Deauville summit spotlights Internet regulations

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The G8 summit held in Deauville, France, on May 26 and 27 achieved no major breakthroughs but was surprisingly friendly

The G8 summit held in Deauville, France, on May 26 and 27 achieved no major breakthroughs but was surprisingly friendly. This is something of an achievement considering the red-hot subjects on its agenda, such as Libya and the Arab revolts.

Russia has a particular perspective on Libya, but the global leaders avoided falling prey to the Libyan trap by adopting a joint declaration which says that Gaddafi has lost legitimacy and must leave.

That in itself was not reason enough to gather in Deauville: all the G8 countries, without exception, have long agreed on this. However, their views on how the Libyan leader's departure should transpire differ dramatically.

France, Britain, the United States, and NATO in general, are for bombing Gaddafi out of his palaces and replacing him with the "democratic opposition," most of whom are Gaddafi's former allies. In fact, this is just what NATO has been doing.

But Russia insists on a political solution in compliance with UN Security Council Resolutions 1970 and 1973, involving all parties.

The anti-Libyan bloc sidestepped the problem in Deauville by inviting Moscow to mediate the settlement process, although London and Washington have agreed to step up the campaign against Gaddafi.

Nobody knows how Russian mediation can be combined with the military operation against the Libyan leader, especially since Russia is playing no part in any military action. Therefore, inviting Russia to mediate a solution to the Libyan problem looks more of a vague gesture than a serious offer.

Controllable Internet

The Internet was the key practical issue addressed in Deauville. It is surprising that the global leaders did not consider the future of this powerful medium long ago. But this year they had little choice, after social networking sites acted as a kind of electronic agitator-organizer during the revolts that constituted the Arab Spring.

The G8 leaders all voiced their support for Internet freedom but agreed to discuss the possibility of greater regulation with the Internet community.

Before their summit, the CEOs of the world's largest search engines and social networking sites met at the inaugural eG8 forum at Nicolas Sarkozy's initiative. On Tuesday the French president talked in Paris about establishing minimum global rules for the Internet that would not hamper its development.

This is the first time Internet regulation has featured at so high a level. Indeed, it takes a global effort to ensure "soft" governance of the Internet according to widely accepted rules and to prevent individual countries from taking unilateral action to limit the freedom of the electronic media.

Several days later, the G8 leaders agreed on a number of key principles, including freedom, respect for privacy and intellectual property, multi-stakeholder governance, cyber-security, and protection from crime, that underpin a strong and flourishing Internet.

Such e-forums will be held annually; their results are difficult to predict but few expect anything good to come from them. When governments decide they need to manage the media, this most often heralds new limits and bans, both open and tacit.

An Internet that is not subordinated to bureaucratic governance presents a powerful irritant to governments worldwide. So this attempt to "embrace" e-media is a much more serious and potentially more alarming signal than it may seem at first glance.

One-on-one meetings

As often before, this year bilateral meetings held on the sidelines of the Deauville summit produced more results than the official gathering. It is indicative that the idea of Russia's mediation in the Libyan settlement was proposed during President Medvedev's one-on-one meetings.

U.S. President Barack Obama told Medvedev that the Untied States had included terrorist Doku Umarov in its "Rewards for Justice" program, offering a bounty of $5 million for information leading to his location.

Although the bounty offered for Umarov, a bin Laden-like figure, is only one-fifth of what they offered for bin Laden, this is a welcome gesture. Washington put Umarov on the list of international terrorists last year. Its decision to offer a bounty for information about him suggests a desire to offer Russia palpable proof that the reset policy is working, in particular because agreements on a European ballistic missile shield and Libya remain out of reach.

But appearances can be deceptive. U.S. and Russian security services are cooperating quite closely, and though there have been failures, these professionals have clearly learned to understand each other better and find more points of contact than politicians or diplomats. Therefore, it will be easier to enhance cooperation in this sphere than to agree on either the ballistic missile defense system or Gaddafi.

Sarkozy's election bid

The French president cut such a brilliant figure at the summit it was immediately apparent that he has begun his campaign for re-election next year.

Sarkozy, who some think is overambitious, pushed so hard at the summit that it seemed France was the only country that had solutions for all the world's woes. But this is a small price to pay for coming to Deauville, one of the most renowned and beautiful places in Normandy.

The views expressed in this article are the author's and do not necessarily represent those of RIA Novosti.

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