Third, some basic similarities on procedural rules
can be identified among the members of the
Group of 77 (G-77).9 While this group of states is
culturally heterodox, they can generally be said to
prioritize the principle of sovereign equality and to
be highly concerned about issues of equity. These
commitments reflect the colonial experiences of the
vast majority of G-77 members.
These alternate interpretations of legitimate
procedural rules nevertheless bear a clear family
resemblance in that they accord a central place to
states. In contrast, there are two sets of procedural
rules that do not do so. The rejection of a role,
or at least a privileged role, for states in Internet
governance is, in some respects, part and parcel of
a democratizing trend in international relations;
this pattern has been repeated across a number
of issue areas, including trade, the environment,
human rights, global economic governance and
even international security (Keck and Sikkink,
1998; O’Brien et al., 2000; Khagram, Riker and
Sikkink, 2002; Price, 1998; Glasius, 2006). One early
expression of these ideas can be found in John Perry
Barlow’s 1996 articulation of “A Declaration of the
Independence of Cyberspace.”10
Corporate procedural rules are hierarchical in nature,
entail executive decision making that is subject to
investor oversight and are rooted in contract law.
These rules shape the understanding and approach
of key players such as network operators, equipment
manufacturers, software companies and companies
that provide online services (for example, Google
and Facebook).
Finally, there is a distinct view on legitimate
procedures for rule-making in the technology
community. This view emphasizes distributed, peer-
producedrule-makingonthebasisofroughconsensus.
Influence and authority are typically derived from
expertise rather than organizational roles, and claim
to represent a community or financial interest. These
views have sparked determined opposition to state
involvement in Internet governance on the part of
“hacktivist”groups, and have led them to minimize
substantive differences between the positions of
states (Coleman, forthcoming 2013). Whether such
a system would be workable at the global level or
broadly accepted as legitimate by mass publics is
beside the point, which is that these expectations
(however unrealistic they may be in the short term)
are driving the reactions and behaviour of these
actors, as well as (in more muted form) the views
of legacy institutions of Internet governance such as
ICANN and the IETF.
The existence of these distinct views on how to
legitimately make and interpret rules for Internet
governance has had, and will continue to have,
significant effects on actual outcomes. A full
accounting of these is beyond the scope of this
paper, but a few significant examples can be
briefly enumerated. First, while it is unlikely that
the relationship between ICANN and the US
government is the source of Russian and Chinese
desires for alternate Internet governance bodies,
the relationship causes significant political unease
in a range of states because it raises concerns
over state sovereignty. Specifically, the concern is
that the United States is able to unilaterally make
decisions that affect the entire global community
of Internet users, including other states. At a
minimum, this is a powerful rhetorical weapon.
Second, existing procedural rules provided a basis
to exclude hacktivists and many other segments
of civil society from WCIT negotiations. Third, this
decision sparked DDoS attacks on the ITU website
during the conference, and has arguably made
further such disruptions more likely in the future.
Fourth, whether as the result of a daring attempt
to manipulate procedural rules or a lack of social
competence in utilizing them, negotiations on
the updated ITRs collapsed over a controversial
procedural move, in which what was purported
to be an informal poll was treated ex post facto as
an official and authoritative vote on an important
question, in contravention of the ITU’s established
tradition of consensus decisions (Pfanner, 2012).
This incident led, finally, to the rejection of the ITRs
and the accompanying resolutions by a significant
minority of states, including the bulk of the advanced
industrial democracies.
Under established international procedural rules,
this outcome could potentially significantly
complicate international telecommunications, as it
creates a situation where there will be two treaties
concurrently in force on the same subject matter.
