Global data law II: Ordering and Power

The EU as a Global Data Regulator

How is the EU projecting its regulatory approach to data protection law globally?

Is the EU’s attempt to regulate AI likely to follow a similar trajectory?

The United States between Internet Freedom and Investment Restrictions

What were the drivers and outcomes of the US Internet Freedom agenda?

How is the US repurposing its investment control regime to account for the salience of data?

China's growing influence in global data governance

How is China affecting data governance outside China?

What is the salience of the Digital Silk Road as an infrastructure-based ordering project?

Data Governance in Cities

How to construct collective data governance regimes for digitally mediated (“smart”) cities?

Global Data Law II: Ordering and Power was designed as a follow-on from Global Data Law I and from the Guarini Colloquium: Regulating Global Digital Corporations (both offered in fall 2021). The seminar considered the core components of – and major contention among – large-scale ordering projects in which different approaches to data governance are pursued. In the first weeks of the seminar we explored the aims and global implications of sets of data-law initiatives in the US, EU, China, and India; this includes some coverage of artificial intelligence (AI) and of foreign investment controls, as well as extraterritorial reach, and controls on transfers of data abroad. We discussed efforts to project these orders globally through international trade agreements (such as TPP, USMCA, RCEP), through infrastructural initiatives such as Belt & Road, and through global digital corporations. In the later weeks we examined ordering projects at sub-geopolitical scales: projects for indigenous peoples' data sovereignty, collective data governance in “smart cities”, protection of data under international law in “data embassies”, and International Organizations’ data governance regimes and potential roles as facilitators or intermediaries in global data governance (UN, World Bank, IPCC, etc). We concluded with discussions of global data extractivism, data inequality, and projects for 'digital development'.

The course is part of NYU Law's Guarini Global Law & Tech Program and its effort to frame the academic and practical field of "global data law" to bring into focus some significant conceptual problems and slivers of practice that are not yet receiving much academic attention.

Spring 2022
Thursdays, 5:30-7:30 PM, FH 210
Instructors: Benedict Kingsbury and Thomas Streinz
More information on NYU Law.

This course built on the Global Data Law course first offered in spring 2020 and also offered in spring 2021 due to continued strong student demand.