The Blavatnik School of Government co-hosted a multi-stakeholder workshop on the ‘Implications of digital trade provisions in UK trade agreements’. The workshop, a joint project between Digital Pathways at Oxford and the Global Economic Governance Programme – both research programmes based at the School – and the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) UK and Open Rights Group, convened academics, businesses, NGOs, trade unions and members of government.

The UK government has identified digital trade as a priority for its Global Britain trade agenda, but has yet to set out how it will approach this complex area of trade policy. The workshop tackled a number of points of concern that were identified by Emily Jones and her research team and allowed representatives of different stakeholder groups to share their aspirations and concerns about digital trade, in addition to practical ideas of what the UK government might do.