This edited collection consolidates research on the current and future perspectives of international trade law applicable to telecommunications services and audiovisual services in a context of convergence. It is divided into three main parts. The first part analyses the current regulatory framework applicable to telecommunications services in the context of the WTO, including the controversial issues of accounting rates and international competition rules. The second part discusses and analyses the current regulatory framework applicable to audiovisual services. The third part analyses convergence from different angles, including an explanation of convergence in technical terms, as well as reviewing the legal and economic consequences of convergence for trade in telecommunications and audiovisual services. This research lead the editors to summarize the findings made in the chapters and to draw a tentative set of issues to be discussed in the context of the Doha Round of negotiations.

This study investigates whether the existing regulatory framework governing the telecommunications sector in countries in Sub-Saharan Africa effectively deals with emerging competition-related concerns in the liberalised sector. Using Uganda as a case study, it analyses the relevant provisions of the law governing competition in the telecommunications sector, and presents three key findings: Firstly, while there is comprehensive legislation on interconnection and spectrum management, inefficient enforcement of the legislation has perpetuated concerns surrounding spectrum scarcity and interconnection. Secondly, the legislative framework governing anti-competitive behaviour, though in line with the established principles of competition law, is not sufficient. Specifically, the framework is not equipped to govern the conduct of multinational telecommunications groups that have a strong presence in the telecommunications sector. Major factors hampering efficient competition regulation include Uganda's sole reliance on sector-specific competition rules, restricted available remedies, and a regulator with limited experience of enforcing competition legislation. The weaknesses in the framework strongly suggest the need to adopt an economy-wide competition law. Lastly, wireless technology is the main means through which the population in Uganda accesses telecommunications services. Greater emphasis should be placed on regulating conduct in the wireless communications markets.

Countries emerging from violent conflict face difficult challenges about what the role of media should be in political transitions, particularly when attempting to build a new state and balance a difficult legacy. Media, Conflict, and the State in Africa discusses how ideas, institutions and interests have shaped media systems in some of Africa's most complex state and nation-building projects. This timely book comes at a turbulent moment in global politics as waves of populist protests gain traction, and concerns continue to grow about fake news, social media echo chambers, and the increasing role of both traditional and new media in waging wars or influencing elections. Focusing on comparative cases from a historical perspective and the choices and ideas that informed the approaches of some of Africa's leaders, including guerrilla commanders Yoweri Museveni of Uganda and Meles Zenawi of Ethiopia, Nicole Stremlau offers a unique political insight into the development of contemporary media systems in Africa.

The Seventh Edition covers the new set of EU Directives and the Electronic Communications Code, which will considerably change the legal framework for electronic communications. Essential reading for all lawyers and non-legal executives involved in telecoms, IT and media, this book will enable the reader to: - Make valuable comparative analyses with detailed coverage of 34 EU and non-EU countries in a single, accessible source - Ensure that your company's/clients' current and future activities do not conflict with the rules outlined in the 2009 EU Regulatory Package - Successfully evaluate opportunities for expansion within the European telecoms industry and potential pitfalls The EU chapter and the country chapters are complemented by detailed chapters on EU Data Protection and Privacy, EU Competition Law in the Telecommunications Sector, The Law of the International Telecommunication Union and the World Trade Organisation, and Compliance and Risk Management. Countries included: EU: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, UK. Non EU: Croatia, Macedonia, Norway, Switzerland, Turkey, Ukraine.

In February 2015, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) adopted an order that will impose rules governing the management of Internet traffic as it passes over broadband Internet access services (BIAS), whether those services are fixed or wireless. The rules are commonly known as "net neutrality" rules. The order was released in March 2015. According to the order, the rules ban the blocking of legal content, forbid paid prioritisation of affiliated or proprietary content, and prohibit the throttling of legal content by broadband Internet access service providers (BIAS providers). The rules are subject to reasonable network management, as that term is defined by the FCC. This book discusses selected legal issues raised by FCC's 2015 open internet order, and examines the net neutrality debate.

Chinese as well as European regulatory decisions need to consider regional particularities but insist on an implementation system that never loses sight of its goal. In the area of electronic communications policy, this goal is the establishment of a market environment that ensures innovation, high quality and affordable prices. The present survey aims at improving the process of knowledge exchange between European and Chinese experts and decision-makers in Information Society law and policy. The EU-China Information Society Project asked the authors to assess both the EU's and the Chinese status quo, and to bring together both perspectives together in a joint effort to learn from the EU experiences for the Chinese decision-making process today.

