The frequent assertion of the powerlessness of states or public international organizations, in the face of the actions or failures of private digital players, seems today to be nuanced due to the legal and technical measures adopted by the former to maintain control over the activities of the latter. Several examples in recent years attest to this: threats of sanctions by the German government in 2017 against social network platforms that violate the rules of national law; hearings of Facebook’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg before the US Congress; the development of the digital single market in the European Union; review of European and international taxation applicable to GAFA; state measures for data relocation; extraterritoriality of applicable rules and validation of extraterritorial applications of national law by national judges.
These elements contribute to demonstrate that States have not renounced their legal sovereignty or to regulate the behavior of actors who thought they could free themselves from the rule of law. They also tend to illustrate that this framework often takes on original features in comparison with traditional legal mechanisms. They invite to question the meaning and form, possibly renewed, of the rule of law, at least as long as the desire to regulate or regulate digital activity on an international scale through law is asserted.
Developing these questions from an international perspective, this contribution brings together contributions from Linda Arcelin, Céline Castets-Renard, Anne Danis-Fatôme, Patrick Jacob, Zoé Jacquemin, François Mailhé, Jarosław Mrowiec, Anne-Thida Norodom, Benjamin Pajot, Yves Poullet and Myriam Quéméner.
The book is available at Larcier.com (in French only.)
A Faculty member at the University of Ottawa Centre for Law, Technology, and Society, Dr. Céline Castets-Renard is a full professor in the Faculty of Law, Law Section and holds the University Research Chair in Accountable Artificial Intelligence in a Global World.