 Hello and welcome to NewsClick. I am Paranjoy Guhatakurtha. I have with me, somebody who's with whom I've studied in the same school, Ashok Mukherjee. Ashok Mukherjee was India's former permanent representative to the United Nations in New York. He used to, until recently, be with the Indian Foreign Service. Today, we are going to discuss issues relating to internet governance. Ashok, you've recently written an article for the Center for International Relations and Sustainable Development. And you've said there is need for an international convention on cyberspace at this juncture. Now, what we see is, after COVID, the economies of the world have collapsed. The world is going through a deep recession, the likes of which we've perhaps never seen in a hundred years, perhaps who knows, even longer. At one level, more and more people have become dependent on the internet because they've been locked down inside their homes. At another level, what we see, that the hope that the internet had held out some decades ago, 20 years ago, 30 years ago, of being this great democratizing force. It would provide information, education, knowledge, perhaps even wisdom. It would empower ordinary people. But we've come to see the internet being dominated by a few giant global conglomerates who seem to determine what you watch, what you hear, what you hear, what you watch, what you see and what you hear. Why at this juncture post COVID, is there a need for an international convention on cyberspace? Well, Paranjai, first of all, thank you for having me on your program. I have tried in this article that you mentioned to put a proposal in the public domain on an international convention for cyberspace, basically because of one reason. And that is that while the cyberspace includes the internet has become more visible, especially after the pandemic of COVID-19, the fact remains that our approach to how this space is being used is very fragmented. In the realm of governments, the dominating theme is cybersecurity, because it's the responsibility of governments to provide security, including in cyberspace, and yet instead of successfully moving towards effective international cooperation to ensure cybersecurity, governments are today caught up in a polarizing, sometimes bruising discussion on issues such as who is a threat to cybersecurity and how do you respond to such a threat to cybersecurity? When we look at other players in cyberspace, as you mentioned, the biggest players are the major multinational corporations. These corporations have actually grown in the last 15 years because of the tremendous progress and strides made by technology. And what we today take for granted in the form of smartphones, for example, was not even conceptualized in 1997 when we agreed to introduce smartphones into our markets. So the strides in technology are also a development and a phenomenon which are today very potentially unknown. We are hearing, for example, of artificial intelligence and the use of artificial intelligence in cyberspace. So how is this technology going to be harnessed for fulfilling the people-centric potential of cyberspace is an issue which I think needs to be addressed. And then, of course, there are two other players, I would call them in cyberspace. One is academia and the other is civil society. And as far as academia is concerned, they have focused on conceptualizing how cyberspace can develop, how it can grow. But one area where academia has unfortunately not yet been empowered is in providing what we used to call in our education primary and university education days as the value-based framework. You know, we all studied civic science or social sciences, etc. But there is, as far as I know, in no country in the world is cyberspace being taught from primary school onwards. And when we talk about the use of education, I think there are two very important areas where this has to happen in a more coherent manner. One is in the substance of cyberspace, which includes issues like cyber security, how to take care of yourself when you, for the first time, put your finger to the keyboard. But as important is the values and ethics of cyberspace, which actually should be brought into a curriculum for children when they start using this technology. And today's children use this technology very early. And of course, the fourth player is civil society. And I think there's a very big role for civil society in cyberspace. It has been played in some countries, especially in Europe and sometimes in the United States. And that role is to ensure that fundamental human rights and freedoms are secured in cyberspace, are upheld in cyberspace. Now, for example, when we talk of the concerns of civil society in India, very little of the discussions that, for example, went into the Justice Sri Krishna Committee have even been reflected internationally. So as far as the international community is concerned, they have not yet got the full contribution that Indian civil society can make, not only to the Indian discussions, but also to the global discussions. And I come back to it because cyberspace is a global domain. There is no way in which we can put it as international jurisdiction. Ashok, I'm going to ask you more questions about the four main stakeholders, governments, businesses, academia, civil society. You mentioned the Sri Krishna Commission and this issue and privacy. But let me, for the time being, as you have rightly pointed out, cyberspace is influencing just about every aspect of human behavior today. And in the post-COVID world that we are going to be living in, it's going to become even more important for having a multi-stakeholder approach to cyberspace and internet governance. But let me pick at this point of time one specific point, which you mentioned, and this really has to do