The Norms Alignment of Digital Trade: Handbook and Rulebook

Purpose - Technology-driven transformations are redefining global trade, making digital transactions and e-commerce integral to modern trade practices. As a result, the handbook on recording digital transactions and the rulebook on fair digital trade have emerged as critical pillars of digital trade norms. This study seeks to enhance the alignment between these frameworks and explore future directions for digital trade negotiations. Design/Methodology - The study employs a literature review method to analyze the provisions of international statistical rules and digital trade negotiations, each serving different functions as digital trade norms. The analysis focuses especially on the newly added Digitalization chapter in the current draft revisions of international statistical rules, BPM 7 and 2025 SNA, along with digital trade provisions of three plurilateral agreements (hereinafter PAs) involving the Digital Empires (U.S., EU, China). The analysis framework utilizes six indicators to assess data flow openness, divided into three measures for open data flow and three for restricted data flow. Findings - Although each fundamental purpose of the two frameworks differ; these differences do not prevent their coexistence. Instead, they enrich the approaches to the digital economy’s complexities. While digital trade provisions aim for overall alignment, they lack perfect coherence due to the varying conditions and positions of the states involved. Future digital trade negotiations should work toward enhancing both horizontal coherence with global frameworks and vertical coherence with domestic regulations. Achieving this will require stronger mutual understanding and collaborative initiatives across negotiating bodies toward a common objective, along with the ongoing academic guidance. Originality/value - As meaningful discussions regarding digital trade norms, such as digital trade PAs and digital statistics rules, are actively taking place, there is a consensus on the correlation between these two frameworks. However, there has been no prior study that compares both negotiation provisions and statistical rules to identify this alignment. Therefore, this study is expected to offer valuable academic and policy insights, fostering greater alignment in global digital trade.