LAW AND DIGITAL GLOBALIZATION

【Author】 Dimitropoulos, Georgios

【Source】UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL LAW

【影响因子】0.591

【Abstract】The rise of new digital technologies has already proven disruptive in many social contexts and is expected to become even more so. This Article discusses three main visions on the interplay between the law and digital globalization: "digital naturalism, " "digital universalism, " and "digital nationalism. " Digital naturalism highlights the self-regulatory aspects of digital technologies. While often disregarded, digital naturalism is responsible for the mischaracterization of some of the responses of states to digital globalization. Digital universalism proposes that digital globalization be regulated at the international level using international treaties. Digital nationalism suggests instead that domestic law is the appropriate means for the regulation of digital phenomena. These theories reflect a broader tendency in legal scholarship and beyond to interpret digital globalization as an offspring of economic globalization. This tendency owes its existence to conceptual path-dependencies established during the era of neoliberalism and economic globalization, but it is increasingly incapable of allowing us to make sense of digital globalization and its dynamics. In its place, this Article proposes a theory of law and digital globalization based on the concept of "digital sovereignty. " Drawing mostly on examples from the field of blockchain, this Article highlights the complex ways in which the law operates in digital globalization. It presents four separate modes of interaction between the law and the digital world and analyzes multiple possible uses of international as well as domestic law beyond the dichotomies developed in the twentieth century. Moving beyond the framework established from a neoliberal conceptualization of economic globalization, this Article focuses on the emerging "Cornwall Consensus " to propose a "law and political economy " analysis of digital globalization. The Cornwall Consensus offers a vision of a more just international order which would address digital globalization directly and be more responsive to those made vulnerable by it. This Article sees domestic and international law as each having an irreducible role in addressing digital globalization and the broader digitalization of society. It identifies a role for international law that, in a neoliberal political economy framework, would have been played by domestic law. It also identifies a role for domestic law that in the same political economy framework would have been played by international law. The new political economy of digital globalization is based on the principles of "devolution " and "plurilateralism. "

【Keywords】blockchain; Cornwall Consensus; cryptocurrencies; digital globalization; digital sovereignty; Washington Consensus; plurilateralism

【发表时间】2022

【收录时间】2023-01-15

【文献类型】观点阐述

【主题类别】

区块链治理-法律治理-区块链监管制度