Cloud Communities
Definition
A cloud community is "a platform in which individuals can create political communities, organize certain functions of their life (e.g., law, governance, welfare services), participate in decision-making (alongside states), and have a political voice that is otherwise not effectively given to them in the nation-state structure."
(http://global-citizenship.eui.eu/research/global-citizenship-technology/cloud-communities/)
Discussion
The concept of an International Legal Persona will enable individuals to establish “Cloud Communities”
Liav Orgad:
"In international law, a “state” possesses four qualities: a permanent population, a defined territory, government, and a capacity to enter into relations with other states (Article 1, Montevideo Convention, 1933). International law does not recognise the concept of a “virtual state,” yet existing virtual communities, such as Bitnation—a decentralised borderless virtual nation that functions as a government service platform (Bitnation, 2017) — challenge the definition of a “state,” and raise the question of why some of the institutional functions of the state, for which it was first established, cannot be effectively served also by a virtual political community? Can we interpret a “defined territory” to include cyberspace, or instead talk of “state-like” non-territorial polities?
The concept of an international legal persona will enable individuals to establish “Cloud Communities” of different kinds. Conceptually, cloud communities have traditional characteristics of political communities, but not necessarily a physical territory. The communal bond can be global in nature—such as a shared concern about climate change, ageing, veganism and animal rights (i.e., a universal community, open to everyone)—or ascriptive, such as a Jewish / Bahá’í faith / Diasporic Cloud Nations, a form of “transnational nationalism” (i.e., a selective community, open only to certain members). It can be thematic or geographic—region, country, state, city, village—based on a shared interest or territorial identity, even if not or legally recognised communities. Membership is based on consent; a person can be a member of several communities or none. The goal varies, but my focus is political communities. Cloud communities are not social networks, but political communities whose aim is political decision-making and in which individuals take part in a process of governance and the creation of law. The legal source for it can be Article 25(1) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), according to which “every citizen shall have the right and the opportunity … to take part in the conduct of public affairs, directly or through freely chosen representatives.” Such a community may function in four areas: law (constitution, membership acquisition, registry), governance (political institutions, diplomacy, international agreements, taxes), welfare services (education, healthcare, social security), and economy (trade, corporate activities, fees). It can provide an ID registry, a dispute resolution system, collaborative decision making, a virtual bank, and a voting system. In a sense, religions are a form of “cloud communities”: virtual and borderless, but not voluntary and decentralised.
Procedurally, cloud communities can be established in two ways. A top-down community can be set up by an international organisation, such as UN organs, as an advisory body to an existing UN organ (WHO, FAO, UNESCO), or in policy areas of global importance (the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals is a good start). A bottom-up community can be set up by any number of international legal personas on a topic of common interest; as time passes by and the community reaches a certain numerical threshold, it can apply for a “Consultative Status” at the UN (Article 71, UN Charter). As in other mechanisms of advisory decision-making (e.g., advisory referendum), the outcome may become politically, even if not legally, binding.
Cloud communities are not a replacement for the state, but they offer global citizens sharing a common goal, interest, or identity new ways of interacting and collaborating with each other; they are “state-like” entities."
(https://globalcit.eu/cloud-communities-the-dawn-of-global-citizenship/)
Characteristics
Ehud Shapiro:
"First, we note that all these communities can be subsidiary communities of the global cryptodemocracy, potentially with multiple levels of hierarchy (e.g. subsidiary animal rights or Bahá’í communities, with their own subsidiary communities based on country of residence); that the ability to form them is a manifestation of freedom of assembly in the clouds; and that allowing them to conduct their affairs without outside intervention is in line with the subsidiarity principle.
Second, such communities, within the context of a functioning global cryptodemocracy, may have at least one clear political goal: To draft and promote, within the parent global cryptodemocracy, policy and legislation that pertain to the rights and goals of their (possibly minority) community members. Recall the second article of the 1789 Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen: “The goal of any political association is the conservation of the natural and imprescriptible rights of man. These rights are liberty, property, safety and resistance against oppression”. To uphold these, the conduct of all subsidiary cloud communities must be transparent in order to ensure that no subsidiary community aims to harm the liberty, property or safety of other communities or global citizens.
Third, within these rich and multi-faceted cloud communities, a virtual punishment with a global scope against one’s global persona, e.g. temporary suspension or even just a public reprimand, applied to all subsidiary cloud communities, would be severe indeed. Hence, the higher the value of the subsidiary cloud communities to peoples’ lives, the mightier the coercive power of the global cryptodemocracy.
While we have implicitly assumed an egalitarian, democratic decision-making process at the core of global cryptodemocracy and in its subsidiary communities that will choose to adopt it, we have not specified this process. Such a mechanism faces many challenges, including “tyranny of structurelessness”, “tyranny of emotions”, decision-making by “microconsensus” within small cliques (Milan) and many others. The question of how to best reach a democratic decision has been investigated sporadically for centuries (e.g. by Llull, Condorcet, Borda), and intensively for the last 70 years within Social Choice theory. Much theory was developed, much confusion was sowed, and confidence in democracy has eroded, mainly due to Arrow’s impossibility theorem and its follow-on work. I will just hint that adding a taste for reality to social choice theory can undo much of this damage and restore trust in democratic decision making, on and off the cloud.
I have aimed to show that a vision of a global cryptodemocracy, with a rich set of subsidiary cloud communities, is realisable and have tried to address many of the criticisms raised in this debate. But, even if a global cryptodemocracy is realisable, and successfully addresses criticism, is it desirable? My personal answer is positive for two reasons: First, I believe that, since the days of Kant and even before, the proponents of a world government own the moral high ground, and the weakness of their position was practical: Until now, for a world government to materialise, local governments have to volunteer to cease some of their power; and giving up of power is not known to happen voluntarily. Fortunately, earthly democracies are sufficiently free so that the formation of a global cryptodemocracy does not require their consent."
(https://globalcit.eu/cloud-communities-the-dawn-of-global-citizenship/15/)