International defense of Cyber Sovereignty
If any nation implements Cyber Sovereignty, it has the duty to protect its citizens from the infringement of their rights by other international powers.
Treaty for the defense of digital sovereignty
Cyber Sovereignty rejects the domination of extra-national cyberspace by nation-states. It considers any attempt to regulate cyberspace outside of a nation-state by a nation-state a violation of the sovereignty of digital societies.
For example, if the United States implements Cyber Sovereignty, and the French government does not, and the French government requires extradition of an individual in the US who has broken its laws, laws which are not illegal in the United States, because the United States is hosting a digital society which is a sovereign entity, France's extradition request must be denied.
Moreover, any attempts to penalize such an person or organization internationally must be rejected inasmuch as the penalties extend beyond French borders.
For example, if the French government believes that the company in the United States, that is nested within a digital society, has violated French law. It may arrest French personnel, restrict the distribution of an app in France, reject all goods by that company from coming into its borders or block it’s app.
It may not however take action which extends beyond the borders of France, for example:
Ordering the extradition of an individual in the United States.
Seizing assets outside the borders of France.
Imposing on international organizations or threatening them if they do business or interact with said entity.
To be even clearer, here's a table of what national governments are and are not allowed to do to companies or organizations that operate in a digital society as enforced by all national governments that have implemented Cyber Sovereignty.
Allowed | Disallowed | |
|---|---|---|
1 | Regulating goods that enter its own borders. | Seizing or freezing assets located outside its borders. |
2 | Regulating its own citizens' ability to view or access content/services originating outside its borders (e.g., national firewalls, ISP blocks). | Requiring an organization not located within its borders to take down, de-index, or restrict content viewability within a national border. |
3 | Requiring its citizens to avoid using an app, software or service. | Punishing an organization from making an app, software or service that is by nature accessible everywhere accessible to citizens within its borders. Namely, they can't punish an organization just because it published something to the world. |
4 | Blocking or restricting distribution of apps, websites, or services within its own territory (geo-blocking). | Pressuring global intermediaries (app stores, CDNs, domain registrars) to remove or restrict the app/service worldwide. |
5 | Taxing revenue or transactions that occur within its territory or involve its nationally-located citizens. | Demanding audits of international organizations operating within digital societies or requiring taxes on transactions that didn't take place where one of the parties was a nationally-located citizen of the nation as a requirement to operate within the nation. |
6 | Arresting or prosecuting its own citizens or personnel located within its borders. | Requesting extradition of individuals located in a digital society for acts not illegal in that society. |
7 | Arresting and prosecuting those who violate local law in the name of digital society within it’s own borders. | Stopping the flights of those flying over its territory to arrest individuals or to do the same in the international zone of an airport or similar violations of international spaces, such as on the high seas, for violations of laws not committed within it’s territory. |
8 | Regulating exports or financial flows originating from its own territory. | Applying secondary sanctions or threats to third-party international entities (banks, partners, organizations) that interact with the digital society. |
9 | Requiring its citizens to pay taxes on income earned from a digital society. | Requiring the digital society to pay it taxes for employing an individual within its borders. |
To be clear, most of these national rights would cease to exist where that national government implements Cyber Sovereignty.
Spirit of the treaty
The Internet is the free, open and equal space of transaction of all who live in the world. It’s not subject to the laws of each respective nation state, but a space that allows those who operate on it to operate only with regard to their own national law and that of their digital society without regard to other laws.
An individual or organization cannot be penalized for publishing to or conversing with an individual in another nation-state.
What about court gag orders?
Courts which implement a restriction on a person's speech must be of that individual's national or digital jurisdiction. For example, a French court implementing a gag order on a US citizen living in the United States has no validity on the individual in the United States unless the United States accepts the outcome of the case, something which it may be restricted in doing if the gag order is a violation of the individual's rights as per the implementation of Cyber Sovereignty in the United States in this example.
What about essential national security?
The distribution of plans to build a weapon of mass destruction and similar are an exception to these rules. To be clear, such a restriction can only be on something which causes mass physical harm. No information itself, other than a plan to build something that will cause immediate destructive physical harm, not emotional harm, counts.
Assurance of sovereignty
All signatory nation-states agree to impose clear penalties, equivalent or higher in severity, on any fellow signatory that violates the letter or spirit of this treaty, with enforcement required within 120 days of the violation.