The Digital Space and Peace.

 

 The 21stcentury digital space is integral to modern political, economic and social life worldwide. Digital technologies transcend geographical borders and open new venues for global connection and cooperation, with enormous potential to develop new ideas and create new spaces of encounters and empowerment. They also, however, bring new challenges, including amplifying political polarisation and instability within and across borders, spreading misinformation, Disinformation and cybersexism, compromising data privacy, and facilitating mass surveillance.

Many governments and business actors are increasingly cooperating and taking significant steps to provide digital security in cyberspace. Responses to date have mostly taken the form of state-led regulations and legal procedures, but the borderless nature of the digital space makes accountability and responsibility difficult to uphold. Much more work is needed at all levels and in all jurisdictions, and in particular with business actors, to ensure that peace, humanitarian and development interventions can meet the Challenges of the digital era.

The Peacemaking Covenant aims to ensure that digital technologies are harnessed as instruments to positively influence the Evolution of contemporary peacemaking, while also protecting against abuse and misuse by: 

• Encouraging actors involved in peace processes to engage directly with businesses and technology companies to ensure that the tools they champion support consolidation of a pluralistic society and the public interest and prevent manipulation, extremism, hate speech and sexism in the digital space.
•  Supporting and exploring innovative use of practical PeaceTech tools to: 1) transform conflict dynamics by incentivising groups to seek common ground; 2) encourage wider inclusion in processes of negotiation and intergroup dialogue to complement power sharing with a focus on responsibility sharing to promote the common good; and 3) gauge sentiments of different groups in society relating to key concerns and factors in the peace process and to seek pluralistic outcomes in society. 
• Involving influential technology companies and leaders, as well as local businesses and influencers, to support legitimate peace processes and counter misinformation and bridge digital divides, by acknowledging the role and work of local institutions and respecting and protecting local priorities, specificities and concerns. 
• Supporting states and institutions that have robust regulatory frameworks protecting privacy and supporting the public interest in cyberspace to engage with local actors, including business actors, to establish appropriate protection safeguards and frameworks based on good global standards and practices such as the Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights. 
• Sharing expertise and technologies, especially related to artificial intelligence (AI) and managing "big data" for example, to create new instruments and innovative tools to provide early warning of conflicts and contribute to sustainable peacemaking, including in the political, social, environmental and economic domains. Ensuring that data sharing for humanitarian and development purposes follows international standards that protect the interests of the people to whom the data belong and supporting capacity building in national statistical offices of affected states. 
• Providing peacemakers, including mediators, with appropriate and context sensitive PeaceTech tools to engage with and analyse the interests and actions of different communities represented in the digital space.

Rationale 

Digital spaces and technologies, such as social media platforms, artificial intelligence and accessible communication networks, provide opportunities to build bonds and bridges between and across different social groups to enhance trust, reduce friction and resolve conflicts peacefully. They can also accelerate economic development and social transformation. The expansion or effacement of borders in a digital world provides opportunities to influence social and political orders in novel - and sometimes unsettling - ways. The role of large technology companies, or even private individuals with significant political and economic capital, cannot be underestimated. 

The digital revolution, however, also poses grave challenges to societal and political stability by reinforcing polarising beliefs and biases and by sowing chaos and insecurity. Democratic institutions and election processes can be undermined by the abuse of social media, misinformation and disinformation, and intergroup tensions inflamed by fake news. Cyberviolence against women and girls directly affects their sense of safety in the physical world and hampers their ability to participate fully in public life. Countering this requires investments in "digital literacy" and safeguarding, and support to multiple, local, independent and publicinterest media sources, as well as monitoring of disinformation and hate speech. The mishandling or abuse of access to personal data, especially of vulnerable people and groups, represents a potential threat to sustainable peacemaking, whether by governments or by private or nongovernmental actors.

Curtailing access to digital spaces has become a powerful means by which governments silence their critics and punish citizens. At least 50 Internet shutdowns in 21 countries were documented in the first half of 2021 alone. 

Digital innovation has great potential to catalyse economic growth, contribute towards sustainable solutions to developmental and environmental challenges and open new avenues for foreign investments in conflict- affected or fragile settings. Large parts of the world do not enjoy fair access to digital technologies, however, and this "digital divide" can entrench alreadyexisting privileged access and exacerbate existing tensions and social and economic inequalities, unless specific efforts are undertaken to make the benefits availabe.