The Exportation of EU Fundamental Rights to Privacy and Personal Data Protection in the Wider World Through International Agreements
摘要
This chapter investigates how the European Union strives to export the fundamental rights to privacy and data protection (enshrined in articles 7 and 8 of the Charter of Nice) in the wider world through its international agreements. Indeed, the EU has inserted—in several bilateral treaties having (at least partially) commercial nature concluded with third countries—provisions which are aimed at increasing the safeguards ensured by its counterparts to the fundamental rights at stake. Given the above, first of all, the contribution examines the articles included in some agreements signed by the EU in the second decade of the twenty-first century, such as the ones with South Korea, Colombia-Peru-Ecuador, Central America, Ukraine, Canada (CETA), Japan (EPA), Singapore and Viet Nam. It also highlights, however, the critical issues raised by the provisions at stake, due mainly to their weak formulation and to the unclear obligational content of certain terms. Then, the analysis focuses on a new and stronger mechanism endorsed by the EU Commission in 2018 in order to overcome the abovementioned critical issues: the so-called “Horizontal provisions for cross-border data flows and for personal data protection”, to be inserted in subsequent EU trade agreements in place of “old-fashioned” articles. Therefore, the chapter takes into consideration the agreements currently under negotiation in which the EU is attempting to include the Horizontal provisions—such as the ones with Australia and Tunisia—and, above all, the trade agreements that are already in force in which similar articles have actually been inserted, such as the ones with New Zealand, Chile and United Kingdom. Finally, it is possible to make some evaluations concerning not only the positive effects that such provisions can have in exporting worldwide the fundamental rights to privacy and data protection, but also the limitations that persist.