[Governance] : US-EU declaration and digital governance

[parminder]

I find a few significant elements in the US-EU summit statement with
regard to, shall I still say, Internet governance. 
https://www.consilium.europa.eu//media/50443/eu-us-summit-joint-statement-15-june-final-final.pdf

See the relevant portions of the summit statement below, with emphasis
added.

I see two things stand out.... The term 'Internet governance' is losing
ground to 'digital governance', and I think appropriately so. We
ourselves use digital governance term for quite some time.... I suspect
more and more official documents will employ this term. The recent G 77
statement had no mention of internet governance, and although digital
governance too is not mentioned, there is a lot on digital regulation
and digital standards...

Second, somewhat surprisingly, both the documents make no mention of
multi--stakeholder model, a staple of all or most such statements and
declarations coming from western powers in the last around 10-12 years.
interestingly, what we see instead is the mention of 'democratic model
of digital governance'. Would really love to know what this means. I
suspect, this has nothing to do with democracy at the global level,
whereby unlike now when OECD, G 77, etc lay the rules of the game for
Internet/ digital governance, all countries will have an equal role.
What 'democratic model of digital governance' is meant to convey here is
'democratic' at the national levels as contrasted to 'authoritarian'
models of China, Russia, et al.  OK, we see the point ... But what about
how digital is to be governed at the global level -- by EU, US and other
G-7 and OECD countries?

Is there any plan for a 'globally democratic model of digital governance'?

Happy to hear views of others on these significant shifts.

parminder

Excerpts below from the US-EU summit 
https://www.consilium.europa.eu//media/50443/eu-us-summit-joint-statement-15-june-final-final.pdf

        17. To kick-start this positive agenda and to provide an
        effective platform for cooperation, we establish a high-level
        EU-US Trade and Technology Council (TTC). The major goals of the
        TTC will be to grow the bilateral trade and investment
        relationship; to avoid new unnecessary technical barriers to
        trade; to coordinate, seek common ground and strengthen global
        cooperation on technology, digital issues and supply chains; to
        support collaborative research and exchanges; to cooperate on
        compatible and international standards development; to
        facilitate regulatory policy and enforcement cooperation and,
        where possible, convergence; to promote innovation and
        leadership by US and European firms; and to strengthen other
        areas of cooperation. The cooperation and exchanges of 4 the TTC
        will be without prejudice to the regulatory autonomy of the
        United States and the European Union and will respect the
        different legal systems in both jurisdictions. Cooperation
        within the TTC will also feed into *coordination in multilateral
        bodies and wider efforts with like-minded partners*, with the
        aim of *promoting a democratic model of digital governance.*

        18. The TTC will initially include working groups with agendas
        focused on technology standards cooperation (including on AI,
        Internet of Things, among other emerging technologies), climate
        and green tech, ICT security and competitiveness, data
        governance and technology platforms, the misuse of technology
        threatening security and human rights, export controls,
        investment screening, promoting SMEs access to, and use of,
        digital technologies, and global trade challenges. It will also
        include a working group on reviewing and strengthening our most
        critical supply chains. Notably, we commit to building an EU-US
        partnership on the rebalancing of global supply chains in
        semiconductors with a view to enhancing EU and US respective
        security of supply as well as capacity to design and produce the
        most powerful and resource efficient semiconductors.

        19. In parallel with the TTC, we intend to establish an EU-US
        Joint Technology Competition Policy Dialogue that would focus on
        approaches to competition policy and enforcement, and increased
        cooperation in the tech sector. To support collaborative
        research and innovation exchanges, we promote a staff exchange
        programme between our research funding agencies, and we intend
        to explore the possibility of developing a new research
        initiative on biotechnology and genomics, with a view to setting
        common standards. A new implementing arrangement between the EU
        Joint Research Centre and the US National Institute of Standards
        and Technologies aims to expand cooperation to new areas. We
        also resolve to deepen cooperation on cybersecurity information
        sharing and situational awareness, as well as cybersecurity
        certification of products and software.

        20. We commit to work together to ensure safe, secure, and
        trusted cross-border data flows that protect consumers and
        enhance privacy protections, while enabling Transatlantic
        commerce. To this end, we plan to continue to work together to
        strengthen legal certainty in Transatlantic flows of personal
        data. We also commit to continue cooperation on consumer
        protection and access to electronic evidence in criminal matters.

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