between state efforts to control domestic information landscapes by preventing access to specific websites or services in order to maintain regime stability and states attempting to establish domestic legislation in response to extraterritorial behavior of other states. Critically, distinguishing between Westphalian and domestic sovereignty allows for a potential third-way that bridges domestic sovereignty and extraterritorial policies that potentially undermine the global internet. Krasner defines interdependence as the control of transborder movements, with recognition that interdependence results in diminishing Westphalian control.25 Keohane and Nye outline a framework for
complex interdependence on the basis of a world order defined by multiple channels connecting societies, a multitude of interstate issues with no particular hierarchy, and less reliance on military force.26
Building from these characteristics of complex interdependence can provide a framework of information interdependence. The internet creates ever more channels between societies, including digital cosmopolitanism,27 and Keohane and Nye suggest that
the information revolution strengthens the possibility for complex interdependence by supporting more channels of communication,28 including the global flows of goods
and services.29 Furthermore, even when pursuing
Westphalian cyber-borders, securitizing cyberspace is
June 7, 2013, Accessed July 10, 2014, http://www.theguardian. com/world/2013/jun/06/us-tech-giants-nsa-data.
24 Barton Gellman and Ashkan Soltani, “NSA surveillance program reaches ‘into the past’ to retrieve, replay phone calls,” The Washington Post, March 18, 2014, Accessed July 10, 2014, http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/ nsa-surveillance-program-reaches-into-the-past-to-retrieve- replay-phone-calls/2014/03/18/226d2646-ade9-11e3-a49e- 76adc9210f19_story.html.
25 Krasner, Sovereignty.
26 Robert O. Keohane and Joseph S. Nye, Power and
Interdependence: World Politics in Transition, 2nd edition
(Glenview: Illinois, 1989).
27 Ethan Zuckerman, Rewire: Digital Cosmopolitans in the Age of
Connection, (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2013).
28 Robert O Keohane, and Joseph S. Nye Jr. “Power and interdependence in the information age.” Foreign Affairs (1998): 81-94.
29 James Manyika et al. “Global flows in a digital age: How trade, finance, people, and data connect the world economy” McKinsey Global Institute, (2014).
less viable than land or air.30 Global information policy
is ineffectively realized through traditional hard power. A paradigm of interdependence offers the much needed middle ground that could unite countries struggling for domestic sovereignty while limiting extraterritorial regimes. Bridging this divide offers a critical third-way to the emerging swing states in global internet policy debates. Examples of interdependence are offered across five issue areas driving internet governance debates: critical internet resources, content control regulation, intellectual property protection, cyber security, and surveillance and data retention.
Critical Internet Resources
Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA), oversees key technical functions of the global internet including the allocation of IP address space and top level DNS registry, and the US has had oversight of IANA since 1998. In 2014, Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) proposed transitioning IANA to the global the multistakeholder community, which would be an important step towards information interdependence. The Internet Governance Project proposes a suite of additional recommendations, including the creation of an independent DNS authority and granting oversight to a consortium of TLD registries.31
Content Control Regulation
Not only are national policies that censor content for political or cultural stability inconsistent with human rights, but blocking content and services creates trade barriers for digital economies. Information interdependence for content requires policies that limit barriers for content production and distribution as well as support for freedom of expression online. One critical policy is limiting intermediary liability, effectively reducing incentives for proactive censorship and allowing content production and distribution platforms to proliferate.32
Cybersecurity
Cybersecurity can be generally categorized in terms of militarily-focused cyberwar and economic-based
30 Keohane and Nye, “Information Age.”
31 Milton Mueller and Brenden Kuerbis, “Roadmap for globalizing IANA: Four principles and a proposal for reform,” Internet Governance Project, (2014), Accessed July 29, 2014, www. internetgovernance.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/ ICANNreformglobalizingIANAfinal.pdf.
