Running on Empty: Are Global Institutions Stuck in the Slow Lane of the Tech Autobahn?
“Technology, like art, is a soaring exercise of the human imagination.”
— Daniel Bell, Sociologist and Author of The Coming of Post-Industrial Society
In our world technology outpaces legislation. international institutions like the United Nations (UN) and the World Trade Organization (WTO) have become relics, incapable of governing the fast-moving dynamics of a digital economy. While they attempt to establish frameworks for digital rights, taxation, and data ownership, they are facing an existential crisis: can these aging institutions really keep up with the pace of tech innovation, or are they doomed to irrelevance?
The Struggle for Relevance
It’s no secret that global organizations have struggled to adapt to technological disruption. The UN, for instance, was formed in 1945 to maintain international peace after World War II — hardly the visionary organization you’d expect to lead conversations on blockchain regulation or artificial intelligence governance. The WTO, created in 1995, was originally designed to regulate traditional trade between nations, not digital goods like cryptocurrencies or cloud services.
Consider the Digital Services Tax (DST) debate in Europe: countries like France have enacted…