The rise of 'smart' - or technologically advanced - cities has been well documented, while governance of such technology has remained unresolved. Integrating surveillance, AI, automation, and smart tech within basic infrastructure as well as public and private services and spaces raises a complex set of ethical, economic, political, social, and technological questions. The Governing Knowledge Commons (GKC) framework provides a descriptive lens through which to structure case studies examining smart tech deployment and commons governance in different cities. This volume deepens our understanding of community governance institutions, the social dilemmas communities face, and the dynamic relationships between data, technology, and human lives. For students, professors, and practitioners of law and policy dealing with a wide variety of planning, design, and regulatory issues relating to cities, these case studies illustrate options to develop best practice. Available through Open Access, the volume provides detailed guidance for communities deploying smart tech.

Leading law firms from around the world analyze the most pressing legal issues facing the UN World Summit on the Information Society in the first and only book to cover the information technology treaty recommendations. This authoritative text provides in-depth analysis of the topics discussed at the November 2005 Tunis Summit. Expert attorneys examine the twelve major topics under discussion, from internet regulation and intellectual property rights to cryptography and taxation, to aid in constructing a legal framework for a global information society. This timely publication is the blueprint for the global digital revolution
Topics analyzed include:
Copyright challenges of the digital age
Cryptography and electronic signatures
Data protection and trans-border data flows Domain names
Fair use and permitted public use of data
Formation of contracts through email and the Internet
Intellectual property rights ? patents
Internet regulation
Liability for defective software
Resolution of disputes over information technology
Technology, privacy and surveillance.

In the past six years, more than 55 countries have begun adopting UNCITRAL's (United National Commission on International Trade Law) Model Laws of 1999 and 2001 regarding the use and validity of e-signatures. Dozens of pieces of legislation and legislative proposals now exist around the world on the subject of e-signatures. While the model laws may look the same on paper, in practice they can vary widely. Finally, you can be certain that your clients are in compliance when using digital signatures.
The Center for International Legal Studies, in cooperation with UNCITRAL, has gathered experts in over 25 jurisdictions to analyze the impact of these standards in their respective domestic e-commerce regimes. These experts show how the Model Laws are actually implemented today in each of these countries. Now you can have on-the-ground feedback about how UNCITRAL's Uniform Rules on Electronic Signatures, the Model Law on Electronic Commerce 1996, and the Model Law on Electronic Signatures 2001 are being implemented.
A must have reference for:
Any lawyer working on a business transaction or contract using the Internet to exchange forms
Government Lawyers
Intellectual Property Lawyers
Topics covered include:
Application and enforceability of electronic transactions
Defining key terms, including 'writing, ' 'signature, ' and 'original' documents
Legal recognition of data messages
Formation of contracts
Attribution of data messages
Retention of data messages
Trustworthiness of e-signature
Electronic Commerce
Analyzes the global impact of:
UNCITRAL's Uniform Rules on Electronic Signatures
Model Law on Electronic Commerce1996
Model Law on Electronic Signatures 2001

Countries emerging from violent conflict face difficult challenges about what the role of media should be in political transitions, particularly when attempting to build a new state and balance a difficult legacy. Media, Conflict, and the State in Africa discusses how ideas, institutions and interests have shaped media systems in some of Africa's most complex state and nation-building projects. This timely book comes at a turbulent moment in global politics as waves of populist protests gain traction, and concerns continue to grow about fake news, social media echo chambers, and the increasing role of both traditional and new media in waging wars or influencing elections. Focusing on comparative cases from a historical perspective and the choices and ideas that informed the approaches of some of Africa's leaders, including guerrilla commanders Yoweri Museveni of Uganda and Meles Zenawi of Ethiopia, Nicole Stremlau offers a unique political insight into the development of contemporary media systems in Africa.

Edward Snowden's leaks exposed fundamental differences in the ways Americans and Europeans approach the issues of privacy and intelligence gathering. Featuring commentary from leading commentators, scholars and practitioners from both sides of the Atlantic, the book documents and explains these differences, summarized in these terms: Europeans should 'grow up' and Americans should 'obey the law'. The book starts with a collection of chapters acknowledging that Snowden's revelations require us to rethink prevailing theories concerning privacy and intelligence gathering, explaining the differences and uncertainty regarding those aspects. An impressive range of experts reflect on the law and policy of the NSA-Affair, documenting its fundamentally transnational dimension, which is the real location of the transatlantic dialogue on privacy and intelligence gathering. The conclusive chapters explain the dramatic transatlantic differences that emerged from the NSA-Affair with a collection of comparative cultural commentary.

This book presents a framework to reconceptualize internet governance and better manage cyber attacks. It examines the potential of polycentric regulation to increase accountability through bottom-up action. It also provides a synthesis of the current state of cybersecurity research, bringing features of cyber attacks to light and comparing and contrasting the threat to all relevant stakeholders. Throughout the book, cybersecurity is treated holistically, covering issues in law, science, economics and politics. This interdisciplinary approach is an exemplar of how strategies from different disciplines as well as the private and public sectors may cross-pollinate to enhance cybersecurity. Case studies and examples illustrate what is at stake and identify best practices. The book discusses technical issues of Internet governance and cybersecurity while presenting the material in an informal, straightforward manner. The book is designed to inform readers about the interplay of Internet governance and cybersecurity and the potential of polycentric regulation to help foster cyber peace.