Such situations are explicitly contemplated by Article
30 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties.11
The general approach is to determine applicable
rules of law according to the treaty in force between
the specific states involved in a particular instance
of conduct governed under the treaties. This general
approach yields four possible cases: where both
states are parties only to the 1988 ITRs, those terms
apply; where one state is party only to the 1988
ITRs and the other is party to both the 1988 and 2012 ITRs, the 1988 ITRs apply; where both states
are parties to the 2012 ITRs, those terms apply; and
where one state is party only to the 1988 ITRs and
the other state is party only to the 2012 ITRs, there is
no treaty in force between those two states and, thus,
no legally binding rules. The fourth case is the most immediately problematic
of the four, although the larger problem in the
long term is the overall degree of complexity
introduced into the governance of international
telecommunications, the potential for increased
transaction costs and the eventual possibility of
significant divergence between the two treaty
regimes over time. Given the similarity between the
two treaties, as well as the long history of routine
cooperation on international telecommunications
and the resulting business relationships and
accumulated social practice, there are reasons to
believe that this complexity may be manageable,
if suboptimal. This assessment may not apply,
however, in the event that the parties to the new
ITRs engage in subsequent negotiations, building
on the accompanying resolutions to erect a parallel
institution for Internet governance. In the event
such a parallel institution duplicates the function
of the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority or the
IETF, the potential exists for serious harm to global
interoperability. Further, since routing is currently
done without regard for international borders, the
existence of parallel Internet governance regimes that
may evolve with very different privacy protections
poses challenging questions about the sustainability
and desirability of legacy routing practices.
The key question is how to update and refine systems
for Internet governance in light of the general
increase in interest on the part of states, geopolitical
rivalry, the existence of legacy institutions and intense
commitment to the status quo by a wide array of
civil society actors. Disagreement on legitimate
procedural rules also greatly complicates what is
already a daunting task. This suggests the need to
focus consciously on a procedural modus vivendi in
order to prevent negotiations and discussions from
foundering on procedural grounds.
Viewing Internet governance as a matter of making,
interpreting and applying rules yields two other
important insights. First, the Internet is not governed
by a single set of rules. Accordingly, the misleading
assertion that the Internet is a commons should be
abandoned in favour of the more nuanced view that
it is comprised of a series of overlapping voluntary
and involuntary groupings governed by a heterodox
variety of written and unwritten rules.12 This move
has the advantage of more effectively delineating
issues where global coordination is required and
those where varying degrees of subsidiarity are
possible, and even desirable. It also clearly highlights
the importance of the rules that govern different
social groups. Second, it is important not to conflate
rules and law; rather, there are good reasons to take a
broad view of the available means for accomplishing
Internet governance. It is vital to avoid the mistake
of fixating on multilateral treaties and formal
international organizations. The current political
context and the nature of the issues indicate that soft
law instruments are likely to be more plausible and
more effective.
The assertion that the Internet is a commons is
made, paradoxically, both by civil society activists
and by major Western militaries.13 Relying on
the mistaken understanding of the Internet as a
commons encourages overly expansive approaches
to Internet governance, which apply rules with
insufficient regard for differences between issues
and that neglect the importance of fostering the
club governance arrangements that can ensure the
continued smooth development of the Internet’s
multitude of clubs.
Economists define a commons as a good that is
rivalrous and non-excludable.14 A good is rivalrous if
it cannot be used simultaneously by multiple people
or if its use by one person reduces the quantity and/
or quality of the good available for others. A good is
non-excludable if people cannot be prevented from
using it (whether on the basis of payment or some
other similar principle). Neither of these criteria are
applicable to the Internet.
The Internet is technically rivalrous in the sense that
the computer networks on which it depends (its
“physical layer”) accommodate a finite amount of
traffic. At peak usage times, especially in congested
sections of the network, users may receive a degraded
experience — that is, bandwidth-intensive use by alarge number of users may mean that many receive
lower-quality service.15
In practice, however, such problems have relatively
easy solutions: more physical infrastructure (fibre
optic cable, switches and routers) can be constructed,
easing congestion; more efficient protocols for routing
and directing traffic can perform a similar function,
directing traffic through portions of the network
with excess capacity; and usage-based billing can
incentivize users to moderate their consumption of
bandwidth. These three solutions are already part of
Internet governance, and while there are potential
drawbacks or limitations associated with each,
there is little reason to expect that combinations of
such policies cannot continue to meet demand for
bandwidth, given appropriate investment strategies.
