Competing Interests: Understanding the Implications of the Emergent International ICT Governance Network

Information and communication technologies (ICTs) represent a comprehensive sector of communication devices, applications, and services. It includes cellular phones, the internet, computer hardware and software, television, and a myriad of other unique, omnipresent, and easy to use technologies. As this sector has rapidly developed, its transformative impact on nearly every component of modern life has made it an economic, developmental, and security priority. The ICT sector is highly complex, involving a variety of organizational actors, all thoroughly invested in its continued innovation, dominance, and regulation. And because the sector is comprised of technologies that pervade much of modern life – business, law enforcement, health care, defense, research, and education, it has come to have transformative impacts on social policy and regulation. With such widespread implications for society, markets, and peace, understanding the regulatory forces influencing its trajectory is fundamental. Because of the unique, transnational, and convergent nature of ICT technologies and markets, international ICT governance has significant implications for consumers, service providers, device manufacturers, corporations, software developers, militaries, government agencies, and law enforcement. As such, it is important to understand international ICT governance as an example of an emergent style of governance: multistakeholder network governance, with significant and far-reaching implications as it regulates technologies that shape and transform the way we communicate and impacts the daily lives of much of the modern world. This study, thus, attempts to fill gaps in media and communication market organization, international governance and transnational private regulation, and social network analysis research. In particular, it details and describes the governance network that arguably shapes the ICT market, the emergent regulatory response that utilizes traditional international regulatory tools (treaties) and modern transnational private regulatory tools (technological standards), and the implications of this governance network on the competing policy interests of the stakeholders involved – nation states, private corporations, non-governmental organizations, and even individual inventors. Research Question 1: In standard setting organizations, what actors have the most significant impact on the development of ICT standards? Hypothesis 1: 1a. U.S. firms are more likely than firms from other countries to be members of technological SSOs. 1b. Standards are more likely to be developed by private corporations than individual inventors, NGOs, or government agencies. 1c. SSOs are more likely to be from the U.D. than from any other country. Research Question 2: How do international ICT standards interact/coexist with international investment treaties? Hypothesis 2: Often, international standard obligations will conflict with treaty obligations adopted by a country because they are developed in venues (SSOs) where private actors have more leverage/knowledge/funding/status so they are designed with technological diffusion/profit maximization interests that ignore variances and interests of particular countries. Research Question 3: What are the implications of the interaction between international ICT standards and international treaty obligations? This interdisciplinary research will utilize digital archives and participant observation for data collection. As detailed above, this research will examine the international ICT governance network as reflected through international investment treaties and membership in standard setting organizations. Membership in standard setting organizations is available online on the SSO websites, and through an online database compiled by researchers at Northwestern School of Law’s Searle Center on Law Regulation and Economic Growth. Because transnational private regulation - standard setting – is still a contentious form of governance, and the practice is not thoroughly understood by ICT and/or legal/governance scholars, this research will also include 10 site visits to standard setting organizations’ standard development meetings for participant observation. Based on the outcome of the network analysis, the relevant treaties for the case studies will be identified. Utilizing the international investment treaties and membership in standard setting organizations, the data will be analyzed in two ways: SSO membership will be analyzed using social network analysis; subsequently, the standards and treaties will be compared for conflicts and resolutions using statutory analysis. After exploring the network and the language of the treaties and standards, as well as the cases, conclusions will be drawn. The research attempts to present a structural and conceptual understanding of international ICT governance to highlight its complexity, its constituent parts, and their interests. Furthermore, it seeks to explore the implications of this network at national and international levels. And because of the significant economic and security implications of information and communication technologies, it attempts to identify and understand how the governance network influences the prioritization and negotiation of stakeholder interests.