with governments as well as businesses. When you talked about artificial intelligence, I mean, there's a race right now going on with the United States and China. I mean, we see you talked about, in your article, you've talked about the fifth, or is it the fourth industrial revolution you talked about? Yes, the fourth industrial revolution you talked about. People are talking about the Third World War, which is not just being fought on trade issues, but on issues of information, information technology, access to information. The pandemic and with it, the infotemic. And put it on one side, you have the American big wigs, the Alphabet, Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Microsofts of the world. And on the other hand, you have the Chinese big wigs, the Alibaba, Tencent, Baidu, Xiaomi, Huawei. So we are seeing a war of sorts between America on one side, China on the other side. And everybody else, including perhaps even the European Union, is likely to, is virtually being left out of this war. And it's a very messy war and likely to get even messier as we move on. So on this issue of digital, the dominance of big business and digital monopolies. And what are your thoughts about how things are going to pan out in the near future? In terms of how to address what you have mentioned. And you have mentioned it in very stark terms and I'm glad you did so because it is a competition or a bruising competition between the two countries which the United States and China which have the largest corporates in this cyberspace. But the two things that are happening as we speak is that first within the United Nations, it has come through the Secretary General. This initiative to have a high level panel, which was headed very interestingly by Melinda Gates, the wife of Bill Gates, and by Jack Ma, the owner of Alibaba and the biggest player on the Chinese cyberspace. And this co-chair panel has produced a report a way forward, which is supposed before the COVID pandemic was declared, which was supposed to have actually been brought to the member states of the UN General Assembly. And introduced into the agenda of the United Nations General Assembly with a view to coming to an understanding on how to converge what the report calls a multi-stakeholderism with multilateralism. So, which means that bringing in the concerns of corporates and civil society who are all part of the panel activity and report and how governments will agree to encourage the activities of these stakeholders in cyberspace. So that was one development and I hope very much that the COVID pandemic has not impacted too heavily on the momentum of this issue being considered by governments in the United Nations General Assembly. The second process and that's not a process with any coherent framework, but that is a process that is nevertheless underway is within the framework of the World Trade Organization. Okay, hold on. I mean, I'm going to ask you specific questions on all of these, but let's for the time being just look at this whole issue of, you know, the dominance of big business, digital big business. Now, whether it be Microsoft, whether it be Google, whether it be Facebook, I mean, they are also in one level because they are under a lot of attack in Australia, among other places. They are also seeking better governance, better rules. But the question is that whether these large big business houses really would be in a situation where they will check excesses abuse of private power under the circumstances. Well, yes. In fact, Microsoft had on its own come out with a proposal for a digital Geneva Convention. But when they discussed this idea of theirs, they found that eventually, the main focus of that proposal was to secure the private sector in cyberspace. They found that the private sector by itself, no matter how rich it is, cannot really end up with the legal framework to secure itself. It needed governments. And that is why Microsoft has now put the onus of negotiating a digital Geneva Convention for cyberspace onto the governments of the United Nations. So that is one issue. But the other part of what you asked me is actually something that has been impacted by development within the European Union, which has come out very strongly in support of privacy issues in cyberspace. And the GDPR as that regulation of the European Union is called is actually today has become a point of reference, if not a standard for the way in which the activities of these big corporations will be regulated in cyberspace. Now, as I said, at the moment, there is no framework to do it. And that is one more reason to call for an international convention. All right, you know, in your article, you pointed out how the United Nations Secretary General, his approach to nominate, you know, government representatives in the group of governmental experts from really the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, which is China, France, Russia, United Kingdom and the United States. And according to you, this approach has played into the growing polarization among the five permanent members. And that is now getting reflected in this process of the group of government experts. That's one part of the story. The second part of the story, and these might be related, you can tie them up. Your article discussed there have been two broad lines of work in the United Nations for several years now. You know, I was a permanent the Singh of IT for change. He suggested that, you know, I ask you some of these questions and one of them is that at one level, you have security issues in the United Nations General Assembly, and you have the development issues and the social issues, which essentially arises from the summit on information society. Now, do you think a single convention would be able to handle these both sets of