The case for regarding the Internet as non-excludable
is even weaker than the case for believing that it is
rivalrous. Multiple kinds of exclusion are already
occurring, many of them at the Internet’s physical
layer.
First, many states already employ their domestic
law to block various kinds of content, including
child pornography, hate speech, intellectual
property violations and political dissent. This kind of
exclusion is typically accomplished by requiring ISPs
to prevent the resolution of certain domain names
and their associated Internet Protocol addresses. In
the extreme, it entails states ordering the physical
shutdown of Internet service. The governments of
Egypt and Myanmar have both employed this tactic,
albeit for limited periods of time Second, some recently proposed pieces of legislation
(for example, the Stop Online Piracy Act, or SOPA,
in the US Congress, and Bill C-32 in the Canadian
Parliament) have sought to strengthen copyright
protections, including requiring Web hosting
companies, search engines and ISPs to sever
relations with websites and users found to violate
copyright. While such measures have met strong
resistance, it is likely they will remain on the agenda
at the insistence of copyright-owning firms.
Third, DDoS attacks accomplish short-term exclusion
by bombarding a targeted website with requests
for information, overwhelming server capacity and
preventing servicing of legitimate requests. These
attacks are inexpensive and sometimes difficult
to attribute to particular agents, making them an
attractive option for hackers and for cybercriminals.
They are also blunt instruments, which can have
significant unintended consequences such as
denying access to additional, unintended targets.
Finally, they allow virtually anyone with minimal
technical expertise and computer hardware to
engage in excluding others from the Internet.
Fourth, it is possible to exclude people from the
Internet by destroying physical infrastructure (fibre
or wireless) critical to their connectivity. Such attacks
are imaginable both in the context of terrorism and
in the context of a major military conflict. While
the decentralized nature of the Internet means
that terrorist attacks would be unlikely to cause
widespread long-term disruption, major military
conflict could pose a significant risk to the Internet.
If the Internet is, in fact, non-rivalrous and excludable,
it more closely resembles what economists call a
club good. Club goods include access to satellite
television or the status that comes with a country
club membership. Experience tells us that some clubs
are more exclusive than others, and that different
clubs have varying rules, norms and bylaws. The
Internet is easily mistaken for a commons because
it has historically been an extremely open club, with
incredibly sparse rules for its members.
In some ways, barriers to joining the club continue
to fall rapidly: Internet access is more affordable for
more people than it has ever been. However, in other
important respects, the Internet club looks not only
less like a commons than it once did, but also less
like a single club.
Rules increasingly circumscribe user behaviour
online and pockets of the Internet are now more
likely to allow access only to members — with highly
variable requirements for membership, ranging from
unverified assertions that a user is above a certain
age or resides in a particular place (often employed
to restrict access to various kinds of entertainment
content), to contractual arrangements on a fee-for-
service basis (such as pay walls on major newspaper
websites), to requirements that the user be a
member of a particular offline organization such as a
corporation or government.
Accordingly, the Internet is best understood as a set
of nested clubs. At the most basic level, all Internet
users are members of the club of people with Internet
connections. However, they are also members of
smaller clubs composed of people who access the
Internet via a particular ISP, and people who access
the Internet from a particular country. It is impossible
for an Internet user to avoid membership in any
of these three kinds of clubs. Beyond this minimal
baseline, users will typically also be members of
other clubs based on their personal identities and
interests.
This view of the Internet facilitates a more nuanced
discussion of online rights and responsibilities, one
that recognizes that different areas of the Internet
may correspond closely with the open-access norms
associated with commons regimes while others
may not, and that while trade-offs between distinct
public values such as liberty, property rights and
security may not be entirely avoidable, applying
different rules to particular portions of the Internet
can help ensure that restrictions on online rights are
minimized and do not cause unintended collateral
damage to freedom.
Understanding the Internet as a set of nested clubs
calls attention to the need to think explicitly about
the rules for the three most basic types of clubs:
the club of all Internet users; the clubs comprised
of each individual ISP and its clients; and the clubs
of national users. Maintaining the global reach and
interoperability of the Internet, and thus maximizing
its value to humanity, requires ensuring that access to
these clubs remains open to all, and that restrictions
on member behaviour do not exceed the minimum
requirements of public safety.
