Policy innovation: small countries with big ideas

Net neutrality legislation in The Netherlands and Slovenia; Switzerland’s liberal stance in a sea of ever harsher copyright laws – are smaller countries in Europe the place to look for, when seeking policy innovation? The Internet Policy Review starts a country-by-country series next month in search for approaches, ideas and their implementation by smaller countries, starting with EU member Slovenia.

To copy or not, that is the question

When Lithuania joined the European Union in 2004, lawyer Mindaugas Kiskis complained that the country was just trying to be the best European citizen transposing EU legislation in a batch and without broader public discussion. At the time, the heavily discussed EU data retention directive was also just pushed through by the Lithuanian parliament.

Is copy and paste then the only modus operandi of Europe’s smaller countries? A look at the developments in a country like Slovenia tells another story, especially since it introduced net neutrality regulation. Similarly to the “small” Netherlands, it decided not to wait for Neelie Kroes, the European Commissioner for Digital Agenda, and just went ahead to do what it thought would further internet development.

There is more. Jan Zorz, IPv6 activist and one of the initiators of Go6.si, is now working for the Internet Society's 360 degree deployment programme, applauded the Slovenian administration for its push in favour of the new internet protocol. “They did not mandate it, but joined the Go6 Institute and became a member of the Go6 expert council, where they contributed and were part of many actions and initiatives to speed up IPv6 implementation in the country,” Zorz says.

IPv6 implementation recommendations written by Slovenian regulator Urban Kunc were published by his agency as one contribution to the efforts. A real change in the heads of management, according to Zorz, was the result of the administration’s mandatory questionnaire sent out to Slovenian companies. They had to answer when, how and where they would introduce the new protocol. The engagement, instead of regulation as a fix, has helped Slovenia to leap ahead. The 4 most important mobile operators offer v6 already.

In the schoolyard with the big guys

While nobody could be opposed to such promotion of new technology, when it comes to the hotly debated copyright issue, adopting an independent stance seems to be much harder. Take the example of Switzerland. For years, those critical of the ever more harsh copyright laws – intellectual property rights experts and Pirate party members alike – have looked to the Swiss way in copyright protection. In 2011 the Swiss Bundesrat decided that additional protection was not necessary and downloading of movies or music was kept outside of penal or civil law books (see stories from Computerworld here)

Yet after the US has put Switzerland on the Section 301 watch list for its nonchalant approach to this issue, tensions rose. In 2012 a new commission, called AG Urheberrecht 12 (AGUR 12) started to work its way through the issue. Since, it has proposed measures like the three-strikes, recently abandoned in France. Under this meaure, users need to be notified by the service providers and repeated offences be prosecuted under criminal and civil law. The AGUR 12 also calls for a takedown procedure that providers have to implement in order to be quick in removing content that rights-holders consider violating their rights.

Balthasar Glättli from the Swiss Green Party and active in the ISOC Switzerland chapter requested: “The download of content must remain legal and the end consumer should not be criminalised.” Another battle round on copyright is up, in the most liberal country so far.

Last stronghold for fundamental rights on the net

One small country looking for how to leave its mark on internet policy is Iceland with its media freedom project. Politically neutral and perhaps feeling less pressure for most of the time, Iceland has embarked on an explorative road to protect fundamental freedoms in the digital age with its Modern Media Initiative (IMMI). Not a law yet and with many steps still to be made, IMMI was nonetheless adopted unanimously as a parliamentary resolution by the Icelandic Parliament on June 16, 2010, thereby “tasking the government with implementing various protections.” The IMMI among other includes a far reaching freedom of information regulation, and is also said to set out safeguards and protection for whistleblowers.

Will Edward Snowden be the first to benefit? A motion in parliament to grant Snowden quick asylum did not pass for the moment. Nevertheless, whistleblower protection might be yet another policy innovation to be considered by the avantgarde in internet policy.

Stay tuned for our portraits of small country policy innovations, starting in September.