The Future of the Global Internet
On April 18, 2016, Slate Future Tense published an article written by the founders of Internet & Jurisdiction titled The Legal Arms Race Threatening the Future of the Global Internet. In the article, Bertrand de La Chapelle and Paul Fehlinger briefly survey the problematic nature of defining jurisdiction on the internet and the challenges it poses to the Westphalian international system. It follows the publication of their recent report produced for the Global Commission on Internet Governance.
[The Internet’s] ubiquity hasn’t come without tension. Online spaces span a patchwork of fragmented jurisdictions, along with all the different cultures, values, and legal frameworks they contain. At present, we haven’t developed a legal equivalent to the technical interoperability that enables the continued function of the global Internet.
We are facing a classic prisoner’s dilemma: Unilateral actions from states or other actors can result in fragmentation when applied on a global scale.
About Slate Future Tense
Slate Future Tense is a technology blog produced as a partnership between Slate, the New America Foundation, and Arizona State University. At the intersection of emerging technologies, public policy, and society, Future Tense seeks to understand the latest technological and scientific breakthroughs in terms of their impacts on the environment, social relations, and systems of governance.
