‘Modernising’ data protection Convention 108: A safe basis for a global privacy treaty?

Proposals for the reform or ‘modernisation’ of Council of Europe Data Protection Convention 108 have now been forwarded from the Convention's Consultative Committee for consideration by the Council of Ministers. This article assesses the changes proposed, which strengthen the obligations of Parties to implement the Convention as a matter of effective practice, not just as a law on paper. It tightens most of the existing data protection principles, and adds new ones which better align the Convention with the EU Directive (and proposed Regulation). The Convention Committee will have explicit new functions including assessing candidates for accession, and periodically reviewing implementation by existing parties. However, the proposals concerning the required standard for data export limitations are in some respects ill-defined and dangerous for data subjects. The existing standard that personal data can only be exported if the recipient provides ‘adequate’ protection has been abandoned for an undefined requirement of ‘appropriate’ protection. The article situates the risk of abandoning meaningful data export restrictions in the context of the USA's push for ‘interoperability’ of very different data protection standards.     

Are internet robots adequately regulated?

The robots.txt protocol allows website owners to specify whether and if so, what bots may access their sites. On the one hand, websites owners may have good reason to fend off bots. The bots may consume too much capacity, they may harvest data that are not suitable for presentation elsewhere on the web, or the owner may have reasons for disallowing bots that lie in the relation with user of the bot. On the other hand, search engines, aggregators and other users of bots may provide social beneficial services based on the data collected by bots, i.e. data that are freely available to anybody visiting the site manually. How should the law regulate disputes that arise in this context? Two legal regimes (trespass to chattels and unauthorised access) have been examined. Based on the characteristics of the disputes at hand, a number of desirable characteristics for an ideal form of regulation are identified. When testing the two regimes they are found to be lacking. A structure for a form of regulation is presented that allows the law to develop in a way that does more justice to the disputes at hand.     

Pakistan,India, China,and the United States: Energy,Climate Change,and National Security

This article focuses on the interplay of energy, climate change, and national security issues in Southwest Asia, using the newer definition of “national security” to include energy security, economic development, and climate change, as well as traditional security focusing on the military aspects.     

Problems of Misperception in U.S.-China Relations

China's relations with the West deteriorated dramatically following the Tibet and Olympic torch relay controversies in the spring of 2008. Because of its focus on the balance of material power, realist International Relations theory can do little to help us understand such developments. Instead, it is the political psychology of international relations that provides the most leverage on the role that misperceptions play in generating mistrust and insecurity in U.S.-China relations.