The Geopolitics of Cyberspace: A Compendium of CIS Research

With a rapidly digitizing economy and clear interests in shaping global rules that favour its strategic interests, India stands at a crucial juncture on various facets of this debate. How India governs and harnesses technology, coupled with how India translates these values and negotiates its interests globally, will surely have an impact on how similarly placed emerging economies devise their own strategies. The challenge here is to ensure that domestic technology governance as well as global engagements genuinely uphold and further India’s democratic fibre and constitutional vision.

Since 2018, researchers at the Centre for Internet and Society have produced a body of research including academic writing, at the intersection of geopolitics and technology covering global governance regimes on trade and cybersecurity, including their attendant international law concerns, the digital factor in bilateral relationships (with a focus on the Indo-US and Sino-Indian relationships). We have paid close focus to the role of emerging technologies in this debate, including AI and 5G as well as how private actors in the technology domain, operating across national jurisdictions, are challenging and upending traditionally accepted norms of international law, global governance, and geopolitics.

The global fissures in this space matter fundamentally for individuals who increasingly use digital spaces to carry out day to day activities: from being unwitting victims of state surveillance to harnessing social media for causes of empowerment to falling prey to state-sponsored cyber attacks, the rules of cyber governance, and its underlying politics. Yet, the rules are set by a limited set of public officials and technology lawyers within restricted corridors of power. Better global governance needs more to be participatory and accessible. CIS’s research and writing has been cognizant of this, and attempted to merge questions of global governance with constitutional and technical questions that put individuals and communities centre-stage.

Research and writing produced by CIS researchers and external collaborators from 2018 onward is detailed in the appended compendium.

Compendium

Global cybersecurity governance and cyber norms

Two decades since a treaty governing state behaviour in cyberspace was mooted by Russia, global governance processes have meandered along. The security debate has often been polarised along “Cold War” lines but the recent amplification of cyberspace governance as developmental, social and economic has seen several new vectors added to this debate. This past year two parallel processes at the United Nations General Assembly’s First Committee on Disarmament and International Security-United Nations Group of Governmental Experts (UN-GGE) and the United Nations Open Ended Working Group managed to produce consensus reports but several questions on international law, norms and geopolitical co-operation remain. India has been a participant at these crucial governance debates. Both the substance of the contribution, along with its implications remain a key focus area for our research.

Edited Volumes

• Karthik Nachiappan and Arindrajit Basu India and Digital World-Making, Seminar 731, 1 July 2020 (featuring contributions from Manoj Kewalramani, Gunjan Chawla, Torsha Sarkar, Trisha Ray, Sameer Patil, Arun Vishwanathan, Vidushi Marda, Divij Joshi, Asoke Mukerji, Pallavi Raghavan, Karishma Mehrotra, Malavika Raghavan, Constantino Xavier, Rajen Harshe' and Suman Bery)

Long-Form Articles

1. Arindrajit Basu and Elonnai Hickok, Cyberspace and External Affairs: A Memorandum for India (Memorandum, Centre for Internet and Society, 30 Nov 2018)
2. The Potential for the Normative Regulation of Cyberspace (White Paper, Centre for Internet and Society, 30 July 2018)
3. Arindrajit Basu and Elonnai Hickok Conceptualizing an International Security Architecture for cyberspace (Briefings of the Global Commission on the Stability of Cyberspace, Bratislava, Slovakia, May 2018)
4. Sunil Abraham, Mukta Batra, Geetha Hariharan, Swaraj Barooah, and Akriti Bopanna, India's contribution to internet governance debates (NLUD Student Law Journal, 2018)

Blog Posts and Op-eds

• Arindrajit Basu, Irene Poetranto, and Justin Lau, The UN struggles to make progress in cyberspace, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, May 19th, 2021
• Andre’ Barrinha and Arindrajit Basu, Could cyber diplomacy learn from outer space, EU Cyber Direct, 20th April 2021
• Arindrajit Basu and Pranesh Prakash, Patching the gaps in India’s cybersecurity, The Hindu, 6th March 2021
• Arindrajit Basu and Karthik Nachiappan, Will India negotiate in cyberspace?, Leiden Security and Global Affairs blog,December 16, 2020
• Elizabeth Dominic, The debate over internet governance and cybercrimes: West vs the rest?, Centre for Internet and Society, June 08, 2020
• Arindrajit Basu, India’s role in Global Cyber Policy Formulation, Lawfare, Nov 7, 2019
• Pukhraj Singh, Before cyber norms,let's talk about disanalogy and disintermediation, Centre for Internet and Society, Nov 15th, 2019
• Arindrajit Basu and Karan Saini, Setting International Norms of Cyber Conflict is Hard, But that Doesn’t Mean that We Should Stop Trying, Modern War Institute, 30th Sept, 2019
• Arindrajit Basu, Politics by other means: Fostering positive contestation and charting red lines through global governance in cyberspace (Digital Debates, Volume 6, 2019)
• Arindrajit Basu, Will the WTO Finally Tackle the ‘Trump’ Card of National Security? (The Wire, 8th May 2019)

