders. Such obligations could have limited governments’ ability to protect consumers and could have exposed the EU to legal challenges over its data protection regulations.  

Additionally, countries refrained from using this deal to strengthen intellectual property protections for companies, which could have complicated the enforcement of EU laws such as the AI Act. In concrete terms, such provisions would have prevented authorities and consumer organisations from assessing if AI systems are fair to consumers.  

What’s next? The text issued by the WTO marks the end of the technical discussions. Countries now have to notify the WTO Director-General that they accept the deal. The idea being to then add it to the WTO rulebook. This will require consensus by all WTO Members. Upon ratification by national governments, this will allow the JSI on E-Commerce to serve as the highest law in the concerned countries and enable other countries to join the agreement and benefit from its advantages. Some countries are unable to endorse the deal immediately due to ongoing internal discussions. For example, the U.S. is withholding support for the agreement until after the November presidential elections, as the outcome could significantly impact the country's trade position. 

Consumer organisations will monitor the next steps of this agreement, especially its future reviews, to make sure that consumers digital rights won’t be affected. 

About Consumers International
BEUC is an associate member of Consumers International (CI) which defends consumers at the global policy-making level. Together with CI and our other sister organisations, we tackle all areas that impact consumers. 

For more information

• Consumer & Digital Rights Groups Call On Governments to Better Protect People’s Fundamental Rights in Trade Deals, BEUC, 2024

• It is time for the EU to rethink its digital trade policy and fully protect consumers’ digital rights, BEUC, 2023

• WTO E-commerce negotiations recommendations, BEUC, 2019.