Cyberspace and the seas : lessons to be learned

Abstract

With computer science technology and the Information Superhighway, or cyberspace, developing rapidly, information services and resources are playing an increasingly fundamental role in everyday life. The question of rights over information is correspondingly becoming more complicated as well. Regulation over cyberspace is inconsistent, and continues to develop in piecemeal fashion, while the debate remains unsettled whether cyberspace should be regulated at all. Currently no overall legal design for cyberspace is in view. Meanwhile, recent studies report that self-regulation in cyberspace has failed to protect even basic rights of privacy with respect to information. An investigation was made to evaluate the 1983 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea as a prototype for a cyberspace legal regime. The provisions for the high seas were found to be readily adaptable for parallel rules for cyberspace. Likewise, the Part XI provisions concerning the deep sea bed, provided for a very detailed organizational framework from which an international and coordinated management of information transactions in cyberspace may be pursued. The detailed provisions regarding settlement dispute were almost directly applicable to cyberspace, with little if any modification. A cyberspace legal regime modeled from the Law of the Sea would eliminate some of the jurisdiction, accountability, and enforcement difficulties of Internet regulation.