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Portrait of Markus Gunneflo. Photo.

Markus Gunneflo

Senior lecturer

Portrait of Markus Gunneflo. Photo.

Legal imagination and the US project of globalising the free flow of data

Author

  • Leila Brännström
  • Markus Gunneflo
  • Gregor Noll
  • Amin Parsa

Summary, in English

Today, the US pursues the global capture of data (understood as a significant engine of growth) by way of bi- and plurilateral trade agreements. However, the project of securing the global free flow of data has been pursued ever since the dawn of digital telecommunication in the 1960s and the US has made significant legal efforts to institutionalise it. These efforts have two phases: In the first 1970s and 80s “freedom of information” phase, the legal justification (and contestation) of the global free flow of data hinged on imagining data as information, and its exchange as a practice of liberty. The second phase began in the late 1990s and continues today. In this phase, the free flow of data is aligned with a free-trade agenda in the context of first e-commerce and, starting in the 2000s, through attempts at creating a global public domain of personal data for the platform economy. The global free flow of data is an intrinsic aspect of informational capitalism. Assuming a constitutive, but not commanding role for law in informational capitalism, we conclude that the US attempt at ensuring free flow for its informational corporations is neither an entirely contingent nor a necessary outcome. It is a product of legal imagination.

Department/s

  • Department of Law
  • Human Rights Law
  • Public International Law
  • LU Profile Area: Human rights

Publishing year

2023-08-09

Language

English

Publication/Series

AI & Society: Knowledge, Culture and Communication

Document type

Journal article

Publisher

Springer

Topic

  • Law

Keywords

  • Jurisprudence

Status

Epub

Research group

  • Human Rights Law
  • Public International Law

ISBN/ISSN/Other

  • ISSN: 1435-5655