[At-Large] India

[parminder]

Dear Wolfgang,

Thanks for the quotes about the Putin -- Modi meeting. Indeed in most
mainstream coverage in India the ICT side hardly got mentioned. They
were the less important part of the summit.

I am not sure what kind of comments you are looking for from me.

India has a non aligned background and it is normal for such a large
country like India to hedge its bets and not get caught in one
geo-techno-enclosure or the other, in the old cold war like sense, but
now with digital tech dependencies which are even deeper, stronger and
largely irreversible. It therefore makes complete sense that India is
exploring ICT relationships with Russia, to/inter alia/ diversify from
the deep embeddedness that India has in the US centric techno-sphere. Do
you disapprove of it?  See my article of a few years back India should
aim for digital non alignment
<https://www.hindustantimes.com/analysis/india-should-aim-for-a-digital-non-alignment/story-ViT3PTiuo5j6dKUvt94YpO.html>

BTW, one of the key current issues in India-Russia relationship (also
highlighted around the summit)  is that India is buying S 400 missiles
from Russia, despite strong warnings from the US that this may lead to
India being excluded from US military supplies.

Perhaps that would put in good perspective Russia-India techno
relationships that seem to so rent your mind.

>From your quoted text, you seem to have issues or questions about Russia
and India deciding to work together on the proposed UN cyber crime
treaty...

Do you think there should NOT be any such UN treaty?

Does that mean countries should rather sign on Europe's Budapest
Convention on Cybercrime, or wait for new ones to come from OECD's CDEP
(committee on digital economy policy) or from the CoE? You know why
India and other countries refuse to sign on the Budapest Convention --
actually they find nothing wrong with its substance, but they refuse to
be governed by rules that they were not a part of developing... Makes
any democratic sense to you?

If not Budapest Convention,  what is the option .. The world stay
without a cyber crime framework? Why should not all countries sit
together to make a cyber crime convention? Happy to hear your reasons
either way.

About multistakeholder participation in such a UN cyber crime
convention, which seems to be one major concern of yours:

I have been arguing long for a horizontal UN digital policy body, with
the SAME multistakeholder participation model as OECD's CDEP (and of CoE
where the Budapest Convention was made)  ... If we had that UN body , we
could have employed its structure for MS participation for developing
the proposed UN convention on cyber crime ... But, THE PROBLEM IS, you
have consistently opposed it, including as part of the UN WG on enhanced
cooperation which had the precise mandate to develop institutional
structures for UN based digital policy making. We both were members of
that WG and we know what went on there, right. How developing countries
proposed the exact same OECD model for UN level digital policy making --
along with all its MS components/ characteristics -- AND YOU ALL TURNED
IT DOWN. Am I making any mis-statement here? Happy to be corrected in
that case.

So, perhaps now it is your turn to answer some questions:

1. Do you think that there should be no UN cyber crime convention, and
all non Europeans too should simply sign Europe's Budapest Convention,
and further wait for more cyber governance frameworks from OECD's CDEP,
or CoE's digital policy mechanisms?

2. Why and how you call OECD's CDEP and CoE's digital policy making
processes as multistakeholder, and those are acceptable to you, but the
EXACT SAME model at the UN becomes multi-lateral and NOT
multistakeholder - -and, apparently for that reason, not acceptable to
you ?

thanks and look forward to your responses

parminder

PS: You raise concerns about India-Russia parleys and digital rights
issues (internet shutdowns). Last year India signed this with US led
five eyes against eend-to-end encryption
https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/international-statement-end-end-encryption-and-public-safety  
.. Just seeking a better balance of geo-political concerns from you.



On 08/12/21 4:46 pm, Wolfgang Kleinwächter wrote:
> Wolfgang:
> Is the Putin/Modi Summit related to the Indian Internet Shutdowns?
>
> Parminder:
>
> I have seen and heard of no connection of that kind. In any case,
> nations nowadays need no external assistance to control their
> respective Internets. As for foreign alliances, if anything India is
> certainly bending much more towards US led alliances, that claim some
> western values of democracy, HR, etc ( all of which is of course a lot
> of BS, and simply good old-fashioned geopolitics and geo- economics
> under new garbs -- one significant manifestation and result of which
> kind of geo-politics/ geoeconomics is neo-colonisation) ..
>
>
> Wolfgang:
> As I can see, Internet Governance (cybersecurity and digital economny)
> was part of the discussions.
>
> This is from the Putin-Modi Meeting: "The Sides appreciated close
> cooperation in the field of security in the use of Information and
> Communication Technologies (ICT) through inter-agency cooperation
> under bilateral mechanisms and at multilateral platforms. They
> highlighted the leading role of the United Nations in the
> decision-making process on security in the use of ICTs. The Sides also
> recognized the need for further work on rules, norms and principles of
> responsible behavior of State aimed at preventing conflicts and
> promoting peaceful use of ICTs. The Sides reaffirmed the importance of
> international cooperation against criminal use of ICTs and in this
> regard they welcome the establishment of an open- ended Ad hoc
> intergovernmental committee of experts to elaborate a comprehensive
> international convention on countering the use of ICTs for criminal
> purposes as stipulated in the UN GA resolutions 74/247 and 75/282."
> ... "The Sides intend to focus particularly on increasing the
> effectiveness of countering terrorism, extremism, drug trafficking,
> cross-border organized crime, and information security threats,"  ...
> "The Sides agreed that safeguarding of global commons including our
> oceans, outer space and information space should be based on the
> principles of transparency, accessibility and upholding international
> law."
>
> And they discussed also digital economy: " The Sides also agreed to
> facilitate collaboration between government and private sector
> organizations to find ways of joint development of software products,
> platforms and services as well as in the area of electronics
> manufacturing. The Sides confirmed their interest in further
> developing cooperation in the sphere of digital technologies,
> including those related to information protection, security of
> critical infrastructure and law enforcement."
>
> Any comment? BTW, no references to civil society or a multistakeholder
> approach.
>
> see: http://en.kremlin.ru/supplement/5745
> <http://en.kremlin.ru/supplement/5745>
>
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