Data Sovereignty and International Sovereignty Principles - The Data Sovereignty Observatory

This short paper is part of a larger Data Sovereignty Observatory project, which explores sovereignty in data governance and ownership rights globally. The Observatory will track and analyze trends and policies, integrating data from international databases, government reports, and policy documents into a secure database. It aims to assess the impact of data sovereignty, produce regular reports, and visualize trends through interactive dashboards. The paper presents four case studies —Europe, the USA, China, and Brazil— to illustrate diverse approaches to data sovereignty, focusing on privacy, innovation, and individual rights. These case studies exemplify potential future outcomes of the project. The paper concludes by advocating for a broader approach to data governance, one that can be supported by the Data Sovereignty Observatory as a tool for ethical principles, regulatory interoperability, and the integration of individual data ownership into the existing governance framework.