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International Regimes for Information and Communication Technologies: Toward a New Research Agenda

International Regimes for Information and Communication Technologies: Toward a New Research Agenda. Jeffrey Hart Indiana University October 13, 2006. Governance. Governance is a service that governments and other authoritative bodies perform

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International Regimes for Information and Communication Technologies: Toward a New Research Agenda

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  1. International Regimes for Information and Communication Technologies: Toward a New Research Agenda Jeffrey Hart Indiana University October 13, 2006

  2. Governance • Governance is a service that governments and other authoritative bodies perform • Defined by Oran Young as “The establishment and operation of social institutions…capable of resolving conflicts, facilitating cooperation, or, more generally, alleviating collective action problems.”

  3. International Intergovernmental Regimes • Defined as systems of rules, norms, procedures, and informal practices that constrain the behavior of governments of nation-states. • International governance and international intergovernmental regimes are not the same because some international governance can occur with only minimal involvement of governments.

  4. Theories about International Regimes • Hegemonial stability theory • Regimes change when the distribution of international power changes; regimes tend to favor hegemonial powers. • Epistemic communities • Regimes cannot emerge in the absence of consensus among activists and technical experts (e.g., environmental regimes) • Constructivism • Regimes are artificial social constructions that do not necessarily depend on power distributions or scientific/technical consensus

  5. International Regimes for ICTs • The Domain Name System • E-Commerce • Intellectual Property • The Digital Divide

  6. The Domain Name System • Origins in the system administered by Jon Postel • Postel regime generalized into the IANA by the Internet Society • IANA establishes ICANN in collusion with the US Department of Commerce • ICANN comes under strong criticism for Commerce veto (EU; Milton Mueller)

  7. DNS-Specific Issues • Integrity of root server system • Global Top-level domains vs. country domains • Need to regulate registrar monopolies (Network Solutions/Verisign) or make registry industry more competitive • Cybersquatting vs. trademark and brand-name protection of large firms (UDRP) • .xxx domain dispute

  8. E-Commerce Governance Issues • Should there be policies to promote migration from bricks and mortar to bricks and clicks or just clicks? • How is e-commerce to be regulated? • Is there a geographic location where the transaction takes place (for taxation purposes) and if so what tax is to be charged?

  9. Advantages of E-Commerce

  10. Internet as a Tax-Free Environment • EU began to consider extending VAT to e-commerce (as did US states) in the late 1990s • Clinton administration advocated tax-free zone in the WTO and the OECD • OECD adopted Ottawa Taxation Framework Conditions (1998) • Since then WTO has focused on liberalizing “trade in digital products”

  11. Intellectual Property Issues • Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) were negotiated as part of the Uruguay Round of trade talks • TRIPS were unpopular especially in the Third World • US entertainment, pharmaceutical, and software firms focused on international “piracy” • Recent attempts on the part of the movie and recording industries to make file sharing software illegal if used to encourage piracy

  12. The Broadcast Flag • Broadcast Protection Discussion Group (BPDG) study of June 2002 • Recommendation for a digital flag for protected DTV content • DTV decoding devices would detect the flag and be unable to copy protected content or forward it to devices not properly configured to maintain protection Is the broadcast flag a TIVO killer?

  13. The Digital Divide • G8 adopted Okinawa Charter on Global Information Society in 2000 • DOT Force meetings and final report lead to various reports and programs and a “multi-stakeholder approach” to governance • This approach continued in WSIS and now in the Internet Governance Forum

  14. Summing Up • Past political science research tended to focus too much on the DNS and Digital Divide issues and their forums: ICANN and WSIS • Not enough attention was paid to e-commerce, intellectual property, other important governance matters and their forums: the G8, WTO, and the OECD

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