With the ubiquity of cloud computing, criminal investigations today—including exclusively domestic ones—often require access to data across borders. However, the traditional system of cross-border legal cooperation—the Mutual Legal Assistance system—is ill-suited to this development. There is a growing consensus that this system is unsustainable and needs to be reformed or replaced with new alternatives. That is where the consensus ends, however. Despite the shared understanding of the problem and repeated calls for reform or replacement of the traditional system, there is little agreement on what these reforms or alternative approaches should look like. What one can witness instead is the proliferation of uncoordinated initiatives that could lead to further jurisdictional conflict and legal uncertainty. The purpose of the present contribution is to map and examine these various initiatives based on the approaches they follow in addressing the challenges in obtaining electronic evidence across borders—issues that are referred to broadly in this article as ‘cross-border data access [CBDA] problem’. It tries to answer two questions: what approaches can best explain the proliferation of initiatives aimed at improving law enforcement access to electronic evidence across borders? To what extent are these initiatives apt to address the CBDA problem? This article develops and distinguishes between four approaches—reformist, unilateralist, internationalist and nuanced—that can best explain the current and emerging initiatives. It then examines the suitability and sustainability of these approaches against their stated objectives and some key principles that have enjoyed extensive support in policy and academic discussions.

中文翻译：

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执法人员跨境获取电子证据：映射政策方法和新兴改革举措

随着云计算的普及，今天的刑事调查——包括国内的刑事调查——通常需要跨境访问数据。然而，传统的跨境法律合作制度——司法互助制度——已不适应这一发展。越来越多的共识是，该系统是不可持续的，需要进行改革或用新的替代方案取代。然而，这就是共识结束的地方。尽管对这个问题有着共同的理解，并一再呼吁改革或取代传统制度，但对于这些改革或替代方法应该是什么样子几乎没有达成一致意见。相反，人们可以看到的是不协调的倡议激增，这可能导致进一步的管辖冲突和法律不确定性。本稿件的目的是根据它们在解决跨境获取电子证据的挑战时所遵循的方法来绘制和检查这些不同的举措——本文中将这些问题广泛称为“跨境数据访问 [CBDA]问题'。它试图回答两个问题：什么方法可以最好地解释旨在改善执法部门跨境获取电子证据的举措的激增？这些举措在多大程度上能够解决 CBDA 问题？本文发展并区分了四种方法——改革主义、单边主义、国际主义和细微差别——它们可以最好地解释当前和新兴的倡议。