Policy Submissions

1. Arindrajit Basu, CIS Submission to OEWG (Centre for Internet and Society, Policy Submission, 2020)
2. Aayush Rathi, Ambika Tandon, Elonnai Hickok, and Arindrajit Basu. “CIS Submission to UN High-Level Panel on Digital Cooperation.” Policy submission. Centre for Internet and Society, January 2019.
3. Arindrajit Basu,Gurshabad Grover, and Elonnai Hickok. “Response to GCSC on Request for Consultation: Norm Package Singapore.” Centre for Internet and Society, January 17, 2019.
4. Arindrajit Basu and Elonnai Hickok. Submission of Comments to the GCSC Definition of ‘Stability of Cyberspace (Centre for Internet and Society, September 6, 2019)

Digital Trade and India's Political Economy

The modern trading regime and its institutions were born largely into a world bereft of the internet and its implications for cross-border flow and commerce. Therefore, regulatory ambitions at the WTO have played catch up with the technological innovation that has underpinned the modern global digital economy. Driven by tech giants, the “developed” world has sought to restrict the policy space available to the emerging world to impose mandates regarding data localisation, source code disclosure, and taxation - among other initiatives central to development. At the same time emerging economies have pushed back, making for a tussle that continues to this day. Our research has focussed both on issues of domestic political economy and data governance,and the implications these domestic issues have on how India and other emerging economies negotiate at the world stage.

Long-Form articles and essays

1. Arindrajit Basu, Elonnai Hickok and Aditya Chawla, The Localisation Gambit: Unpacking policy moves for the sovereign control of data in India (Centre for Internet and Society, March 19, 2019)
2. Arindrajit Basu,Sovereignty in a datafied world: A framework for Indian diplomacy in Navdeep Suri and Malancha Chakrabarty (eds) A 2030 Vision for India’s Economic Diplomacy (Observer Research Foundation 2021)
3. Amber Sinha, Elonnai Hickok, Udbhav Tiwari and Arindrajit Basu, Cross Border Data-Sharing and India (Centre for Internet and Society, 2018)

Blog posts and op-eds

• Arindrajit Basu, Can the WTO build consensus on digital trade, Hinrich Foundation,October 05,2021
  
• Amber Sinha, The power politics behind Twitter versus Government of India, The Wire, June 03, 2021
• Karthik Nachiappan and Arindrajit Basu, Shaping the Digital World, The Hindu, 30th July 2020
• Arindrajit Basu and Karthik Nachiappan, India and the global battle for data governance, Seminar 731, 1st July 2020
• Amber Sinha and Arindrajit Basu, Reliance Jio-Facebook deal highlights India’s need to revisit competition regulations, Scroll, 30th April 2020
• Arindrajit Basu and Amber Sinha, The realpolitik of the Reliance-Jio Facebook deal, The Diplomat, 29th April 2020
• Arindrajit Basu, The Retreat of the Data Localization Brigade: India, Indonesia, Vietnam, The Diplomat, Jan 10, 2020
• Amber Sinha and Arindrajit Basu, The Politics of India’s Data Protection Ecosystem, EPW Engage, 27 Dec 2019
• Arindrajit Basu and Justin Sherman, Key Global Takeaways from India’s Revised Personal Data Protection Bill, Lawfare, Jan 23, 2020
• Nikhil Dave,“Geo-Economic Impacts of the Coronavirus: Global Supply Chains.” Centre for Internet and Society , June 16, 2020.