issues? Or is it necessary to separate the issues that perhaps have two separate sets of conventions? Well, I think, and I'm glad Paraminder has asked you to ask me these questions because he's been probably one of the few voices from Indian civil society active in global discussions on cyber issues. But to start with this governmental group of experts. Now, it's not only limited to the five permanent members of the Security Council, it has actually a much broader membership running into almost two dozen countries. My point in the article was to to underline that despite the need for equitable regional representation, which is the way the United Nations General Assembly authorized this governmental group of experts to be constituted, the secretary general at that time interpreted this to to mean a permanent place for these five countries. And I think that this was very unfortunate because this is a new area that it is not in the UN Charter. There is no requirement for the secretary general to have just chosen or continue to choose the five permanent members to be in the government group of experts. And I think that that has, as I wrote and as you pointed out, played into what could not have been foreseen in 2004, but as a reality in 2020, which is the tremendous polarization among these five permanent members, which has even prevented the Security Council from adopting a resolution on how to deal with the COVID pandemic. I mean, this is a really bizarre situation. But to look at the issue of security and development, I think that here we need to keep in mind two aspects. One is that from the very beginning of this process on looking at empowering society through information and communication technologies, the United Nations process has been multi-stakeholder in nature. It has not been limited only to government. It has got the other three players that we spoke of earlier. And this paradigm or this model has actually been gathered over into the negotiations which took place in 2013 to 2015 on the agenda for sustainable development with their SDGs. Sustainable development goals, which when you break down the goals are goals that impact on every aspect of human behavior at every level of our societies all across the world. So the use of information and communications technologies to accelerate the achievement of these goals is very much a commitment which has been adopted in the global document called Agenda 2030. It is an integrated approach. And I think that the preamble of Agenda 2030 gives you the answer to the question which you asked me, which is that without peace there can be no sustainable development and without sustainable development there can be no peace. Now that's in the preamble of the Agenda 2030 and that links the security and development dimensions. So we do need an integrated international convention on cyberspace. Ashok, you talked about the after there was growing criticism from a majority of United Nations member states about the way these discussions were going on. Eventually an open-ended working group was put together to make the discussions more democratic, inclusive, transparent and that according to you with a broader context in which we are discussing these popular debates. You can briefly touch upon these popular debates. One is 5G technology, the fifth generation of technology. We've seen what's happened in the case of Huawei. I mean that story is still being laid out. So there's also the issue of ethics, applying ethics to artificial intelligence cyber activities. The issue of sovereignty on the flow of data from traditional jurisdictions, national jurisdictions, or what we loosely call data localization. And this whole issue of the dominance of ICANN, assigned names and numbers, the international corporation on assigned names and numbers, which is really, though it's a not-for-profit organization, it's really dominated by the United States and the government of the United States. So I'm asking you to look at briefly touch on some of these issues that I talked about. 5G, artificial intelligence, data sovereignty or data localization and the issue of ICANN, assigned names and numbers. Well, these four issues that you have raised are actually the issues which most of the countries in the world want to discuss but they didn't have a forum where they could discuss it. And I'm glad in that sense that the General Assembly of the United Nations created this open-ended working group in 2018. So you can imagine how much time it took for this platform to be created. But having created the platform, what has happened is that on each of these issues, there is a realization through the discussions that have taken place that matters are not in black and white and matters are not very simple. The case that you've given of 5G is a good example. Now 5G requires a generational change. I have negotiated the introduction of Spectrum into telecoms way back in 1997. And when Spectrum was put on the table for us as India to consider, the policy of our government at that time was that Spectrum is not part of the Ministry of Commerce's mandate. And therefore the negotiations which were being done by our mission to the World Trade Organization under the Commerce Ministry's guidance did not cover Spectrum. But we had to participate and give our view on how to deal with Spectrum. And I was told that Spectrum is part of the Defense Ministry's mandate at that time in 1997. But thanks to the technical advice of our negotiators, including engineers from our telecom department, we were able to ensure that we made an unlimited binding, unlimited commitment on Spectrum. And that is how mobile telephony entered India. So this is just the way in which I think we'll have to deal with 5G. We are not aware today in India of the various implications of 5G. There are