The "ALI-ELI Principles for a Data Economy" are a transnational project conducted jointly by the American Law Institute (ALI) and the European Law Institute (ELI) which is led by Christiane Wendehorst on the European side and generously funded by the Fritz Thyssen Foundation. Dr Sebastian Schwamberger, who is currently working on a Habilitation on data portability, supports the project as project assistant.
The first part of the project (Council Draft No. 1) was already approved by the ALI Council in January 2020. Since the approval of Council Draft No. 1 by the ALI Council in January 2020, the Reporters Neil Cohen and Christiane Wendehorst, supported by Project Chairs Steven O. Weise and Lord John Thomas, have been working on Preliminary Draft No. 4. This Draft contains additional Principles, such as on contracts for data pooling, data trust and data escrow, data marketplaces, data rights for the public interest, third party aspects of data activities and multi-state issues. These new Principles were favourably received by the 50 participants in the virtual meeting, and the Chairs and Reporters are looking forward to using the valuable guidance received on 8 October to complete Council Draft No. 2 and present it at the ALI Council Meeting in January 2021.
While still unpublished, some elements of the Drafts produced so far have already found international recognition. Inter alia, the concept of co-generated data has been adopted by the German Data Ethics Commission in its opinion and by the European Commission in its European Strategy for Data.
