Toward a social compact for digital privacy and security

Executive summary The Global Commission on Internet Governance (GCIG) was established in January 2014 to articulate and advance a strategic vision for the future of Internet governance. In recent deliberations, the Commission discussed the potential for a damaging erosion of trust in the absence of a broad social agreement on norms for digital privacy and security. The Commission considers that, for the Internet to remain a global engine of social and economic progress that reflects the world’s cultural diversity, confidence must be restored in the Internet because trust is eroding. The Internet should be open, freely available to all, secure and safe. The Commission thus agrees that all stakeholders must collaborate together to adopt norms for responsible behaviour on the Internet. On the occasion of the April 2015 Global Conference on Cyberspace meeting in The Hague, the Commission calls on the global community to build a new social compact between citizens and their elected representatives, the judiciary, law enforcement and intelligence agencies, business, civil society and the Internet technical community, with the goal of restoring trust and enhancing confidence in the Internet. It is now essential that governments, collaborating with all other stakeholders, take steps to build confidence that the right to privacy of all people is respected on the Internet. It is essential at the same time to ensure the rule of law is upheld. The two goals are not exclusive; indeed, they are mutually reinforcing. Individuals and businesses must be protected both from the misuse of the Internet by terrorists, cyber criminal groups and the overreach of governments and businesses that collect and use private data. A social compact must be built on a shared commitment by all stakeholders in developed and less developed countries to take concrete action in their own jurisdictions to build trust and confidence in the Internet. A commitment to the concept of collaborative security and to privacy must replace lengthy and over-politicized negotiations and conferences

Social Movements and the Globalisation of Environmental Governance

Summary Environmental governance has become globalised as part of a wider agenda of global governance building within key institutions such as the World Trade Organisation (WTO). The perceived need for global solutions to global environmental problems and calls for sustainable development have put environmental issues onto the agenda of the institutions of global governance, which, some argue, are becoming democratised through consultation with global civil society. This sphere of global civil society, however, is not unproblematic, hosting a diversity of actors such as social movements, business and industry who are clearly not on an equal footing. This article focuses on social movements attempts to influence the international trade agenda, but also takes a look at radical grassroots resistance movements that do not fit easily within this sphere. Their calls for structural transformation of the WTO highlight the lack of democracy and accountability within the WTO that will not be remedied merely through consultation with global civil society

In Search of Perfect Foresight? Policy Bias, Management of Unknowns, and What Has Changed in Science Policy Since the Tohoku Disaster

The failure to foresee the catastrophic earthquakes, tsunamis, and nuclear accident of 2011 has been perceived by many in Japan as a fundamental shortcoming of modern disaster risk science. Hampered by a variety of cognitive and institutional biases, the conventional disaster risk management planning based on the “known risks” led to the cascading failures of the interlinked disaster risk management (DRM) apparatus. This realization led to a major rethinking in the use of science for policy and the incorporations of lessons learned in the country's new DRM policy. This study reviews publicly available documents on expert committee discussions and scientific articles to identify what continuities and changes have been made in the use of scientific knowledge in Japanese risk management. In general, the prior influence of cognitive bias (e.g., overreliance on documented hazard risks) has been largely recognized, and increased attention is now being paid to the incorporation of less documented but known risks. This has led to upward adjustments in estimated damages from future risks and recognition of the need for further strengthening of DRM policy. At the same time, there remains significant continuity in the way scientific knowledge is perceived to provide sufficient and justifiable grounds for the development and implementation of DRM policy. The emphasis on “evidence-based policy” in earthquake and tsunami risk reduction measures continues, despite the critical reflections of a group of scientists who advocate for a major rethinking of the country's science-policy institution respecting the limitations of the current state science

Rethinking global governance? Complexity, authority, power, change

Global governance remains notoriously slippery. While the term arose to describe change in the late twentieth century, its association with that specific moment has frozen it in time and deprived it of analytical utility. It has become an alternative moniker for international organizations, a descriptor for an increasingly crowded world stage, a call to arms, an attempt to control the pernicious aspects of globalization, and a synonym for world government. This article aims not to advance a theory of global governance but to highlight where core questions encourage us to go. A more rigorous conception should help us understand the nature of the contemporary phenomenon as well as look “backwards” and “forwards.” Such an investigation should provide historical insights as well as prescriptive elements to understand the kind of world order that we ought to be seeking and encourage us to investigate how that global governance could be realized

Emerging Strategies for Healthy Urban Governance

Urban health promotion is not simply a matter of the right interventions, or even the necessary resources. Urban (and indeed global) health depends to an important extent on governance, the institutions and processes through which societies manage the course of events. This paper describes the concept of governance, distinguishing between reforms aimed at improving how government works and innovations that more fundamentally reinvent governance by developing new institutions and processes of local stakeholder control. The paper highlights strategies urban governors can use to maximize their influence on the national and international decisions that structure urban life. It concludes with some observations on the limitations of local governance strategies and the importance of establishing a “virtuous circuit” of governance through which urban dwellers play a greater role in the formation and implementation of policy at the national and global levels