e-Commerce의 확산과 WTO의 규정과 발전방안

The Role of WTO for the International Electronic Commerce

This paper explores the various ways in which the agreements and activities of the World Trade Organization(WTO) may have a bearing on electronic commerce. The main aim is to set out in systematic fashion the main issues that seem relevant to the interface between electronic commerce and WTO. That is to say, the paper attempts to identify the main policy challenges, focusing in particular upon how these relate to international trade and the WTO. Recent technological revolution touched increasingly every of activity where the digital transmission of information serves a purpose, whether be in the office in business, or in the worlds of shopping, leisure and entertainment. Recent advances in three areas-computer technology, telecommunications technology, and software and information technology are changing lives in ways scarely imagined. New means of exchanging information and transacting business are transforming many aspects of social and economic organization. These modern technologies are being combined, especially through the Internet, to link millions of people in every corner of the World. Communications are increasingly unburdened from the constraints of geography and time. Information spreads more widely and more rapidly than ever before. Deals are struck, transactions completed, and decisions taken in a time-frame that would have seemed simply inconceivable a few years ago. Because the Internet is an open communications system, facing little technological constraint environment for communications. Under these circumstances, the paper focuses on the WTO related issues of the electronic commerce, including the outcome of recent negotiation technology products, the coverage of Internet access services in WTO member’s commitments under the GATS, the gueation regarding the categorization of electronic transactions in the WTO framework and the role of the WTO in trade facilitation.