Functional and discrete digital sustainability within the sustainable development goals

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) present the new global agenda by the United Nations for the next 15 years from 2016 to 2030. In this research paper we examine how digital resources may contribute to the achievement of the SDGs. Based on a broad literature review we argue functional digital sustainability supports the SDGs while discrete digital sustainability is required to create and progress knowledge necessary to advance the SDGs. First we explain the perspectives of functional and discrete sustainability; secondly we map the two perspectives onto the 17 SDGs with examples incorporating both perspectives of digital sustainability. We conclude that digital sustainability should encompass both perspectives in order to exploit the full potential of information systems in regard to sustainability transformations.

A Plurilateral Agenda for Services? Assessing the case for a Trade in Services Agreement (TISA)

This paper explores a number of procedural and substantive considerations arising from ongoing attempts to craft a plurilateral Trade in Services Agreement (TISA) among the so-called “Really Good Friends of Services” coalition of WTO Members. The paper suggests that considerable scope exists to move forward a multilateral negotiating agenda on services that both the digital revolution and a continued surge of preferential rule-making has rendered increasingly obsolete. As the most significant attempt to date to craft a GATS Article V-compatible PTA in services, TISA offers considerable promise. The paper, however, cautions that the case for embedding TISA into the architecture of WTO rules alongside the General Agreement on Trade in Services or in its place is weak on both procedural and substantive grounds to the extent that the ongoing talks take place behind doors that remain closed even to the WTO Secretariat, let alone to many of the world’s leading developing country suppliers of services, and involve potentially significant departures from GATS rules liable to complicate any hoped for multilateral migratory journey. Key words: WTO, GATS, trade in services, plurilateral agreements, critical mass negotiations, preferential trade liberalization.