On 18 May 2021, the current draft of the joint ALI-ELI project ‘Principles for a Data Economy’ was presented at the 2021 ALI membership meeting and approved by ALI members. The project aims to produce a set of transnational principles that are intended for use in various legal systems, irrespective of data protection/data privacy frameworks. They are designed to make existing law in the field of the data economy more coherent and inspire the further development of the law by courts and legislators worldwide. The Project Team consisting of Project Reporters Neil B Cohen and Christiane Wendehorst as well as Project Chairs Lord John Thomas and Steven O Weise have worked intensely on implementing feedback from experts and ELI/ALI bodies to finalise ‘Tenative Draft No 2’. Please find out more about the structure of the current draft on the new project website (https://principlesforadataeconomy.org/), with detailed information on each Part of the Principles for a Data Economy following soon.

With the approval of the current draft by the ALI membership, the project has reached another significant milestone. While the project is conducted jointly by the ELI and the ALI, the project needs to follow the approval processes of the respective organisations. As a next step, the Project Team will again implement feedback from ALI members before submitting the Principles to the ELI Annual Conference for approval by ELI Members in September 2021.