The vibrancy of any club over time depends on its
ability to respond effectively and legitimately to
its members’ desires. This highlights the need to
augment fora that enable discussion and potential
revision of shared understandings about online
rights and duties at each level of the nested clubs that
comprise the Internet. Doing so will be especially
difficult, but is particularly important at the most
fundamental level — the club of all Internet users.
Beyond conceiving of the Internet as a series of nested
clubs, thinking clearly about Internet governance
requires attention to the legal forms employed.
Legalization has been noted as a distinctive
characteristic of modern international relations and
global governance.16 A great deal of legalization
has taken the specific forms of multilateral treaties
and the creation of formal, chartered international
organizations; however, it is critical to avoid
conflation of these particular mechanisms with the
concept of legalization in general.17 For at least two
main reasons it is likely that less formalized legal
mechanisms will be more helpful and successful in
this issue area for the foreseeable future.
First, Internet governance is a novel and highly
complex issue from the perspective of the diplomats
and government officials who will be tasked with
negotiating and implementing international rules.
While existing institutions tasked with Internet
governance have a greater degree of familiarity with
the technical issues involved, these organizations
lack expertise in the technical aspects of international
law, public policy and regulation. Kenneth Abbott
and Duncan Snidal (2000) have argued persuasively
that in complex, novel situations, so-called“soft law”
instruments (for example, voluntary codes of conduct
and best practices) are often a superior choice relative
to traditional“hard law”instruments such as treaties.
Their rationale is that soft law offers decision makers
opportunities to learn about the social effects of
particular sets of rules over time — and to amend them
accordingly, typically with lower negotiation costs
than entailed by the renegotiation of hard law (ibid.).
This pattern is especially likely to hold with respect
to the governance of cyber security. Just as attempts
to craft rules for the global governance of nuclear
weapons required an extended period of mutual (if
often highly conflictual) learning, attempts to govern
cyber-security and even to govern the Internet more
generally are likely to develop via various forms of
soft law and norm development prior to the creation
of any multilateral treaties or formal international
organizations. Put simply, states need time to learn
about the technology and to arrive at conclusions
about the kinds of governance arrangements they
prefer. The recent conclusion by the UN Group of
Governmental Experts on Developments in the
Field of Information and Telecommunications in the
Context of International Security that international
law applies in cyberspace is a welcome development,
but this must be understood as a starting point rather
than a conclusion (US Department of State, 2013).
Agreeing on specific interpretations for applying
general international legal rules to particular cases
will require a great deal of work.
Second, informal soft law instruments are also
attractive, given the current political context for
Internet governance, which is characterized by
geopolitical rivalry and by disagreement over
legitimate procedural rules. The distributional
consequences of different Internet governance
arrangements are not yet well understood, and
states are increasingly sensitized to the potential for
relative losses associated with being on the losing
end of newly established institutions. This argument
is related to the prior argument about the impact of
uncertainty on the desirability of hard versus soft
law instruments. Soft law instruments are also more
attractive in this context because they are typically
subject to less precise procedural rules. Whereas the
procedures for creating a legally binding treaty are
highly specific, the procedures and forms for creating
informal codes of conduct are less demanding and
require less prior agreement. They also allow more
flexibility and innovation, thus increasing the scope
for agreement between parties that do not agree
completely on procedural rules.
These observations dovetail with the perspective
on international law offered by Jutta Brunnée and
Stephen Toope (2010: 5), who argue that an exclusive
focus on treaties and hard law is insufficient,
because it neglects what they call“the hard work of
international law” — or the ongoing social process
of enacting legal rules (whether hard or soft) by
interpreting and applying them in concrete cases.
On this view, law always entails soft law processes
and processes of adjudication that are vital to the
operation of even the most well-developed hard law
regime. International soft law, like domestic statutory
law, will never yield perfect compliance. Spoilers
may remain, but this is likely to be the case even
under the most well-developed treaty regime and,
thus, is not an argument against the advantages of
soft law instruments for rule-making, interpretation
and application in an uncertain environment
characterized by political contention.
