Introduction: Institutionalisation beyond the nation state: new paradigms? Transatlantic relations: data, privacy and trade law

The chapter explores how we should understand the development of institutionalisation beyond the Nation State. It focuses largely but not exclusively upon a possibly ‘hard case’ of global governance, EU-US relations, long understood to be a non-institutionalised space, in light of recent legal and political developments in trade and data law How should we reflect upon ‘progress’ as a narrative beyond the Nation State? What is the place of bottom-up led process? The lexicon and framework of institutionalisation is argued to be both important and a valuable one worthy of being developed out of the shadows of many disciplines. Institutionalisation may be the antithesis of the desired political outcome and simultaneously also the panacea for all harms. Contrariwise, it is a highly provocative lexicon in its own right for its capacity to provoke questions of sovereignty and sensitivity towards embedded institutionalised frameworks. Transatlantic relations provide a vivid multi-disciplinary example of the relationship between institutionalisation and private power and quest for new forms of institutionalisation across a range of subjects. Exploring ‘de-institutionalisation’ may not capture adequately developments taking place between the EU and US in trade and data privacy. A broader context of extreme volatility in the global legal order is arguably also difficult to capture and pin down as to its specific temporal or conceptual elements. Strong internationalised institutionalisation appears to constitute the outcome of the ‘trade’ case study whereas weak localised institutionalisation appears to constitute the outcome of the ‘data’ case study. Nonetheless, they both represent important evolving concepts of power, rights and authority beyond the State

The Future of EU Data Privacy Law: Towards a More Egalitarian Data Privacy

The article addresses the future of European Union (EU) data privacy law and argues for a shift of paradigm, calling for a less technology-driven and more human-centric and societally focused approach. It discusses two case studies — poor people’s data privacy and women’s data privacy — and the recent System for Risk Indication “SyRI” and finds that the mainstream EU data protection narrative has missed out fundamental questions about the socio-economic, gender and intersectional exceptions of EU data protection law. In this regard, the article argues that EU data protection law should be reconstructed to pursue substantive equality goals. It proposes an egalitarian data privacy project guided by methods that bring forward neglected perspectives and narratives. It concludes that only if EU data protection law is attentive to the inequalities that the most vulnerable face, it can remain relevant in the future

The Law of Facebook: Borders, Regulation and Global Social Media

This paper provides an outline of the talks presented at the webinar event “The Law of Facebook: Borders, Regulation and Global Social Media” on 15 May 2020, jointly hosted by the City Law School Jean Monnet Chair of Law & Transatlantic Relations, the Institute for the study of European Law (ISEL) and the International Law and Affairs Group (ILAG)

European Union regulation of transatlantic data transfers and online surveillance

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