As businesses increasingly embrace the use of technology in domestic and cross-border operations, such as blockchain technology, cloud technology, the Internet of Things (IoT) and digitalized trade documents, it is necessary for lawyers and legal policy-makers to not only appreciate the complex legal and policy issues arising from such use of technology, but to also help provide clear legal thinking and innovative ideas in resolving such issues.
This unique course aims to provide students with an opportunity to learn about and confront a selection of such issues, develop an understanding of real-world legal-policy issues and exercise skills in critical thinking and creativity to produce usable law and policy recommendations. The issues are selected based on their topicality, feedback from industry, importance to Singapore and ASEAN and a review of academic and business literature.
Students will be guided in an exploration and analysis of cross-border trade law issues relating to the intersection of commerce and technology. In the first part of the course, an explanation of the some key issues will be provided to help students understand the broader context of trade in the digital economy. Students will then be exposed to a number of issues which are confronting policy-makers and the private sector, so that they may conduct legal research and craft clear and cogent law and policy recommendations from their findings. Industry professionals will help to provide feedback and discuss students’ findings and recommendations. Industry contacts in this course are likely to be from the fields of finance, technology, commerce, policy/strategy and law.
In addition to interactive learning with the course instructor (Professor Locknie Hsu), students will also receive industry and policy insights from 1-3 industry experts (who may be from the commerce and finance, technology and/or policy-making sectors).
This course aims to provide students with the following learning opportunities:
- Understanding basic features of major digital technologies;
- Understanding emerging and cross-cutting law and policy issues surrounding the uses
of such technologies and of data in international trade;
- Analysis of cutting-edge law and policy materials and issues on such uses;
- Promotion of self-learning, group learning and further learning after the course; and
- Exercising creativity in designing useful recommendations.
Students explored the use of digital technologies (such as 3D printing etc), and suggested ways that addresses disruptions faced in the current legal landscape.