Refining and updating Internet governance entails
aprocessofrule-makingforaseriesofnestedclubs
in a difficult and uncertain context that privileges
procedural flexibility and a willingness to employ
soft law instruments.
TOWARD A COMPREHENSIVE,
RESEARCH-BASED VISION FOR
INTERNET GOVERNANCE
The goal of this rule-making process should be a
vibrant, responsibly governed Internet that safeguards
privacy and other essential rights. The difficulty,
of course, is managing the trade-offs between the
distinct values and interests of a variety of public and
private actors in an effective and legitimate manner.
To date, both state and civil society actors have
generally lacked coherent, comprehensive strategic
visions of the kind of Internet they want and how to
get there.
The major exception to this lack of strategic vision,
unfortunately, has been the coalition of states (led by
Russia and China) seeking the greatest degree of state
control over the Internet. These states have sought to trade cynically on the global legitimacy of the UN
system in order to consecrate the worst excesses of
state conduct against domestic populations. They
have done so while simultaneously developing and
deploying significant offensive cyber capabilities.
The advanced industrial democracies and other
states committed to the maintenance of Internet
governance structures that balance security, rights
and economic dynamism have begun to devote
additional attention to these issues; however, these
efforts have lacked coordination both at the national
level (between agencies with a primary interest or
responsibility in one particular policy area) and at
the international level. The lack of a well-organized
coalition advancing what might be termed a liberal
democratic vision for Internet governance has left a
vacuum that is increasingly being filled by the more
authoritarian coalition led by Russia and China.
Given the expectations of good faith attempts at
compromise in many established international
organizations, the likelihood is that this coalition will
attain a portion of its agenda. This risk is amplified if
other states lack a positive vision and are routinely
in the position of simply blocking the coalition’s
proposals. In such a situation, wavering and currently
undecided states might be persuaded or induced
to support proposals that undermine basic rights,
alter the monetization of the Internet in ways that
coincide with Russian and Chinese interests, and
further establish a permissive environment for cyber
espionage and cyber attacks.
Similarly, while hacktivists and other highly
motivated segments of the global community
of Internet users have been adept at “naming
and shaming” in cases where governments and
companies engage in questionable behaviour,18 the
diversity of this community and its strong normative
bias in favour of decentralized social organization
complicate efforts to articulate a coherent, positive
vision for Internet governance that extends beyond
denunciation of attempts to alter the status
quo. Further, many members of this community
understand themselves to primarily be ”activists.”
Such an identity can encourage mono-value thinking
antithetical to a governance mindset, which attempts
to balance and partially satisfy multiple perspectives
and values in cases of tension or conflict.
The diversity of basic social institutions among
democracies suggests there is little chance that there
is a unique legitimate liberal democratic system of
Internet governance. Indeed, given that modern
global governance often leans heavily on the principle
of subsidiarity, crucial components of Internet
governance are likely to continue to reside at the
national level and, therefore, handled differently by
different political communities. Having a coherent,
legitimate strategic vision for Internet governance
does not mean an all-encompassing multilateral
treaty or even an informal global agreement on every
issue. Rather, the key is to identify critical issues
where truly global norms, rules and standards are
required. On other issues, especially including rights,
it will be necessary to identify broad parameters that
bound legitimate difference in state practices.
Among the principles critical to a liberal democratic
view of Internet governance are: guarantees of due
process, freedom of expression and other basic
freedoms; mixed public and private ownership
of property, with a government regulatory and
oversight role to protect public interests and to correct
market failures; compliance with international law,
especially including restriction on hostile acts to
instances of self-defence and collectively authorized
response to threats; and the creation, alteration
and interpretation of rules in good faith and in
accordance with transparent, mutually accepted
rules of procedure.
There are tensions within and between these
principles. For example, certain kinds of speech
are often deemed incompatible with other basic
freedoms. Restrictions on both privacy and due
process are sometimes deemed acceptable in the
name of ensuring public safety. The appropriate
scope of state regulatory involvement in areas of
private investment is also politically controversial.