32 CDT, “Shielding the Messengers: Protecting Platforms for Expression and Innovation,” December 2012, Accessed July 30, 2014, https://www.cdt.org/files/pdfs/CDT-Intermediary- Liability-2012.pdf.
cyber crime.33 One approach for addressing economic-
based cyber crime can be approached through law enforcement cooperation. For example, through the US Safe Web Act the US Federal Trade Commission works with foreign law enforcement on issues of spam, spyware and online fraud.34 Military-focused
cybersecurity trends toward realism as opposed to interdependence and contends with state and non-state based attackers. Deibert has proposed a framework of distributed security that “emphasizes checks and balances on power, oversight on authority, and protections for rights and freedom” as an alternative to a realist approach.35 Deibert’s approach
is to ground cybersecurity in principles for society, consider international implications, limit the secrecy of intelligence agencies, respect core privacy rights, and work towards international norms.36 Global norms are
still emerging at the UN level, providing an opportunity to establish interdependence.37
Surveillance and Data Retention
The global scope of US surveillance has caused some states to be concerned about the control of internet traffic and data and has driven debates over the localization of data. Similar fears have lowered trust in services offered by US providers. Interdependence for surveillance and data retention requires multilateral law enforcement agreements to access data while moving towards international privacy protection for the transfer and storage of data. While the latter will likely continue to experience tensions between domestic and regional interpretations, frameworks for law enforcement cooperation exist. For example, Mutual Legal Assistance Treaties (MLATs) provide mechanisms for accessing data from a company in another country’s jurisdiction. MLATs can be abused, and can delay investigations, but reformed processes could provide mechanisms for limited law enforcement access, with respect for due process, to user data across borders.38
33 Tim Maurer, “Cyber Norm Emergence at the United Nations – An Analysis of the UN‘s Activities Regarding Cyber-security,” Discussion Paper 2011-11, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School, (2011). 34 Federal Trade Commission. “The U.S. Safe Web Act: The First
Three years, a Report to Congress” (2009). 35 Deibert, “Distributed Security,” 16. 36 Ibid.
37 Maurer “Norm Emergence.”
38 Kate Westmoreland, “What are the solutions to the ‘MLAT problem’?” Discussion paper, 2014, Accessed July 28, 2014, https://docs.google.com/document/d/1QS6E6_ DnENwr9ea088u8cZETdchMg_XFy1cRlF8ec04/
edit#heading=h.worb0ss9wv5i. Permission needed to view.
Intellectual Property
Intellectual property offers a cautionary tale of interdependence. Existing agreements include the World Intellectual Property Organization, created in 1967 as a United Nations agency focused on protecting intellectual property rights globally, followed by the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) agreement in 1994. However, efforts at new agreements demonstrate both the dominance of the United States in international intellectual property debates, and the overwhelming influence of US companies rather than a citizen-led debate. For example, TRIPS began losing support from India and Brazil while one effort at a renewed agreement, the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, drew widespread protests in Europe. The United States stood alone in opposing the Marrakesh Treaty to Facilitate Access to Published Works for Persons Who Are Blind, Visually Impaired, or Otherwise Print Disabled, an agreement to increase access to books for the visually impaired.39
However, these challenges demonstrate the dilemma of US influence being combined with select business interests rather than interdependence as framework for state relations.
Conclusion
Internet use will continue to expand in the coming years, but the greatest increase in internet users will come from outside of the United States and Europe. Deibert writes, “Internet users in places like China, India, Latin America, and Southeast Asia will soon dwarf these early adopting constituencies” such as the United States and Europe.40 The increase of internet users and the ways
in which their respective governments engage with information policy will undoubtedly destabilize current power dynamics and shift global information policy debates. While China is a dedicated Westphalian state with regards to information polices, Maurer and Morgus describe many of these future growth countries (describing nearly 30, including Argentina, Brazil, India, Mexico, Turkey, and South Africa) as swing states with multifaceted political landscapes, and the strong potential to influence debate.41
The emerging shift to a multipolar world necessitates defining a global framework of information policy across critical issues that both minimize information
39 Shae Fitzpatrick. “Setting Its Sights on the Marrakesh Treaty: The US Role in Alleviating the Book Famine for Persons with Print Disabilities.” BC Int’l & Comp. L. Rev. 37 (2014): 139-209. 40 Deibert 2012, 6
41 Tim Maurer and Robert Morgus, “Tipping the Scales: An Analysis of Global Swing States in the Internet Governance Debate,” Internet Governance Papers No. 7, The Centre for International Governance Innovation (2014).
empire and reduce incentives for countries that might otherwise use cyberborders to rally national interests. This essay provides the foundation for a middle ground to bridge this conflict. While interdependence alone will not resolve the most hardline adherents to Westphalian policies, the risks of isolation from interconnected economies can facilitate the continuation of a global internet regulatory commons. Information interdependence offers a third-way for governance in an interconnected world.
James Losey is a doctoral candidate at the School of Information Studies and the Department of Media Studies at Stockholm University. He is also a visiting scholar at the University of Pennsylvania’s Center for Global Communication Studies at the Annenberg School for Communication and an affiliate at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University.