Terrorism and Internet governance: core issues

Both global governance and the sub-set of issues that may be termed 'internet governance' are vast and complex issue areas. The difficulties of trying to 'legislate' at the global level – efforts that must encompass the economic, cultural, developmental, legal, and political concerns of diverse states and other stakeholders – are further complicated by the technological conundrums encountered in cyberspace. The unleashing of the so-called ‘Global War on Terrorism’ (GWOT) complicates things yet further. Today, both sub-state and non-state actors are said to be harnessing – or preparing to harness – the power of the internet to harass and attack their foes. Clearly, international terrorism had already been a significant security issue prior to 11 September 2001 (hereafter '9/11') and the emergence of the internet in the decade before. Together, however, the events of 9/11 and advancements in ICTs have added new dimensions to the problem. In newspapers and magazines, in film and on television, and in research and analysis, 'cyber-terrorism' has become a buzzword. Since the events of 9/11, the question on everybody's lips appears to be 'is cyber-terrorism next?' It is generally agreed that the potential for a 'digital 9/11' in the near future is not great. This does not mean that IR scholars may continue to ignore the transformative powers of the internet

COLLECTIVE ACTION IN A FRAGMENTED WORLD. BRUEGEL POLICY BRIEF ISSUE 5 | SEPTEMBER 2019

There is a greater need than ever for international collective action. From climate preservation to financial stability and internet security, heightened interdependence calls for common responses to global threats. Obstacles to global collective action are no less formidable. Beyond President Trump’s stance and worldwide concerns over sovereignty, the China-US rivalry and the emergence of a multipolar world are impediments of a structural nature. The legal and institutional architecture of the rules-based global governance system looks increasingly incomplete and obsolete. A process of fragmentation has started to affect its core tenets. None of the main players is providing leadership. The US is increasingly questioning its post-war role; China is reluctant to invest in a system designed by others; Europe remains too weak and fragmented to offer sufficient leadership

Collective action in a fragmented world. POLICY BRIEF ISSUE 5 | SEPTEMBER 2019. Bruegel

THE ISSUE There is a greater need than ever for international collective action. From climate preservation to financial stability and internet security, heightened interdependence calls for common responses to global threats. Obstacles to global collective action are no less formidable. Beyond President Trump’s stance and worldwide concerns over sovereignty, the China-US rivalry and the emergence of a multipolar world are impediments of a structural nature. The legal and institutional architecture of the rules-based global governance system looks increasingly incomplete and obsolete. A process of fragmentation has started to affect its core tenets. None of the main players is providing leadership. The US is increasingly questioning its post-war role; China is reluctant to invest in a system designed by others; Europe remains too weak and fragmented to offer sufficient leadership

The influence of human rights on land rights and spatial information

This paper reviews the growing influence of human rights issues on land rights, administration, management and tenure. In the last few decades, attention focussed on integrating economic and environmental considerations to achieve sustainable land use. The World Trade Organisation began in 1995. As a condition of membership, nations undertook legislative programmes aimed at reducing price distortions and barriers to international trade. Reducing trade barriers has direct effects on agricultural production as a major land use. Similarly, as signatories to the 1992 Rio Declaration, nations undertook caring for and reporting on the state of the environment. However, quality of life is also an issue in deciding what is sustainable development. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, proclaimed in 1948, provided a framework for a series of international human rights conventions. These conventions now influence national legislative programmes. The purpose of this paper is to review some of the implications of human rights on rights in land and the production and use of spatial information

Globalization in Question: Hierarchies, States and Gender. NCRE Online Paper No. 01/03

[From the Introduction] Globalization is the pervasive buzzword of the day as we enter the new millennium. From the BBC's Reith lecturers to first-year undergraduates at Bradford University, almost everybody on the ground has a pretty shrewd idea of what globalization means - the rise of the global society, economy and polity. Nevertheless, the perception is widespread that the term 'globalization' is persistent, over-used and under-defined (Devetak and Higgott l999). The first section below investigates further what globalization means or is - and whether it can really be demonstrated to exist. Globalization, whether conceived primarily in terms of markets or in its political or other ramifications, leads us to view the world 'in the round' (Keens-Soper 2000, 54). The Courier (l997) also emphasized the importance of the geographical dimension of globalization in French and other Latinbased languages. But this article argues that the spherical shape of globalization is misleading; globalization is more like a pyramid with powerful elite states, corporations and persons (the latter mostly male) at the top and the more powerless, peripheral and disproportionately female entities at the bottom