some issues which have been highlighted as you mentioned with regard to Huawei. But here the point for us in India is that while we are looking at 5G and we are looking at Huawei, when people tell us that do not go to Huawei for your 5G technology, the natural question which we ask is, if we do not take from Huawei, who are we going to get this 5G technology from? And one of the answers to that question is that in India, there is as yet no company, Indian company, which is able to give 5G technology for the Indian market. So we are again looking at some other partners. Now, this is an area which is therefore very, very complicated and it's not a simple black and white choice. In your brief comments on the three other points I mentioned, the role of ICANN and also ethics in artificial intelligence and data localization. Yes. Very briefly on ethics and artificial intelligence. I think that here civil society is playing a very big role in highlighting the fact that the entire use of this technology in cyberspace is with people at its center. And if we are to now look at the use of artificial intelligence through machines, then how do we ensure that the values that bind people together, that bind societies together are going to actually continue to be valid and play a role in the activities that take place in cyberspace. So this is something that goes to putting people at the center. As far as data localization is concerned, I think that here there are two dimensions to this discussion which is going on. One is a realization that because of the infrastructure and the technology of that infrastructure of cyberspace, data flows are dominated and controlled by just 13 primary root servers of whom 10 are located in the United States of America. There is no way of moving beyond these 13 primary root servers, although the new technologies that have come today allow mirror servers to be put up all across the world. So the control over these servers lies both in the hand of government as well as corporates as well as academia of the United States, mainly. And therefore, how do we ensure the integrity of data that flows along this infrastructure is a question which most people were not aware of until civil society raised it. And now I'm glad that there's a discussion on issues of data localization in the context of the control and use of data that flows across the cyber infrastructure. And on ICANN, for a long time, ICANN was projected as a nonprofit organization which had a tenuous link with the government of the United States. But it was at a conference in Brazil not a few years ago that it became clear to the rest of the international community that ICANN was operating on a license issued by the Department of Commerce of the United States. And therefore, if there was a move to make ICANN universal and like the United Nations, then the first step was requirement for the United States government to cut its regulatory hold on ICANN. And as far as I'm aware that process is not yet complete. Okay. Although ICANN has. In other words, among the many issues that have to be discussed, whether we need to have a parallel body or whether we need a new kind of ICANN as a new kind of a body to replace it. Am I correct? Well, in the way that I have put it in my article, this issue should also be part of an international convention on cyberspace. All right. And I've given you the example from the law of disease. Okay. Now I am here because of lack of time having to, I mean, I have a number of questions to ask you, but I'm going to combine them to two. You mentioned the role of the World Trade Organization, the WTO. Of all intents and purposes, many believe the World Trade Organization is in a state of limbo. It's an organization which is doing little or nothing today. So what, you know, I mean, developing countries were very, very opposed to the World Trade Organization, picking up issues on data governance, global flows of data and so on and so forth. And the UN Secretary General's Panel on Digital Cooperation at one level talks of data commons. But when you talk about data governance, when you talk about governance of artificial intelligence, when in the context of your call for a new convention of cyberspace, what is the role? What is the role of the World Trade Organization? I think it's important to remember that although conceptualized by the United Nations Economic and Social Council in 1946, the World Trade Organization which finally emerged in 1995 is not part of the United Nations in the legal term. So we need to find a way in which to bridge the activities of the World Trade Organization with that of the United Nations in the area of cyberspace. Now, in response to what you asked me about the WTO, I think it is important to recall that in 1994, developing countries like India, there was a very big discussion in our parliament in 1994, joined the World Trade Organization because it provided a level playing field for developing countries to participate in international trade without being subjected to the bilateral pressures of things like Super 301 legislation of the United States of America. And the track record of our participation in the WTO from 1995 till now has actually proved that even though we may be David in the field of international trade, we are able to take on the Goliaths. And I think that this is an important lesson which we have learned on the use of multilateral structures for our trade interests. Now, in terms of cyberspace, there is now a growing trend to bypass the World Trade Organization's dispute settlement structure and revert back to the national legislation like Super 301. And the best example of that is the inquiry which has just been announced in the United States of using Super 301 to investigate India's trade policy measures on digital