With respect to hostile acts, the last decade witnessed
a notable and as-yet-unresolved debate on the
legitimate scope for preventive (as opposed to pre-
emptive) self-help action.
As a result, a complete strategic vision for Internet
governance must go beyond first principles to
explicitly contemplate these and other key trade-
offs. It must provide guidance in differentiating
critical areas for global rule-making from other areas
that, while important, are best handled at regional,
bilateral, national and even sub-national levels. On
these latter issues, a strategic vision should, where
possible and appropriate, go at least some distance
toward discussing the bounds of legitimate difference
in state conduct while recognizing that answers to
these questions must, ultimately, be crafted by states
themselves in consultation with civil society and
other relevant actors.
A strategic vision must also be research-based. While
a great deal of attention has been paid to specific
Internet issues in a number of academic disciplines,
there has been a relative neglect of core governance
issues. Accordingly, CIGI has commissioned a set
of papers from leading experts that address both a
range of pressing governance challenges and also
the international political implications of a handful
of the most likely Internet governance scenarios in
the 2015–2020 timeframe. The papers, of which this
is the first in a series, are divided into two clusters.
The first cluster identifies the pressing near-term
governance challenges on a number of fronts. These
will include technical standards and the governance
of interconnection, cyber security issues, including
state efforts at monitoring and surveillance, civil
society hacktivism by groups such as Anonymous
and the future of intellectual property in a digital age.
The second cluster of papers examines various
plausible outcomes for Internet governance in the
remainder of the current decade and attempts to
assay their implications for global governance and
the international system as a whole.These papers are,
of necessity, somewhat speculative; however, social
science has developed scenario-based methods for
forecasting the proximate future within reasonable
tolerances.19
In order to impart a degree of structure and
comparability to the scenario papers, authors were
asked to consider and engage with four ideal-typical
scenarios. The first entails incremental change to the
current model for Internet governance built largely
around ICANN and the IETF. The second involves
the creation of largely self-contained yet functional
“blocs”; for example, an Internet comprised largely
of users from OECD-member states, and another
of users primarily drawn from Russia, China and
the Arab world. Each bloc would have distinct
governance structures and global interoperability
could be expected to be both technologically limited
and subject to substantial political control. Third,
authors were asked to consider an outcome in which
failure to agree on a global Internet governance
regime for key issues leads to major breakdowns in
interoperability and in the basic functioning of the
Internet. While this kind of generalized governance
failure is relatively unlikely, there is reason to think
carefully about low-probability, high-significance
outcomes.This is especially true in complex and novel
issue areas, where the implications of new rules and
other actions are not well understood in advance.
The final scenario is one in which hacktivists (such
as Anonymous), cyber criminals, terrorists and other
groups successfully destabilize large portions of the
Internet as an expression of protest.
These scenarios are intended as analytical aids rather
than straitjackets. Reality is not expected to wholly
match any of them; rather, it will blend elements of
multiple scenarios, including some not enumerated
here. However, it is also true that the four scenarios
are not equally probable. So long as there is some
realistic prospect of identifying and selecting policy
that is more likely to lead to better outcomes, such
efforts to understand the costs and benefits of
alternate outcomes remains worthwhile.
Together, these two clusters of papers provide: a clear
sense of the critical problems facing efforts to update
and refine Internet governance; the appropriate
modalities for doing so; and the costs and benefits
associated with the most plausible outcomes. They
therefore provide the foundation for developing the
research-based, high-level strategic vision required
to successfully navigate a complex, shifting and
uncertain governance environment.
Notes:
7 On rules in social life and specifically in international relations, see Nicholas Greenwood Onuf (1989), World of Our Making: Rules and Rule in Social Theory and International Relations, Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, and Friedrich V. Kratochwil (1991), Rules, Norms, and Decisions: On the Conditions of Practical and Legal Reasoning in International Relations and Domestic Affairs, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. On the connection between rule-making and power, see also Michael Barnett and Raymond Duvall (2005),“Power in International Politics,” International Organization 59, no. 1: 39–75. Finally, on rules about rule-making, see H.L.A. Hart (1994), The Concept of Law, Oxford: Clarendon Press.
