Access to Information and Data in International Law

The sharing of data between States, particularly during a transnational public emergency, is essential for, e.g., monitoring adequate responses. Yet, in the digital economy, it is the private sector that leads in the collection and processing of huge amounts of data on a global scale, while the public sector often lags behind. We begin the article by examining the shortcomings of the solutions developed in human rights law and in international economic law concerning access to public sector information and data. Afterwards, we propose three possibilities to provide adjustments of the regulatory framework governing data sharing in the era of big data: sectoral approach to data sharing, establishment of common standards for public sector information re-use, and the idea of ‘data altruism’ introduced in the Data Governance Act. We indicate how these solutions could facilitate the development of an international regulatory framework for data sharing on an international level.