WTO: India submits papers on consumer protection in e-commerce, digital public infrastructure
Recently, India has presented the idea of alternative model on consumer protection in e-commerce and Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) in WTO.
- India has presented two papers on e-commerce in WTO. The aim is to encourage a wider consultation on the formulation of rules relating to e-commerce.
- At present, negotiations related to e-commerce are held in multilateral mode, but here only a special group of countries continues to dominate.
- This means that some members of the WTO are involved in these discussions, not all of its members.
- India has argued that since the e-commerce sector has implications for developing and poor countries, it should be negotiated at the multilateral level.
- In 1998, the WTO established a work program on e-commerce to comprehensively examine all trade related issues related to e-commerce.
- The program directed WTO bodies such as the Council on Trade in Goods, Council on Trade in Services to explore the relationship between existing WTO agreements and e-commerce.
- It was agreed to impose a moratorium on e-commerce. This meant that member states would not impose customs duties on electronic transmissions. Electronic transmission includes software, email, digital music, movies, video games, etc.
Two papers presented by India:
- Consumer Protection Paper: In this, India has stressed the need to jointly address several innovative challenges and issues related to misleading advertisements, online payment security, data protection, dispute resolution etc.
- DPI Paper: It outlines the key challenges limiting the adoption of e-commerce. Additionally, it offers a solution to address the challenge of the digital divide.
World Trade Organisation:
- WTO was adopted in place of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) concluded in the year 1947.
- The background for the creation of WTO was prepared in the negotiations of the Uruguay Round of GATT (1986-94) and work was started by WTO on January 1, 1995.
- The agreement under which WTO was established is known as the “Marrakesh Agreement”. For this, it was signed in the year 1994 in Marrakesh, Morocco.
- WTO is an international organization that regulates the rules of trade between countries.
- The headquarters of WTO is located in Geneva, Switzerland. India became a founding member of GATT and WTO in the year 1947.
Source – The Hindustan Times
