From sovereign cloud to infrastructure investment and data localisation, digital sovereignty is on the rise as governments around the world try to wrest control of internet governance from dominant tech companies. In his article, ‘Digital sovereignty foretold’, Guy Hoskins reminds us of the pioneering role of Brazil in the story of digital rights and of some of the lessons that we should heed today – notably the accountability of the sovereign authority and the necessary public interest of any measures proposed. This is surely all the more important at a time when trust in authority generally, and governments in particular, is at a low ebb.
One aspect of digital sovereignty – infrastructure investment – is a particular challenge in the Caribbean, as Maria Myers-Hamilton points out in her comprehensive diagnosis, ‘Building resilience in small island developing states’. She shows that meaningful connectivity remains elusive for many citizens in Caribbean states and argues that gaps will not be closed without more encompassing frameworks of regulation. Maria offers some practical solutions and the case study of the response to Hurricane Melissa last October makes for compelling reading in its own right.
Bart van der Sloot brings a new perspective to the AI debate in his article, ‘Why the law needs a more realistic view of the human mind’, arguing that the law cannot continue to treat human beings as rational decision-makers and must instead recognise our essential ambiguity. Consent and self-determination, he says, become more fragile in an age where artificial intelligence models know more about us than we know about ourselves.
Finally, I was delighted to have the chance to interview Amma Asante at the IIC Europe Forum in Brussels in March. Amma is chair of the European Board for Media Services and she discussed with me many of the most challenging aspects of media policy currently facing European regulators. The conversation ranged across pluralism, misinformation, influencing, platform power, cooperation and more. You can read it all in the article based on the interview, ‘The future of media regulation in Europe’.
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