Always in control? Sovereign states in cyberspace

For well over twenty years, we have witnessed an intriguing debate about the nature of cyberspace. Used for everything from communication to commerce, it has transformed the way individuals and societies live. But how has it impacted the sovereignty of states? An initial wave of scholars argued that it had dramatically diminished centralised control by states, helped by a tidal wave of globalisation and freedom. These libertarian claims were considerable. More recently, a new wave of writing has argued that states have begun to recover control in cyberspace, focusing on either the police work of authoritarian regimes or the revelations of Edward Snowden. Both claims were wide of the mark. By contrast, this article argues that we have often misunderstood the materiality of cyberspace and its consequences for control. It not only challenges the libertarian narrative of freedom, it suggests that the anarchic imaginary of the Internet as a ‘Wild West’ was deliberately promoted by states in order to distract from the reality. The Internet, like previous forms of electronic connectivity, consists mostly of a physical infrastructure located in specific geographies and jurisdictions. Rather than circumscribing sovereignty, it has offered centralised authority new ways of conducting statecraft. Indeed, the Internet, high-speed computing, and voice recognition were all the result of security research by a single information hegemon and therefore it has always been in control

The Global Risks Report 2016, 11th Edition

Now in its 11th edition, The Global Risks Report 2016 draws attention to ways that global risks could evolve and interact in the next decade. The year 2016 marks a forceful departure from past findings, as the risks about which the Report has been warning over the past decade are starting to manifest themselves in new, sometimes unexpected ways and harm people, institutions and economies. Warming climate is likely to raise this year's temperature to 1° Celsius above the pre-industrial era, 60 million people, equivalent to the world's 24th largest country and largest number in recent history, are forcibly displaced, and crimes in cyberspace cost the global economy an estimated US$445 billion, higher than many economies' national incomes. In this context, the Reportcalls for action to build resilience – the "resilience imperative" – and identifies practical examples of how it could be done.The Report also steps back and explores how emerging global risks and major trends, such as climate change, the rise of cyber dependence and income and wealth disparity are impacting already-strained societies by highlighting three clusters of risks as Risks in Focus. As resilience building is helped by the ability to analyse global risks from the perspective of specific stakeholders, the Report also analyses the significance of global risks to the business community at a regional and country-level

Hyper-power and private monopoly: the unholy marriage of (neo) corporatism and the imperial surveillance state

American hyper-power world dominance by public and private agencies has replaced British Empire hyper-power world domination in the period 1815-1914. Snowden’s revelations have given rise to several important papers examining the geographical and territorial limits on the Internet, comparing it to the imperial telegraph (Kurbalija 2013) and even to the Roman imperial road (Moglen 2013). This paper recalls earlier telegraphy research (Standage 1999, Hills 2007) and explains how the previous hyperpower (Marsden 2004, describing a global super-power without effective opposition, from the French hyperpuissance) was able to control communications in order to extend its extraterritorial application of domestic law. I explain that the telegraph ‘cables that girdled the Earth’ (Clarke 1958) were sunk into the sea in Cornwall, southwest England, and that today’s Internet fibre cables are in the same places – with the result that the greatest National Security Agency espionage-gathering operation is a joint US/UK operation from the small town of Bude, Cornwall. Add to that espionage the invention of encryption/decryption computing, devices from Babbage’s Difference Engine to Turing and Tommy Flower’s Colossus Marks I and II that broke both Enigma and Lorenz1. The recipe now exists for what the National Security Agency calls ‘Total Information Awareness’ and the Orwellian nightmare of totally efficient surveillance and ‘war is peace’ according to the Ministry of Truth2. But it existed before, and we should learn from the past

Genomic stuff: Governing the (im)matter of life

Emphasizing the context of what has often been referred to as “scarce natural resources”, in particular forests, meadows, and fishing stocks, Elinor Ostrom’s important work Governing the commons (1990) presents an institutional framework for discussing the development and use of collective action with respect to environmental problems. In this article we discuss extensions of Ostrom’s approach to genes and genomes and explore its limits and usefulness. With the new genetics, we suggest, the biological gaze has not only been turned inward to the management and mining of the human body, also the very notion of the “biological” has been destabilized. This shift and destabilization, we argue, which is the result of human refashioning and appropriation of “life itself”, raises important questions about the relevance and applicability of Ostrom’s institutional framework in the context of what we call “genomic stuff”, genomic material, data, and information