Getting global cooperation right on internet governance: strategic roadmaps for the future

ABSTRACT

Except for a single cybercrime treaty, there are no international binding treaties governing nation state relations in cyberspace. The reasons include the challenges of fragmentation, interoperability, and localization. These challenges are compounded by treaty harmonization issues where many countries have yet to enact domestic legislation prohibiting the targeted conduct or disagree about the protection of human rights and privacy. Mistrust between nation states and the growing wariness of diminished sovereignty create political roadblocks to multilateral partnerships and treaty agreements as well. Extensive research has investigated global approaches to cybersecurity cooperation with mixed results. Literature addressing the legal complexities of treaty negotiation is sparse and falls short of providing meaningful insight into the current combined effects of the global legal, cultural, economic, and political challenges that form a roadblock to meaningful treaty cooperation. This study contributes to global cybersecurity governance literature by investigating and analyzing not only the diverse views regarding the appropriate breadth and expanse of future global cybersecurity agreements but also considers current strategic global recommendations for increased cooperation to achieve internet governance by treaty and otherwise. The results show one common thread uniting these strategies: The need for a collective global response.

KEYWORDS:

• Internet governance
• cybercrime
• fragmentation
• interoperability
• localization

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 All treaty references are to the CoE 2004.

2 All references to Articles in the Russian Proposal are to Russian Proposal, June 29, 2021.