The UNSG High-Level Panel on Digital Cooperation outlines the challenge: Here’s what we need to work on for the solution

The UNSG High-Level Panel on Digital Cooperation was convened on 12 June, 2018 and given a year to solve a challenge that only grows more complex by the day: how to build digital bridges in a world that is increasingly divided and in a sphere so inextricably interwoven with national interest. The Panel came into being during a time when the Cambridge Analytica scandal revealed the vulnerability of the democratic system and its people, when Twitter had led to a new unmoderated, unfiltered form of politics and “rocket man” diplomacy, and when emerging technologies were being pulled into the vortex of a trade war.

The Panel’s report, released nearly a year later, is a comprehensive statement of the problem, but gives little by way of workable solutions. The core of the High-Level Panel’s pitch is that though the digital world is beholden to competing interests, of governments, private actors and civil society, as well as a lack of a shared understanding of the rights and protections that should be afforded to users, we must nevertheless strive toward an all-inclusive “multi-stakeholder systems” approach to address everything from human rights and trust to social risk assessment and economic security.

The core of the High-Level Panel’s pitch is that though the digital world is beholden to competing interests, of governments, private actors and civil society, as well as a lack of a shared understanding of the rights and protections that should be afforded to users, we must nevertheless strive toward an all-inclusive “multi-stakeholder systems” approach to address everything from human rights and trust to social risk assessment and economic security.

The “Declaration of Digital Interdependence”, while beautifully-worded, outlines this core proposition in a way that is palatable to all relevant stakeholders without addressing two fundamental points of contention. First, who defines the “stability” of the digital space? Second, how (if at all) should we consolidate the efforts of multi-stakeholder and multilateral approaches?

Digital stability lies in the eyes of the beholder

 The conditions for stability can shift according to who one asks. One school, epitomised in the 2018 EU-US Joint Elements Statement, is where stability, security, international cooperation and openness are coterminous and in which the state is the primary actor. The state ensures stability by safeguarding individual, collective and national interests. A second school, epitomised by Xi Jinping’s speech at the 2015 World Internet Conference, emphasises “cyber sovereignty” where the state is not only the primary guarantor of digital rights, but also determines what these rights should be and who these rights can be applied to. “Non-interference” reigns supreme.

The High-Level Panel’s report implicitly assumes the first stance (“sovereignty” finds no mention anywhere in its 68 pages), but in reality, states fall somewhere along a spectrum between total restriction and openness. Governments around the world police the internet in one form or another: the United States’ PATRIOT Act permits law enforcement access on the basis of a broad definition of “terrorist activities” to a wide gamut of digital communications; in the first half of 2019 alone, there have been state-sanctioned internet blackouts, restriction of access or removal of online content in Sudan, India, Ethiopia, China and Venezuela, among others.

The core of the High-Level Panel’s pitch is that though the digital world is beholden to competing interests, of governments, private actors and civil society, as well as a lack of a shared understanding of the rights and protections that should be afforded to users, we must nevertheless strive toward an all-inclusive “multi-stakeholder systems” approach to address everything from human rights and trust to social risk assessment and economic security.

In summation, in a state-centric view of the world, stability, security, cooperation and individual rights are not coterminous, but rather they are often mutually exclusive. However, and the panel’s report shies away from taking this argument to its conclusion, there is another possible view of a “stable” cyberspace: one which acknowledges the contest between the multitude of stakeholders, and affords them the bargaining power to protect their interests.

The multistakeholder systems approach is a band-aid solution for a much larger problem

 Multistakeholderism found purchase in numerous global digital governance forums in their initial years, but many experts in recent years have rung its death knell. The High Level Panel attempts to reanimate this approach despite the fact that multistakeholderism has proven incapable of producing workable and equitable solutions.

State and non-state approaches to digital cooperation run on parallel tracks. There is a good reason for this: there are very few common denominators in the space of digital cooperation between non-state stakeholders, let alone state and non-state ones. The Panel’s report touches upon all of these: inclusive growth, building trust, protecting human rights and continued dialogue. Beyond these broad declarations, multistakeholderism and multilateralism cease to be useful tools.

It is unlikely we will resolve this competition purely through consensus-driven models under the auspices of the United Nations. The failure of the UN GGE on Developments in the Field of Information and Telecommunications in the Context of International Security in 2017 highlight some of the fundamental tensions highlighted throughout this piece: these tensions have only intensified in the past two years. The assertion of cyber sovereignty has manifest in data localisation regulations and worrying signs of other oligarchic regimes experimenting with Great Firewalls of their own.

While multistakeholderism may appear to be a positive step away from a state-centered view of the digital space, it does not acknowledge some of the fundamental truths of digital governance today: that no crucial change in governance can occur without the buy-in of the state and that those most in need of change — especially minorities persecuted online and offline by states and for whom a free and open internet is a lifeline — do not have the bargaining power necessary to affect such change. This problem is compounded in international digital governance forums, where, to have an impact, an interest group needs to be organised and needs sufficient resources to maintain a sustained presence.

While multistakeholderism may appear to be a positive step away from a state-centered view of the digital space, it does not acknowledge some of the fundamental truths of digital governance today: that no crucial change in governance can occur without the buy-in of the state and that those most in need of change — especially minorities persecuted online and offline by states and for whom a free and open internet is a lifeline — do not have the bargaining power necessary to affect such change.

“Digital Interdependence” as a concept glosses over some of the most contentious aspects of the digital contest: first, that the state does not — both through willful negligence and simple oversight — represent the interests of all its citizens because its conceptualisation of digital stability is non-inclusive by design. Second, competing interests will always exist, even more so in today’s environment where technologies have become the basis for strategic competition. Finally, as states assert themselves in digital policy, the most powerful among them are securitising this space at the cost of much-needed cooperation on human rights and liberties. In this age of contestation, this report falls short in contributing to coherence and stability.

• Cyber and Technology
• USA and Canada
• Cyber Sovereignity
• Declaration of Digital Interdependence
• Digital Cooperation
• Digital Stability
• Multistakeholderism

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