taxes. Now, ideally, this issue should have been raised in the World Trade Organization and dealt with by the World Trade Organization. But it has now gone back because the United States has atrophied the dispute settlement system of the WTO, it has now gone back to the bilateral mode. And whether it is in the interest of developing countries to go back to the bilateral mode where might dominate, economic might will dominate is a very valid question to raise. Okay, Ashok, my last question to you and you can conclude our interview by making our closing remarks as well. You know, what kind of an international convention on cyberspace are you emphasizing? I mean, what kind of a United Nations agency or any other body will administer it? You know, that is another issue. I mean, there are various options. We've seen the developing countries, we've seen the group of 77 countries asking for a new platform, you know, based on the mandate of the World Summit on Information Society. Should a new body have to be created? And what should be the role of India? Is this really the question on which I'd like you to conclude? I mean, India did make a demand in the United Nations General Assembly in 2011, it hadn't been followed up. The question is, what should be India's role, India's possible positioning? These are we, you know, I mean, at one level, we all say, you know, we have a unique digital as well as a global diplomatic standing. But what role can India play in this, in taking this issue forward and going forward with this? Yes. Well, in terms of the first part of what you asked me, I think that the proposal is to start a discussion on what kind of framework we can create to regulate activities in cyberspace. I think it is too early to identify that it has to be within the United Nations or it has to be a hybrid between the UN and the WTO or it can be something which is agreed to as because it will have to be a multi stakeholder structure. And that is probably the first time that we are going to go in for discussing a legal multi stakeholder structure. This is the 21st century. And I think because multi stakeholder approaches have dominated this domain, we will have to find a multilateral structure. And whether there will be a body or there will be like ICANN plus or some other body that will depend on these discussions and negotiations. And in that respect, as I've written, we have to learn from what the international community did with the maritime domain from 1967 onwards, which eventually ended up with the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea in 1982. And while we don't have that much time for cyberspace, but I think if we start this discussion now, we will in the next five to six years probably get closer to creating this international framework that we spoke of. Now the role of India, and I'd like to conclude with the role of India in this activity is actually driven by India's historic and current interests. Historically, India was in the United Nations framework, the country that took the lead to catalyze the reorientation of the United Nations activities from just purely policing the world to responding to demands for development. And the creation of the G77 in 1964, India was the first chairman of the G77 and the impact of the G77 in ensuring the adoption of Agenda 2030 on sustainable development just illustrates this kind of role that we have traditionally played in the UN. But India today, and especially with the adoption of these technologies for India's own development and growth, is in a different position than just playing the role of a country wedded to some principle. In India's case, the fact that most of the activities including what we are doing today require a resilient infrastructure, require an approach which seeks to uphold human rights including the right to development. This gives India a vested interest, if I may call it, in pushing for an international framework for regulating activities in cyberspace. And that will include many issues which are part of the Indian socioeconomic landscape on which you have written so much and others have spoken about so much. Issues of the gap between the haves and have nots, between the educated and not educated, between genders, between languages. There's so many issues, but all these issues are right now confined within our national discussions. I think that we have to put this into the international domain because the international structures and especially the multinational corporates you mentioned right at the beginning have moved quite quickly into the reality of India as we know it. And they are through their interaction with our own companies moving into spaces which, for example, as governments, we may not even be very consciously aware of, which is the huge language market, cyber market in India. That is today exposed to these big companies through the tie-ups that have recently been announced. But how do we deal with this? Thank you so much. We've run out of time, Ashok. You know, I could have gone on and on discussing with you. Time alone will tell whether after COVID or together with COVID, with the pandemic and the accompanying infotemic. And we've seen how, whereas the disease has affected all sections of society, the economic downturn, the depression, the recession has really hurt the poor very, very, very badly across the world and certainly in India. And time alone will tell whether that this is an opportune time, an opportune juncture in our history to take forward the discussion for an international convention on cyberspace to ensure that there are transparent rules and regulations for governance of cyberspace. That was Ashok Mukherjee, India's former permanent representative to the United Nations, speaking to NewsClick. Thank you for being with us. Keep watching NewsClick.