This book presents a novel framework to reconceptualize Internet governance and better manage cyber attacks. Specifically, it makes an original contribution by examining the potential of polycentric regulation to increase accountability through bottom-up action. It also provides a synthesis of the current state of cybersecurity research, bringing features of the cloak and dagger world of cyber attacks to light and comparing and contrasting the cyber threat to all relevant stakeholders. Throughout the book, cybersecurity is treated holistically, covering outstanding issues in law, science, economics, and politics. This interdisciplinary approach is an exemplar of how strategies from different disciplines as well as the private and public sectors may cross-pollinate to enhance cybersecurity. Case studies and examples illustrate what is at stake and identify best practices. The book discusses technical issues of Internet governance and cybersecurity while presenting the material in an informal, straightforward manner. The book is designed to inform readers about the interplay of Internet governance and cybersecurity and the potential of polycentric regulation to help foster cyber peace.

Networks in Telecommunications addresses fundamental issues in discussions of regulatory policy by offering an integrated framework for understanding the economics and law of networks. It extends theories on network design associated with the mathematics of graph theory, which provides insights into the complex, systemic interrelationship between network components. It also applies the principles of transaction cost economics to analyze decisions about the appropriate boundaries of proprietary network architecture. The book introduces network theory to the study of the economics and law of telecommunications. The discussion opens up the black box of the cost function in telecommunications. The analysis also goes beyond the 'network externalities' approach that focuses primarily on the size of networks. The book highlights the effects of network architecture and the tradeoffs inherent in network design.

Networks in Telecommunications addresses fundamental issues in discussions of regulatory policy by offering an integrated framework for understanding the economics and law of networks. It extends theories on network design associated with the mathematics of graph theory, which provides insights into the complex, systemic interrelationship between network components. It also applies the principles of transaction cost economics to analyze decisions about the appropriate boundaries of proprietary network architecture. The book introduces network theory to the study of the economics and law of telecommunications. The discussion opens up the black box of the cost function in telecommunications. The analysis also goes beyond the 'network externalities' approach that focuses primarily on the size of networks. The book highlights the effects of network architecture and the tradeoffs inherent in network design.

Should law be technologically neutral, or should it evolve as human relationships with technology become more advanced?
In Law in an Era of "Smart" Technology, Susan Brenner analyzes the complex and evolving interactions between law and technology and provides a thorough and detailed account of the law in technology at the beginning of the 21st century. Brenner draws upon recent technological advances, evaluating how developing technologies may alter how humans interact with each other and with their environment. She analyzes the development of technology as shifting from one of "use" to one of "interaction," and argues that this interchange needs us to reconceptualize our approach to legal rules, which were originally designed to prevent the "misuse" of older technologies.
As technologies continue to develop over the next several decades, Brenner argues that the laws directed between human and technological relationships should remain neutral. She explains how older technologies rely on human implementation, but new "smart" technology will be completely automated. This will eventually lead to, as she explains, the ultimate progression in our relationship with technology: the fusion of human physiology and technology. Law in an Era of "Smart" Technology provides a detailed, historically-grounded explanation as to why our traditional relationship with technology is evolving and why a corresponding shift in the law is imminent and necessary.

Will cyberanarchy rule the net? And if we do find a way to regulate our cyberlife will national borders dissolve as the Internet becomes the first global state? In this provocative new work, Jack L. Goldsmith and Tim Wu dismiss the fashionable talk of both a 'borderless' net and of a single governing 'code'. Territorial governments can and will, they contend, exercise significant control over all aspects of Internet communications. Examining policy puzzles from e-commerce to privacy, speech and pornography, intellectual property, and cybercrime, Who Controls the Internet demonstrates that individual governments rather than private or global bodies will play that dominant role in regulation. Accessible and controversial, this work is bound to stir comment.

