网络审查与国际贸易法

Internet Censorship and International Trade Law

网络是一个全球性市场。网络尤其是互联网商务发展迅速,并处于(覆盖绝大多数跨境商业模式的)传统贸易规制框架之外。随着网络市场规模的不断增长,对总体经济的贡献越来越突出,人们也越来越关心对它的监管问题,如对其采取贸易限制措施、破坏电子商务领域的贸易、投资、信息服务及网络交易环境等。一种典型的监管方式是网络屏蔽。

Internet is a global market place. The rapid development of the Internet, and especially of Internet-based commerce, has largely taken place outside the standard trade-regulatory frameworks that cover most other forms of cross-border commerce. As the size of the Internet markets has grown, and as their contribution to the overall economy has become more pronounced, more attention has been given to regulatory concerns, such as trade restrictive measures, damaging the climate of trade and investment in the fields of e-commerce, information based services and online transmissions. One such measure is the blockage of access to websites. This paper suggests that many WTO member states are legally obliged to permit an unrestricted supply of crossborder Internet services. And as the option to selectively censor rather than entirely block services is available to at least some of the most developed censorship regimes, there is a good chance that a panel might rule that permanent blocks on search engines, photo-sharing applications and other services are inconsistent with the GATS provisions. Less resourceful countries, without means of filtering more selectively, and with a censorship based on moral and religious grounds, might be able to defend such bans in the WTO. But the exceptions do not offer a blanket cover for the arbitrary and disproportionate censorship that still occurs despite the availability to the censoring government of selective filtering.