stakeholder body it convened in 2009 to help develop necessary standards. Initially, NIST staff held key leadership and technical roles on the SGIP. However, in response to a changing environment and the increased maturity of the smart grid industry, in 2013 NIST transitioned SGIP into an industry-led non-profit organization. By October 2013, SGIP had more than 200 members, and it had finalized 56 standards.55 4.6.2 Role of governments as legal stewards Governments can also shape an important part of the institutional layer of interop in their role as caretakers of a robust and stable legal framework. The future success of emerging complex systems, such as cloud computing, will depend not just on market forces but also on a well-developed legal environment. Governments must establish trust and legal certainty for both users and providers of future interoperable systems.The relationships between interop and the law are many, complex, and tangled. The law can help establish, adjust, or maintain interop. At the same time, interoperability is also a feature of the legal system itself. Legal interoperability, broadly defined, is the process of making legal norms work together across jurisdictions. This may occur either within the legal system of a single nation-state—between national and local legislation—or across national lines. Like technical interoperability, legal interoperability is not a goal in itself but, rather, a means to one or more ends.The relationship between law and interoperability is multidirectional. Higher levels of interop are often the product of carefully designed legal interventions—or, at least, are fashioned in the shadow of the law. One example of this is the enforcement of competition law against powerful technology companies trying to leverage their market power by excluding competitors. The mandated disclosure of interoperability information as a matter of consumer protection is another.Conversely, interoperability itself can prompt calls for new laws to address its effects; it may also lead to the adjustment or reinterpretation of existing legal norms. As an example, consider the relationship between interoperability and privacy. Technical interoperability leads to concerns about data privacy. In response, the European Court of Justice expanded existing privacy directives to include a “right to be delisted” that spans jurisdictions. The changes wrought by higher levels of interoperability in the technology sector are prompting calls for new forms of legal interoperability.Governments have several options to increase levels of legal interoperability. The point is not to make the systems all the same but rather to make them work together in particular ways. It is not necessary for countries to turn over all legislative authority to the United Nations or to create a raft of new treaties that govern all jurisdictions. It is not possible to smooth out all cultural or legal differences through harmonization of laws. Nor should it be the goal to create one uniform “world law.” Jurisdictions compete productively against one another, and learn from each other, by experimenting with new laws and policies. Governments need to aim for interoperability among legal systems at an optimal level, rather than a maximum level, just as they do with other interop challenges.It is important to find this optimal level, because evidence suggests that legal interoperability, especially in the information economy, drives innovation, competition, trade, and economic growth. For instance, when China joined the World Trade Organization in 2001, it had to change many laws and enact new ones to satisfy the demands of its trading partners. China has made large-scale changes, for instance, in its system of intellectual property law. Though Chinese law is not the same as intellectual property law in the United States or Europe, it is dramatically closer to those standards today than it was a few decades ago.The EU faces a similar challenge today in aligning online commerce rules with the divergent copyright, contract, and VAT laws of “28 national markets.”56 As part of its Digital Single Market objective, the European Commission has proposed 16 initiatives to bring about greater levels of legal interop. 57 This level of legal interop, however, comes with challenges. As legal interop increases, companies find it feasible to enter markets that were previously off limits. But those companies frequently face challenging legal questions that require them to reconcile competing law and Trends in Telecommunication Reform 2016 117 Chapter 4