In our interconnected world, digital data turn into a central political issue. They are simultaneously important tools for security agencies, a valuable economic resource for businesses, and they have crucial relevance for individual's rights. As multiple actors extend claims of their legitimate control, conflicts emerge. Data Governance: Value Orders and Jurisdictional Conflicts argues that such conflicts about the collection, transfer, and sharing of digital data have an underestimated - and undertheorized - normative dimension. The book suggests that, while public and private actors are united by the assumption that the governance of data is meaningful in the pursuit of societal goals, they have conflicting visions of what it is precisely that data governance should achieve or avoid, and, in fact, what data actually are. The book offers an innovative conceptual and empirical framework - embedded in international political sociology - to analyse and assess overlapping claims of legitimate control over data. Five case studies provide an in-depth perspective on central conflicts between the major regulatory powers, the European Union, the United States, and private tech companies. Data Governance traces patterns of change and continuity in the disputes about the transatlantic commercial data agreements, counterterrorist data sharing in air travel and finance, law enforcement access to electronic evidence, and data removal under the right to be forgotten. It shows that the central normative questions at the heart of these conflicts remain remarkably stable over time. Actors are torn between competing goals of prioritizing security, economic progress, or individual rights, and they face choices between exercising their sovereignty and enabling global cooperation. As a growing number of countries adopt data governance provisions, this book offers a fresh perspective to capture the competing societal visions at play.

In 1996, Congress enacted comprehensive reform of the nation's statutory and regulatory framework for telecommunications by passing the Telecommunications Act, which substantially amended the 1934 Communications Act. The general objective of the 1996 Act was to open up markets to competition by removing unnecessary regulatory barriers to entry. At that time, the industry was characterised by service-specific networks that did not compete with one another: circuit-switched networks provided telephone service and coaxial cable networks provided cable service. The act created distinct regulatory regimes for these service-specific telephone networks and cable networks that included provisions intended to foster competition from new entrants that used network architectures and technologies similar to those of the incumbents. This 'intramodal' competition has proved very limited. But the deployment of digital technologies in these previously distinct networks has led to market convergence and 'intermodal' competition, as telephone, cable, and even wireless networks increasingly are able to offer voice, data, and video services over a single broadband platform. There is consensus that the current statutory framework is not effective in the current market environment, but not on how to modify it. The debate focuses on how to foster investment, innovation, and competition in both the physical broadband network and in the applications that ride over that network while also meeting the many non-economic objectives of U.S. telecommunications policy: universal service, homeland security, public safety, diversity of voices, localism, consumer protection, etc. This book explores these issues and includes the act in its entirety.

Since the last edition of this book was published, numerous changes have occurred in the telecommunications sector, at a national, European, and international level. Telecommunications Law and Regulation takes these changes into account, including an examination of the*adoption of Directive 2014/61/EU on the measures to reduce to cost of deploying electronic communication networks; Directive 2014/53/EU on radio equipment; Regulation 2015/2120 on 'open internet access' and roaming; and the implications of Brexit on the UK telecommunications sector. There is also coverage of substantial regulatory developments in US law since 2012, including the FCC's order on 'Protecting and Promoting the Open Internet' (March 2015). Written by leading experts, it is essential reading for legal practitioners and academics involved in the telecommunications industry.

Is the Internet erasing national borders? Will the future of the Net be set by Internet engineers, rogue programmers, the United Nations, or powerful countries? Who's really in control of what's happening on the Net? In this provocative new book, Jack Goldsmith and Tim Wu tell the fascinating story of the Internet's challenge to governmental rule in the 1990s, and the ensuing battles with governments around the world.

It's a book about the fate of one idea - that the Internet might liberate us forever from government, borders, and even our physical selves. We learn of Google's struggles with the French government and Yahoo's capitulation to the Chinese regime; of how the European Union sets privacy standards on the Net for the entire world; and of eBay's struggles with fraud and how it slowly learned to trust the FBI.

In a decade of events the original vision is uprooted, as governments time and time again assert their power to direct the future of the Internet. The destiny of the Internet over the next decades, argue Goldsmith and Wu, will reflect the interests of powerful nations and the conflicts within and between them. While acknowledging the many attractions of the earliest visions of the Internet, the authors describe the new order, and speaking to both its surprising virtues and unavoidable vices.

Far from destroying the Internet, the experience of the last decade has lead to a quiet rediscovery of some of the oldest functions and justifications for territorial government. While territorial governments have unavoidable problems, it has proven hard to replace what legitimacy governments have, and harder yet to replace the system of rule of law that controls the unchecked evils of anarchy. While the Net will change some of the ways that territorial states govern, it will not diminish the oldest and most fundamental roles of government and challenges of governance.

Well written and filled with fascinating examples, including colorful portraits of many key players in Internet history, this is a work that is bound to stir heated debate in the cyberspace and globalization communities.

This book outlines and analyses the legislative activity of the Union in an area which is currently experiencing exponential growth in terms of both commercial activity and legal significance. The scope of the book is current,pending and proposed Internet-related law on contracts, copyright, data protection, commercial communications, financial services, electronic cash and electronic signatures. John Dickie argues that the Union is in the process of displacing Member State autonomy in the regulation of the Internet. Within that frame, it is argued that there is a lack of focus on the individual in the electronic marketplace and a lack of co-ordination between relevant legislative instruments. This book will be of interest to all those engaged with Union and Internet law, including lawyers, policy-makers and academics.