IGF 2014

The transnational Internet is instrumental in helping people exercise their universal human rights, irrespective of where they are located. However, there is a growing tension between the cross-border nature of the Internet and the territorial conception of national sovereignty. Concerns are legitimately rising about a “fragmentation” of cyberspace along national jurisdictions.

The session will address the following issues:
- What is actually meant by “fragmentation of cyberspace”?
- Do we really observe trends towards fragmentation?
- Is this voluntary or an unintended consequence of unrelated decisions?
- What would be the long-term impacts on the ecology of cyberspace?

If we collectively believe that cyberspace fragmentation would be detrimental to the benefits the Internet has brought to mankind, new collaborative multi-stakeholder frameworks are needed to diffuse tensions and enable the coexistence of different laws and norms in shared online spaces.

Launched in 2012, the Internet & Jurisdiction Project is a multi-stakeholder effort to develop a due process framework to deal with transborder tensions around online content.

The roundtable discussion is intended to frame the broader debate and solicit feedback. It will also update IGF participants about the progress of the global multi-stakeholder dialogue process facilitated by the Internet & Jurisdiction Project and engage them in the way forward.