Quantum sovereignty: the Westphalian principle and the global governance of cyberspace
Channel: ANU TV
Date: 2016-02-23

In this public seminar, Professor Paul Cornish reviews one important aspect of the contemporary debate concerning the governance of cyberspace and the direction it might take: state sovereignty. Like it or not, sovereignty is intrinsic to the idea of modern statehood, and therefore to the interaction of states within the international political system, of which cyberspace is one part. But a territorial, sovereignty-based approach to the governance of cyberspace is contested by the ‘multi-stakeholder approach’; the argument that as well as national governments, non-state actors, the private sector and all others with an interest in cyberspace must be allowed to play a part in ensuring that it becomes a vehicle for economic and social development around the world.

If the goal is to achieve stability in cyberspace as the foundation for a global governance framework with which cyber risks and threats can be managed and ICT opportunities exploited, then we need a permissive and imaginative adaptation of the age-old, yet still potent Westphalian principle of state sovereignty. ‘Quantum sovereignty’ permits the coexistence of these two sets of ideas about the governance of cyberspace which are otherwise irreconcilable.

Professor Paul Cornish is Research Group Director for Defence, Security and Infrastructure at RAND Europe in Cambridge. His appointments have included Professor of Strategic Studies at the University of Exeter, Professor of International Security at the University of Bath and (inaugural) Carrington Professor of International Security at Chatham House. He was educated at the University of St Andrews and the London School of Economics. He then served in the British Army and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office before completing his PhD at the University of Cambridge. He directed the Centre for Defence Studies at King’s College London and taught at the UK Defence Academy and the universities of Cambridge, Bath and Exeter.

Professor Cornish’s work covers cyber security, national strategy, arms control, the ethics of armed conflict, civil-military relations and other aspects of contemporary international security. He is a Fellow and Co-Director of Oxford University’s Global Cyber Security Capacity-Building Centre, a Principal Research Associate in the Department of Computer Science at University College London and a participant in UK-China Track 1.5 discussions on international cyber security and governance.