[governance] A Wave of the Watch List, and Speech Disappears

[Milton L Mueller]

________________________________

From: Bertrand de La Chapelle [mailto:bdelachapelle at gmail.com] 
In my personal view, this is an illustration of the mutation of
sovereignty, disconnecting it from the sole physical territory and
allowing it to expand in a fractal manner on other territories - or
conversely, retract - depending on the influence of the corresponding
national actors in the digital sphere. And those national actors are not
only the governments : the existence of a dominant player in a specific
domain (Verisign, but also a Google, YouTube, MySpace or Facebook) does
bring the corresponding government a leverage. But it probably also
gives it a special responsibility it did not have before. 

 

This notion of "fractal sovereignty" is harder to handle than the
traditional territory-based one but probably more adapted to our
connected world than the notion of strict subsidiarity : the challenge
is to manage interdependence and interactions.

 

Good observations, B. Yes, this is the "networked governance" concept
that some of us are beginning to look at more systematically from a
political science concept. 

 

To enrich the discussion, I'd like to put in perspective here the issue
of IDNs. Will the physical location of the future major registries for
IDN TLDs (particularly gTLDs if any) give the corresponding national
courts a specific authority/legal power on all registrants in those
TLDs, even if they are not located in that country and have no business
with its citizens ? 

 

Of course it will. I don't see how a string's status as an IDN alters
the nature of the situation, so maybe I am not understanding what you
are asking.

 

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