Wendy Kasenene

Profile

Thesis Title

Mind the gap: Trade rules and the digital economy

Supervisors

• Dr Gabriel Gari
• Professor Ian Walden

Summary of Research

This project is concerned with the impact of technological changes on trade governance. Multilateral trade rules were originally designed to facilitate trade in goods in the 1940s and last updated to cover trade in services in the early 1990s. New digital technologies are changing the means for trading, the content of trade and the traders themselves. Data localisation measures and internet access restrictions are replacing tariffs and quotas as the new barriers to trade. The aim of the project is to assess the extent to which current trade rules are suitable for securing an open and non-discriminatory, but also a safe and trustworthy digital market.

Biography

Wendy is a non-practising advocate of the High Court of Uganda having enrolled to the bar in 2008. During her time in practice at a Legal 500 law firm, she worked as a corporate and commercial lawyer with some litigation. She has also worked as a Compliance officer for a UK Private Equity firm. She has an LLM in Banking and Finance from Queen Mary University of London, an LLM in International Trade and Investment law from the University of Amsterdam (recipient of the Amsterdam Merit Scholarship) and an LLB from Makerere University Kampala. She joined the Centre for Commercial Law Studies at Queen Mary University of London in September 2020 to commence her doctoral studies as a recipient of a LISS DTP Research Studentship.

Research