8 On “thick multilateralism,” see John Gerard Ruggie (1992), “Multilateralism: The Anatomy of an Institution,” International Organization 46, no. 3: 561–598. For further discussion, see Christian Reus-Smit (1999), The Moral Purpose of the State: Culture, Social Identity, and Institutional Rationality in International Relations, Princeton: Princeton University Press.
9 The G-77 is a working coalition of developing states in the United Nations. It now includes 132 active members; for a current list, see: www.g77.org/doc/members.html.
10 To read the full text of “A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace,” see: https://projects.eff.org/~barlow/Declaration-Final. html.
11 The Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties is available at: http://untreaty.un.org/ilc/texts/instruments/english/ conventions/1_1_1969.pdf.
12 These groupings can be thought of as nested clubs, in the sense of“club goods”(as opposed to common goods).
13 For a military assertion, see Maj. Gen. Mark Barrett et al. (2011), “Assured Access to the Global Commons,” Supreme Allied Command Transformation, Norfolk: NATO, available at: www.act.nato. int/mainpages/globalcommons. A commons mentality is evident in the statements and actions of Anonymous, at least after 2008. See Coleman (forthcoming 2013).
14 Two critical works on the concept of the common goods and
the problems associated with their management are Garrett Hardin
(1968),“The Tragedy of the Commons,”Science 162, no. 3859: 1243–1248,
and Elinor Ostrom (1990), Governing the Commons: The Evolution of
Institutions for Collective Action, Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press. spamhaus-used-internet-against-itself.html?hpw&abra=test&_r=0.
16 See Kenneth W. Abbott et al. (2000), “The Concept of Legalization,”International Organization 54, no. 3: 410–419.
17 This point has been recognized both by rationalist scholars and by scholars of international law drawing on constructivist theories of international relations. For the rationalist view, see Abbott and Snidal (2000). For the constructivist view, see Brunnée and Toope (2010).
18 The Chilling Effects website is one example of such a campaign; see www.chillingeffects.org. There are also indications of emerging alliances between hacktivists and civil society groups engaged in protest over other issues. See Boris Manenti (2013), “Hacktivism United: NGOs, Hackers Team Up to Take Down Common Enemies,” Worldcrunch, February 5, available at: www.worldcrunch.com/tech- science/hacktivism-united-ngos-hackers-team-up-to-take-down- common-enemies/anonymous-hacking-activists-greenpeace-internet/ c4s10811/#.UTjNNTD_l8F. Such campaigns appear to follow many of the patterns identified in Keck and Sikkink (2002).
19 See, for example, Steven Bernstein et al. (2000),“God Gave Physics the Easy Problems: Adapting Social Science to an Unpredictable World,”European Journal of International Relations 6, no. 1: 43–76.
WORKS CITED
Abbott, Kenneth W. and Duncan Snidal (2000).“Hard and
Soft Law in International Governance.”International
Organization 54, no. 3: 421–456.
Brunnée, Jutta and Stephen J. Toope (2010). Legitimacy
and Legality in International Law: An Interactional
Account. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Coleman, Gabriella (forthcoming 2013).“Anonymous in
Context.”CIGI Internet Governance Paper Series No.
3.
DeNardis, Laura (2009). Protocol Politics: The Globalization
of Internet Governance. Cambridge: MIT Press.
Glasius, Marlies (2006). The International Criminal
Court: A Global Civil Society Achievement. New York:
Routledge.
Glenny, Misha (2011). Dark Market: How Hackers Became
the New Mafia. Toronto: Anansi.
Information Warfare Monitor (2009).“Tracking GhostNet:
Investigating a Cyber Espionage Network.”Available
at: www.scribd.com/doc/13731776/Tracking-
GhostNet-Investigating-a-Cyber-Espionage-
Network.
Keck, Margaret E. and Kathryn Sikkink (1998). Activists
Beyond Borders: Advocacy Networks in International
Politics. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Khagram, Sanjeev, James V. Riker and Kathryn Sikkink
(2002). Restructuring World Politics: Transnational
Social Movements, Networks, and Norms. Minneapolis:
University of Minnesota Press.
