Angela Daly - Workshop presenation at the CCIWS13

1. Angela Daly
Swinburne Institute for Social Research
Law and the Internet

2. Swinburne
SCIENCE | TECHNOLOGY | INNOVATION | BUSINESS | DESIGN
Law and the Internet
- Brief description of relevant areas of law
- Easterbrook J’s mid-1990s presentation on ‘Cyberspace
and the Law of the Horse’ - is Internet law a discipline in
itself? Is the Internet enough of a paradigm shift to merit
its own legal studies?
- How resilient are ‘legacy’ areas of law? Is the issue just
that old school lawyers, legislators & law enforcement folk
don’t understand technology?
- Remember the gap between what’s written down as law &
what happens in practice
- Aim: what kind of laws you should be aware of when
doing your research
2
Overview & introductory comments

3. Swinburne
SCIENCE | TECHNOLOGY | INNOVATION | BUSINESS | DESIGN
Law and the Internet
- International treaties – usually need to be ratified at the
national level to become domestic law – in this area,
international trade treaties which impact upon IP; cybercrime
- Law of the sea – for ‘traditional’ piracy as opposed to the Pirate
Bay
- International criminal law: genocide, crimes against humanity,
war crimes
- Law of war – some tech issues such as drones
- International human rights law: Universal Declaration of Human
Rights & subsequent covenants and treaties – relevant for
individual rights e.g. free expression, privacy
3
International law

4. Swinburne
SCIENCE | TECHNOLOGY | INNOVATION | BUSINESS | DESIGN
Law and the Internet
- Europe:
- European Union: Charter of Fundamental Rights
(includes free expression, privacy, data protection and
intellectual property); various Treaties, then regulations
& directives on topics such as e-commerce, DP etc
- European Convention on Human Rights treaty, Council
of Europe & Euro Court of Human Rights
- Other parts of the world: American Convention on Human
Rights; Mercosur; GCC, ASEAN etc
- Regional free trade agreements
4
Regional laws

5. Swinburne
SCIENCE | TECHNOLOGY | INNOVATION | BUSINESS | DESIGN
Law and the Internet
- Wide variety of areas of national law which will impact on
the Internet:
- Intellectual property
- Competition law
- Media law
- Sector-specific telecommunications regulation
- Constitutional, administrative & human rights law
- Criminal law
- Other areas of civil/private law
- Usually higher level of enforcement compared to int law
National laws

6. Swinburne
SCIENCE | TECHNOLOGY | INNOVATION | BUSINESS | DESIGN
Law and the Internet
- Due to transnational nature of Internet, strong presence of
the US & many transnational corporations which come
from the US, US law reigns supreme
- Often forms basis for online services’ terms of service
contracts – regardless of where in the world the user is
- EU law provides a little challenge on data protection &
privacy – fundamental disagreement with US law on
these issues – just look at the ‘unprecedented’ lobbying
coming from US Chamber of Commerce & big tech corps
vis-à-vis Data Protection Regulation under consideration
in Brussels – EU is world’s biggest trading bloc
6
One law to rule them all: US law

7. Swinburne
SCIENCE | TECHNOLOGY | INNOVATION | BUSINESS | DESIGN
Law and the Internet
- Fundamentally governance of the network – which still IS
decentralised (from what I gather ;-) )
- Internet Corporation for Assigned Names & Numbers aka
ICANN: administers domain names & IP addresses – HQ
in California
- Internet Engineering Task Force aka IETF: develops &
promotes Internet standards
- Multistakeholder processes: different from traditional law-
making vis-à-vis actors involved & transparency
- These processes form part of a new area, ‘Global
Administrative Law’ – but is this really law? Or
‘governance’?
7
Afterword: Internet Governance processes

8. Thank you!
acdaly@swin.edu.au