Digitalization: The new extraterritorial challenge to extraterritorial obligations

Abstract

More than ever, digitalization is all around us. For years, carried away by the fascination with digital gadgets and technologies, we have been allured to blindly enter a world of sophisticated machines without taking into consideration where this journey would take us and how it would revolutionize our existence – to the extent of taking over our human ability to control life.
In such unaware mood, we have ceded much of our decision-making power to sophisticated invisible digital systems that have penetrated our daily lives. Only in recent months, since the outburst of COVID-19 has halted our ordinary lives, have we been able to get a better sense of the reality of transformation we have been in for some time. The internet has eased lockdown
life for millions, digitalization and the web have been the critical unifying forces enabling work from home, school through online classrooms, social activities and mutual support and solidarity at a healthy distance. Policymakers have managed the unprecedented situation, and their international negotiations, through virtual meetings.