Mandiant (2013).“APT1: Exposing One of China’s Cyber
Espionage Units.” Available at: http://intelreport.
mandiant.com/.
O’Brien, Robert et al. (2000). Contesting Global Governance:
Multilateral Economic Institutions and Global Social
Movements. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Pfanner, Eric (2012). “U.S. Rejects Telecommunications
Treaty.” New York Times, December 13. Available at:
www.nytimes.com/2012/12/14/technology/14iht-
treaty14.html.
Price, Richard (1998). “Reversing the Gun Sights:
Transnational Civil Society Targets Land Mines.”
International Organization 52, no. 3: 613–644.
Raymond, Mark (2011).“Social Change in World Politics:
Secondary Rules and Institutional Politics.” Ph.D.
dissertation. University of Toronto, Canada.
US Department of State (2013).“Statement on Consensus
Achieved by the UN Group of Governmental Experts
on Cyber Issues,” press release, June 7. Available at:
www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2013/06/210418.htm.
Wang, Stephanie (2007). “Pulling the Plug: A Technical
Review of the Internet Shutdown in Burma.”OpenNet
Initiative Bulletin. Available at: https://opennet.net/
sites/opennet.net/files/ONI_Bulletin_Burma_2007.
pdf.
Williams, Christopher (2011). “How Egypt Shut Down
the Internet.” The Telegraph, January 28. Available
at: www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/
africaandindianocean/egypt/8288163/How-Egypt-
shut-down-the-internet.html.
Wortham, Jenna (2012). “Public Outcry Over Antipiracy
Bills Began as Grass-Roots Grumbling.” New York
Times, January 19. Available at: www.nytimes.
com/2012/01/20/technology/public-outcry-over-
antipiracy-bills-began-as-grass-roots-grumbling.
html?pagewanted=all.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Mark Raymond
Mark Raymond joined CIGI as a research fellow in August 2012. He has a B.A. in political science and international relations from the University of Western Ontario and an M.A. and Ph.D. in political science from the University of Toronto, and he has taught international relations at the University of Toronto and the University of Waterloo. His research interests include international law and organization, international security and international history, including the history of global governance.
At CIGI, Mark contributes to the Global Security Program. Specifically, he is developing CIGI’s work in the area of Internet security and governance.
Gordon Smith
A political science graduate of McGill University (B.A.) and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Ph.D.), Gordon Smith became interested in international security and global interdependence while attending university in the United States during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962. After graduation, Gordon returned to Canada to work on these issues, and began a long and distinguished career as a public servant with the federal government.
Initially, Gordon worked on Canada’s relationship with NATO and the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) within the Ministry of Defence and Department of External Affairs, but he quickly advanced to more demanding positions in the Privy Council Office. In 1979, Gordon became the deputy under-secretary of state at External Affairs, and in 1985, deputy minister. Shortly thereafter, he was dispatched to Brussels as the permanent representative and ambassador to the Canadian delegation to NATO, and subsequently, was named Canada’s ambassador to the European Union.
Returning to Canada in 1994, Gordon was appointed deputy minister of Foreign Affairs, where he fondly remembers establishing a global issues bureau in the ministry to better understand emerging transnational trends affecting Canada. During this time, Gordon began
his personal involvement with the G7/G8, as the Sherpa (personal representative) for the prime minister at the G7/ G8 summits in Halifax, Lyon and Denver. After retiring from the Government of Canada that same year, Gordon joined the University of Victoria as executive director of the Centre for Global Studies (CFGS), and was appointed chair of the board of governors at the International Development Research Centre. During this period, he also lectured as a visiting professor at the Diplomatic Academy of the University of Westminster in London and Paris.
After collaborating with the think tank for many years on various projects, Gordon joined CIGI in 2010 as a distinguished fellow, and has since been a key contributor to its G20 research activities, events and publications. He looks forward to continuing this work at CIGI, and pursuing another long-time interest: the convergence of technology and global affairs (you can follow Gordon on Twitter @GordonSmithG20).
Source: http://www.cigionline.org/sites/default/files/no1_4.pdf