Report on Workshop 85: The Transboundary Internet: Jurisdiction, Control and Sovereignty
Organized by Internet Governance Caucus
Agenda of workshop
The Internet crosses the boundaries of all nations and raises some unique transboundary jurisdictional problems. The recent case of a British citizen living in Spain, with Internet servers in the Bahamas, selling holidays to Cuba, and having his domain name impounded by a registrar located in the USA because it appeared to break the US embargo against Cuba is one recent case in point. Another landmark case was the French-US Yahoo! case in 1999 dealing with sale of nazi memorabilia, but apart from these high profile content cases there are many examples in other areas such as privacy, consumer issues, cybercrime, and intellectual property.
This workshop will discuss the many implications of competing national jurisdictions being projected into a globalized space where multiple normative sources apply, such as political, legal, technical, contractual, and behavioral regulations. Through practical case studies, this workshop will look at the implications of various approaches to resolving these issues and the implications for Internet governance, international law, national sovereignty, democracy, and human rights and fundamental freedoms.
The workshop also explores the implications for Internet governance where no structures are in place to deal with emerging issues, and how default unilateral action in the absence of structural alternatives can lead to de facto Internet governance.
Panelists
Events in Mumbai led to several last minute changes and cancellations. The Council of Europe contribution had to be received by video link. The panelists present were
· Ian Peter – Ian Peter & Associates (Chair)
· Meryem Marzouki – European Digital Rights (EDRI), Europe & National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) – Univ. Pierre et Marie Curie, France
· William J. Drake – Centre for International Governance, Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies – Geneva
· Miriam Sapiro, Principal, Summit Strategies International
· Rishi Jaitly - Google's 'South Asia Government Affairs Manager'
Discussion
A lively discussion between the panelists and with the audience ensued. Perhaps a particular highlight was the presentation by Google’s Rishi Jaitly- Mr Jaitly had worked as a member of the small policy group within Google that deals with requests from governments and other bodies for removal of offensive content. Mr Jaitly spoke candidly about how Google deals with such requests, particularly as regards You Tube content, and requested feedback on how it could better act in the public interest here.
Several government representatives involved in content regulation spoke about specific incidents and difficulties in this area.
There was a general feeling in the summation of the workshop that there was much that needed to be evolved in this area, and that exchanges such as those that took place during this workshop were helpful in understanding some of the complexities in this area