[kictanet] Day 5 of 10: IG Discussions, Legal Issues

[John Walubengo]

Mornings, 

Today and next Monday, we intend to thrash out the legal dimensions of Internet Governance. The typical issues revolve around:
-Jurisdiction & Arbitration (who resolves e-disputes)
-Copyright & IPR (are they pro or anti-development?)
-Privacy and Data Protection (how is the e-Citizens data abused/protected?)

I do hope the 'learned' friends will chip in since I cannot pretend to be an expert here as I introduce the general legal principals.  Basically, dispute resolutions can be done through, 
·	Legislation;
·	Social norms (customs);
·	Self-regulation;
·	Regulation through code (software solution);
·	Jurisprudence (court decisions);
·	International law.

There is however two broad conflicting schools of thought when it comes to resolving disputes occasioned by the Internet. One group claims that whatever happens online does have an equivalent ‘off-line’ characteristics and as such existing laws can easily be applied.  E.g stealing money electronically is no different from stealing money physically and so Robbery charges and subsequent jurisdictional procedures could apply.  However, the second group feels that electronic crimes have a totally different context and must have a separate and totally new set of legislation or methodologies for resolutions.  

The borderless nature of the Internet brings to fore the Challenges of Jurisdiction and Arbitration as in yesterday’s example, where content in one country may be illegal but is legal in another. Copyright and Intellectual Property Rights issues are also explosive as demonstrated by the Napster Case, where some young software engineers created software that facilitated sharing of (SONY) Music files across the Internet. Also related was the case of Amazon.com trying to Patent the ‘single-click’ method of buying goods online.

Other cases touch on Data Privacy where Business Companies have been known to sell customer records to Marketing firms without express authority from the Customers. Other times customer data is simply hacked into and Businesses are unable to own up (going public) to the detriment of the Customer.

Most of these issues are under discussion internationally at the Internet Governance Forum (IGF), World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) amongst other fora. They present emerging legal challenges and it would be interesting to know if stakeholders in the East African region are/should be involved in shaping the outcomes of any of these issues.

2days on this one, today and next Monday and feel free to belatedly respond to Day 1 through Day 5 issues.

References:
http://www.diplomacy.edu/ISL/IG/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napster