International Law and Human Rights

International law and human rights are ostensibly technology neutral, and should lay the edifice for digital governance and cybersecurity today. Our research on international human rights has focussed on global surveillance practices and other internet restrictions employed by a variety of nations, and the implications this has for citizens and communities in India and similarly placed emerging economies. CIS researchers have also contributed to, and commented on World Intellectual Property Organization negotiations at the intersection of international Intellectual Property (IP) rules and the human rights.

Long-form article

1. Arindrajit Basu, Extra Territorial Surveillance and the incapacitation of international human rights law, 12 NUJS LAW REVIEW 2 (2019)
2. Gurshabad Grover and Arindrajit Basu, ”Internet Blockage”(Scenario contribution to NATO CCDCOE Cyber Law Toolkit,2021)
3. Arindrajit Basu and Elonnai Hickok, Conceptualizing an international framework for active private cyber defence (Indian Journal of Law and Technology, 2020)
4. Arindrajit Basu,Challenging the dogmatic inevitability of extraterritorial state surveillance in Trisha Ray and Rajeswari Pillai Rajagopalan (eds) Digital Debates: CyFy Journal 2021 (New Delhi:ORF and Global Policy Journal,2021)
   

Blog Posts and op-eds

• Arindrajit Basu, “Unpacking US Law And Practice On Extraterritorial Mass Surveillance In Light Of Schrems II”, Medianama, 24th August 2020
• Anubha Sinha, “World Intellectual Property Organisation: Notes from the Standing Committee on Copyright Negotiations (Day 1, Day 2, Day 3 and 4)”, July 2021
• Raghav Ahooja and Torsha Sarkar,How (not) to regulate the internet:Lessons from the Indian Subcontinent,Lawfare,September 23,2021,
  

Bilateral Relationships

Technology has become a crucial factor in shaping bilateral and plurilateral co-operation and competition. Given the geopolitical fissures and opportunities since 2020, our research has focussed on how technology governance and cybersecurity could impact the larger ecosystem of Indo-China and India-US relations. Going forward, we hope to undertake more research on technology in plurilateral arrangements, including the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue.

• Arindrajit Basu and Justin Sherman, The Huawei Factor in US-India Relations,The Diplomat, 22 March 2021
• Aman Nair, “TIkTok: It’s Time for Biden to Make a Decision on His Digital Policy with China,” Centre for Internet and Society, January 22, 2021,
• Arindrajit Basu and Gurshabad Grover, India Needs a Digital Lawfare Strategy to Counter China, The Diplomat, 8th October 2020
• Anam Ajmal, The app ban will have an impact on the holding companies...global power projection begins at home, Times of India, July 7th, 2020 (Interview with Arindrajit Basu)
• Justin Sherman and Arindrajit Basu, Trump and Modi embrace, but remain digitally divided, The Diplomat, March 05th, 2020

Emerging Technologies

Governance needs to keep pace with the technological challenges posed by emerging technologies, including 5G and AI. To do so an interdisciplinary approach that evaluates these scientific advances in line with the regimes that govern them is of utmost importance. While each country will need to regulate technology through the lens of their strategic interests and public policy priorities, it is clear that geopolitical tensions on standard-setting and governance models compels a more global outlook.

Long-Form reports

1. Anoushka Soni and Elizabeth Dominic, Legal and Policy implications of Autonomous weapons systems (Centre for Internet and Society, 2020)
2. Aayush Rathi, Gurshabad Grover, and Sunil Abraham, Regulating the internet: The Government of India & Standards Development at the IETF (Centre for Internet and Society, 2018)

Blog posts and op-eds

• Aman Nair, Would banning Chinese telecom companies make India 5G secure in India? Centre for Internet and Society, 22nd December 2020
• Arindrajit Basu and Justin Sherman, Two New Democratic Coalitions on 5G and AI Technologies, Lawfare, 6th August 2020
• Nikhil Dave, The 5G Factor: A Primer, Centre for Internet and Society, July 20, 2020.
• Gurshabad Grover, The Huawei bogey Indian Express, May 30th, 2019
• Arindrajit Basu and Pranav MB, What is the problem with 'Ethical AI'?:An Indian perspective, Centre for Internet and Society, July 21, 2019

(This compendium was drafted by Arindrajit Basu with contributions from Anubha Sinha. Aman Nair, Gurshabad Grover, and  Pranav MB reviewed the draft and provided vital insight towards its conceptualization and compilation. Dishani Mondal and Anand Badola provided important inputs at earlier stages of the process towards creating this compendium)