Every
year, the World Economic Forum publishes a Global Risks Report, which
distils the views of experts and policymakers from around the world.
This year, cybersecurity is high on the list of global concerns, as well
it should be. In 2017, the world witnessed a continued escalation in
cyber attacks and security breaches that affected all parts of society.
There is no reason to believe 2018 will be different.
The
implications are far-reaching. Most immediately, we must grapple with
governance of the Internet as well as on the Internet. Otherwise, the
opportunities afforded by digital technologies could be squandered in a
regulatory and legal arms race, complete with new borders and new global
tensions.
But there’s a broader issue: For all the speed with which
we are racing into the digital age, efforts to ensure global stability
are lagging far behind. In many respects, our world is still organised
within a Westphalian framework. States with (mostly) recognised borders
are the building blocks of the international system. Their interactions,
and their willingness to share sovereignty, define the existing world
order.
But globalisation has gradually changed the realities on the
ground. And while its force – waxing and waning since the decades
preceding World War I – is nowadays being tempered by geopolitics, and
by the impulse to slow the pace of technological change, the digital
transformation will propel globalisation forward, albeit in a different
form. After all, the Internet’s key feature is its non-territorial
architecture. By breaking down traditional borders, it poses a direct
challenge to the very foundation of the Westphalian order.
This is a
profoundly positive development, because it facilitates free expression
and the cross-border exchange of goods and ideas. But, as with all human
inventions, the Internet can be abused, as evidenced by the rise in
cybercrime, online harassment, hate speech, incitement to violence, and
online radicalisation.
Minimising such abuses in the years ahead will
require close international co-operation to establish and enforce
common rules. There can be no solution in isolation, because no single
government can tackle the problem on its own.
Over time, an alphabet
soup of organisations has emerged to bring together the technical
community, businesses, governments, and civil society. And bodies such
as ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers), IETF
(Internet Engineering Task Force), and W3C (World Wide Web Consortium)
now provide de facto governance of the Internet’s architecture. But
governance on the Internet is far more complex. Here, the institutional
landscape is both crowded and unsettled.
It is crowded because
numerous actors are competing to shape the normative framework of
cyberspace. Many countries have multiple relevant ministries regulating
online activity. Websites and online services have vastly different
community guidelines and terms of service. Public- and private-sector
developers determine the design of the Internet’s changing
infrastructure. And numerous civil-society groups are proposing their
own sets of cyber principles, while international organisations attempt
to develop multilateral agreements.
The landscape remains unsettled
because intergovernmental co-operation has largely stalled, owing to
conflicting priorities among countries. Making matters worse, there are
still too few dedicated spaces for different stakeholders to interact
and devise operational solutions.
In the absence of mutually agreed
frameworks, governments will tend to adopt short-term unilateral
measures – mandatory data localisation, excessive content restrictions,
intrusive surveillance – to address immediate concerns, or as a response
to domestic political pressure. But by doing so, they could fuel a
dynamic that heightens, rather than minimises, international tensions.
Digital
governance touches on everything from cybersecurity to the economy to
human rights, and uncertainty about which laws apply in different
jurisdictions weakens enforcement in all of them, leaving everyone worse
off. Moreover, measures to address one dimension can easily affect the
others, which means that unco-ordinated and rash policy decisions can
have negative consequences across the board.
When I had the honour of
chairing the Global Commission on Internet Governance, our 2016 report
highlighted these risks, and called for “a new Social Compact” to ensure
that the Internet of the future will be accessible, inclusive, secure,
and trustworthy.
Progress since then has been limited. Because
efforts at the United Nations to establish global cyber rules have
reached an impasse, alternative initiatives will have to drive the
process forward.
Fortunately, the Global Commission on the Stability
of Cyberspace recently issued an important “Call to Protect the Public
Core of the Internet.” And the upcoming Global Internet and Jurisdiction
Conference in Ottawa will provide another valuable opportunity for
policymakers to continue working toward solutions.
Such technical and
legalistic proceedings are essential for shaping the global transition
from the industrial to the digital era. To avoid a legal arms race,
policymakers will need to develop a smart approach to a variety of
tricky issues, from mutual assistance frameworks for investigations to
the role of domain-name administrators and service providers in
addressing abusive speech online.
Achieving policy coherence across
jurisdictions should be a top priority. Doing so will require direct,
sustained interactions among all stakeholders. Only then can we create a
framework to preserve the cross-border nature of the Internet, protect
human rights, fight abuse, and sustain a truly global digital economy.
As
Kofi Annan said back in 2004, “In managing, promoting, and protecting
[the Internet’s] presence in our lives, we need to be no less creative
than those who invented it.” Westphalia is behind us. What comes next is
up to us. – Project Syndicate
* Carl Bildt is a former prime minister and foreign minister of Sweden.