Legal Implications of E-Commerce: Basic Issues, Initiatives and Experiences in Asia

This paper gives a short overview on the major issues that have to be taken into account when formulating e-commerce-related laws and regulations and introduces two model laws relating to e-commerce and e-signatures which were created by the United Nations Commission of International trade Law. The paper has a closer look at e-commerce developments in Asia and the Pacific and gives an overview of the state of implementation of e-commerce laws. In conclusion, it discusses the e-ASEAN Reference Framework for electronic commerce legal infrastructure as example of a regional initiative to harmonize the legal basis for e-commerce.legal infrastructure, e-commerce laws, Asia, e-signature, e-ASEAN Reference Framework

India: Domestic Issues, Strategic Dynamics, and U.S. Relations

[Excerpt] President Barack Obama’s Administration has sought to build upon the deepened U.S. engagement with India begun by President Bill Clinton in 2000 and expanded upon during much of the past decade under President G.W. Bush. This “U.S.-India 3.0” diplomacy was most recently on display in July 2011, when the second U.S.-India Strategic Dialogue session saw a large delegation of senior U.S. officials visit New Delhi to discuss a broad range of global and bilateral issues. Many analysts view the U.S.-India relationship as being among the world’s most important in coming decades and see potentially large benefits to be accrued through engagement on many convergent interests. Bilateral initiatives are underway in all areas, although independent analysts in both countries worry that the partnership has lost momentum in recent years. Outstanding areas of bilateral friction include obstacles to bilateral trade and investment, including in the high-technology sector; outsourcing; the status of conflict in Afghanistan; climate change; and stalled efforts to initiate civil nuclear cooperation. India is the world’s most populous democracy and remains firmly committed to representative government and rule of law. Its left-leaning Congress Party-led ruling national coalition has been in power for more than seven years under the leadership of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, an Oxford-trained economist. New Delhi’s engagement with regional and other states is extensive and reflects its rising geopolitical status. The national economy has been growing rapidly—India’s is projected to be the world’s third-largest economy in the foreseeable future—yet poor infrastructure, booming energy demand, and restrictive trade and investment practices are seen to hamper full economic potential. Despite the growth of a large urban middle-class, India’s remains a largely rural and agriculture-based society, and is home to some 500-600 million people living in poverty. This report will be updated periodically

Innovative Asia: Advancing the Knowledge-Based Economy - Highlights of the Forthcoming ADB Study Report

[Excerpt] The development of knowledge-based economies (KBEs) is both an imperative and an opportunity for developing Asia. It is an imperative to sustain high rates of growth in the future and an opportunity whereby emerging economies can draw from beneficial trending developments that may allow them to move faster to advance in global value chains and in position in world markets. Over the last quarter of a century, driven mostly by cheap labor, developing countries in Asia have seen unprecedented growth rates and contributions to the global economy. Sustaining Asia’s growth trajectory, however, requires developing economies to seek different approaches to economic growth and progress, especially if they aspire to move from the middle-income to the high-income level. KBE is an important platform that can enable them to sustain growth and even accelerate it. It is time for Asia to consolidate and accelerate its pace of growth. Asia is positioned in a unique moment in history with many advantages that can serve as a boost: to name a couple, an expanding middle of the pyramid—Asia is likely to hold 50% of the global middle class and 40% of the global consumer market by 2020; and the growing importance of intra-regional trade within Asia, increasing from 54% in 2001 to 58% in 2011. Many developing economies are well placed to assimilate frontier technologies into their manufacturing environment

GoGlobal: How can contemporary design collaboration and e-commerce models grow the creative industries in developing countries?

Using previous case studies by the authors and a current live project, this paper considers whether the creative industries in a developing country (Ghana, Africa) can be nurtured through design collaboration and an e-commerce model to contribute significant economic growth through increasing international trade. The paper draws on practical experience of five annual projects, with a focus on GoGlobal Africa. Initiated in 2005, GoGlobal is a collaborative design research activity between the University of Technology Sydney, the Royal College of Art, the London School of Economics, RMIT Melbourne, and other partnering organisations. GoGlobal Africa was initiated in 2008 with 3 phases: creative studio with design students from the RCA UK and KNUST Ghana; an e-commerce process for supply, distribution and marketing; and a “hub” location to facilitate project delivery and dissemination. The context to GoGlobal is informed by the UNCTAD studies of global creative industries

The Digitalisation of African Agriculture Report 2018-2019

An inclusive, digitally-enabled agricultural transformation could help achieve meaningful livelihood improvements for Africa’s smallholder farmers and pastoralists. It could drive greater engagement in agriculture from women and youth and create employment opportunities along the value chain. At CTA we staked a claim on this power of digitalisation to more systematically transform agriculture early on. Digitalisation, focusing on not individual ICTs but the application of these technologies to entire value chains, is a theme that cuts across all of our work. In youth entrepreneurship, we are fostering a new breed of young ICT ‘agripreneurs’. In climate-smart agriculture multiple projects provide information that can help towards building resilience for smallholder farmers. And in women empowerment we are supporting digital platforms to drive greater inclusion for women entrepreneurs in agricultural value chains

India as a global security actor

Thanks to sustained economic growth and key investments in military capabilities, India will face growing demands from within and the international community to seek and play a greater role in global security affairs. The values and interests likely to guide India’s future behavior will be a mixture of old and new, eastern and western. India’s international aspirations have an important pre-history, covered in this chapter’s first section where non-alignment, as idea and practice, is explored for its enduring significance. India’s relevance as a security actor is assessed in terms of its activities and capacity to influence developments within two security zones of major contemporary importance: Afghanistan and the Indian Ocean. Finally, a section on the constraints and challenges examines India’s ability to navigate a multi-polar world, the fallout and gains of nuclearization, the 2008 Indo-US nuclear deal, as well as ‘the weaknesses from within’ in terms of human security

China's absorptive State: research, innovation and the prospects for China-UK collaboration

China's innovation system is advancing so rapidly in multiple directions that the UK needs to develop a more ambitious and tailored strategy, able to maximise opportunities and minimise risks across the diversity of its innovation links to China. For the UK, the choice is not whether to engage more deeply with the Chinese system, but how. This report analyses the policies, prospects and dilemmas for Chinese research and innovation over the next decade. It is designed to inform a more strategic approach to supporting China-UK collaboration

Social Media’s impact on Intellectual Property Rights

This is a draft chapter. The final version is available in Handbook of Research on Counterfeiting and Illicit Trade, edited by Peggy E. Chaudhry, published in 2017 by Edward Elgar Publishing Ltd, https://doi.org/10.4337/9781785366451. This material is for private use only, and cannot be used for any other purpose without further permission of the publisher.Peer reviewe