The Internet and Global Telecommunications: Exploring the Boundaries of International Coordination. A Report of the Annual Aspen Institute Roundtable on International Telecommunications (4th, Shonan Village Center, Japan, September 21-24, 1998) (original) (raw)

International Telecommunications Law and Policy

Cambridge Scholars Press, 2018

Since the revolution in modern telecommunications that followed the invention of the telegraph, telecommunication networks have provided channels for the fast delivery of communications across national borders. This transnational nature of telecommunication networks have led to the establishment of international regulatory regimes on the subject. On the other hand, developing countries consider regional economic integration as a major strategy for promoting trade and development, telecommunications have been seen within this context as a strategic tool for facilitating regional economic integration. This has also led to the establishment of regional telecommunication regulatory regimes that aim to promote regional integration and regulatory harmonization. This book discusses telecommunication regimes established by international and regional organizations such as the United Nations, the International Telecommunication Union, the World Trade Organization, the African Union, the Economic Community of West African States, and the Southern African Development Community, among a number of others. It will be relevant to policy makers, regulators, lawyers, law students, investors and telecommunication operators, as well as any person interested in international and African regional telecommunication regimes.

The Impact of New Communication Technologies on International Telecommunication Law and Policy: Cyberspace and the Restructuring of the International Telecommunication Union

CA Western L. Reveiw, 1995

We are in the midst of a fundamental economic and social transformation whose extent and implications we only partially grasp.... This transformation and the more richly interconnected, complex and turbulent world, the vast increase in information availability, and the compression in both time and space that result, has been labelled 'the information society.' In this interconnected, turbulent environment, older ways of organizing and governing, which are premised on a more restricted flow of information and more limited interconnections (including public and corporate bureaucracies, and even representative democracy and the nationstate) seem to be overwhelmed.'

Internet Governance and International Law: Structure, Principles and Norms of a New Regime

World has witnessed a new technological revolution in the form of internet especially in the latter half of the last century. Internet is a worldwide system of interconnected computers used for communication purposes. It has enabled millions of people throughout the world to communicate and interact with one another without regard to space and time limitations. Internet, as such, has removed constraints of space, time and distance. It has transcended conventional tangible boundaries. Internet can be said to be a information superhighway, a virtual library, a river or a global village. Internet has always posed a great challenge to law making and law enforcing authorities. Many areas of law, including, intellectual property, constitutional, commercial and criminal law have been particularly affected in varying degrees by the internet. The main problem relating to internet is that there is no central law governing the internet because there’s no central policy-making body that enforces internet decisions. This creates problems on such issues as jurisdiction, criminal law, evidence, privacy and even human rights. However, the most important aspect from public law standpoint has been the efforts at the international level to construct an international regime for global internet governance. Many of the governments whose citizens are connected to internet have expressed concern about the problems the internet has created. They have attempted to take action against the Internet’s intrusion upon the moral and cultural sensibilities of their citizens. However, individual attempts at regulating a worldwide system seem futile. Most attempts to define new rules rely on the disintegrating concept of territory while ignoring the new network and technological borders that transcend national boundaries. Currently, due to lack of national boundaries on the Internet, the only adequate way for countries to assert any control over the internet seems to involve withdrawing or restricting access. In this backdrop, it is being widely felt that a new international agreement must be concluded which recognizes the complexity of networks and allows expansion of the information revolution while avoiding the problems present in the existing legal framework. A possible solution to some of the problems resulting from internet use would be the creation of an international convention for governing this new medium of communication. This paper discusses some of the problems inherent to the Internet and analyses current international legal norms that apply to the internet. It enumerates certain set of principles and norms that could provide the foundation for the new Internet governance regime. It also opines that best way forward would be to conclude a framework convention as an appropriate institutional mechanism for advancing such a regime in the initial stage of its formation.

Governing Internet Globally: A Necessity

Jurnal Ilmu Politik dan Komunikasi, 2018

In the age of globalization, many questions were raised on the benefit and negative aspects of globalization and whether the world can manage globalization. The internet, as an important element of globalization, has contributed to many positive aspects of everyday lives but has also created discrimination, unevenness and has negative bearings on individuals as well as governments. Questions arise on the necessity of governing internet and the need to strike the right balance between ensuring that the negative impact of internet are properly managed through proper governance and the need to ensure that growth, creativity and preservation of rights that are needed in a globalized world continue unabated.

Going Beyond Talk: Can International Internet Governance Work?

Proceedings of the 5th Annual Symposium of the Global Internet Governance Academic Network (GigaNet)

As innovations in communication technologies advance and penetration of the Internet grows, the need to reconsider a new mandate for the Internet Governance Forum is approaching a critical threshold. This paper addresses this objective using research concerning globalization and democracy (Chua, 2003), the “trilemmas” of global integration (Rodrik, 2000), and the logic of collective action (Olson, 1965). The paper uses arguments and research from economics, political science and communication theory to answer the question: to what extent are policies and actions for Internet governance achievable. The paper concludes first that the governments will have to settle for “thin” globalization of the Internet or choose between sovereignty and democracy; second, the paper concludes that the USA as the still-dominant country on the Internet must stay committed and involved in Internet governance.

International Governance and the Internet

Just as national authorities and international/intergovernmental organisations may be seen as reaching out to incorporate the Internet within their respective areas of competence or jurisdiction, the impact of the Internet itself has been to transform the nature of governance. At the international level, this transformation is felt in a hitherto unprecedented transparency and accessibility of multilateral organisations and processes. Equally, the remarkable diffusion of new commercial opportunities presented by the Internet, including greater access to global markets for smaller enterprises and traders from the developing world, may in time have impact on the way sovereign nations perceive and pursue their economic interests, and the way in which rules governing international trading relations are construed and negotiated. In the end, studying the area of ‘international governance and the Internet’ may concern international governance by the Internet at least as much as international governance of the Internet. Over time, it may transpire that the Internet will transform international governance more than international institutions transform the Internet

Global internet governance

2008

A variety of forums have been used to negotiate international regimes for information and communication technologies (ICTs). While much scholarly attention has been paid to ICANN and WSIS, these two forums are not necessarily the most important or authoritative. The G8 and the OECD, for example, are considerably more important overall for ICT regime creation and maintenance. The purpose of this paper to put research on ICT regimes on a sounder footing by surveying the literature and proposing a new agenda for research.