Internet and Jurisdiction: How do Competing National Laws Coexist Online?
Channel: Access Now
Date: 2014-03-08

Paul Fehlinger, Manager, Internet & Jurisdiction Project (Moderator) 

Participants: 
Bertrand de La Chapelle, Director, Internet & Jurisdiction Project 
Simone Halink, Senior Policy Advisor Internet & Human Rights, Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs 
Carlos Affonso Pereira da Souza, Vice-Coordinator, Center for Technology & Society at the Getulio Vargas Foundation's (FGV) Law School in Rio de Janeiro 
Pranesh Prakash, Policy Director, Centre for Internet and Society, India 
Kate Westmoreland, Policy Fellow, from Access 
Carolina Rossini, Project Director, Open Technology Institute, New America Foundation

The Internet we know today provides shared cross-border online spaces. However, more and more states strive to affirm their territorial sovereignty in cyberspace. This "re-nationalization" trend, through measures such as ISP blockings, data sovereignty laws, national clouds or geo-IP filtering, could produce a fragmentation of these commons. To avoid this, we need new transnational cooperation mechanisms between states, platforms (or operators) and users, to handle the "digital coexistence" of heterogeneous national laws and norms. This session discussed the work of the Internet & Jurisdiction Project -- a global multi-stakeholder dialogue process to develop a due process framework to handle transborder requests for domain seizures, content takedowns and access to user data.