CONFLICTING CONNECTIVITIES: LEGAL CONSIDERATIONS FOR NEGOTIATING GEOTECHNOLOGICAL RIVALRY

Among the dramatic global shifts of recent years, the sharpening of geopolitical rivalries between major powers – chiefly the United States and China – has particular significance for third countries and their legal systems. This rivalry has a prominent ‘geotechnological’ dimension, as major powers compete to build power through technological innovation, standardisation and diffusion while also securitising their domestic technology sectors against perceived threats from abroad. In this context, the ‘connectivity’ initiatives of major powers such as China, the United States and the European Union - which aim to build economic and other links with third countries - compete and even conflict. Under the pressures of trade war and actual war, an emergent global shift may be underway in the consolidation of rival geotechnological blocs. Indications of such a shift include hard legal tools such as trade barriers and the legislation of economic security mechanisms but also the creation of incentives for economic and technological collaboration within informal clubs of likeminded countries. These hard and soft tools amount to building blocks for ‘walled garden’ connectivity projects that run on incompatible operating systems. These developments create challenges for third countries and especially for the majority of states which rely on transnational investment and technology transfer for the further development of their economies and living standards. Even if not forced to ‘choose’ between competing blocs, these states face additional political, legal and economic frictions in their dealings with major powers. The challenge is particularly acute for the states of the Western Balkans, which remain outside the EU despite years or decades of ‘candidate’ status but which face the necessity of alignment with EU laws and policies as conditions of eventual EU membership. To varying degrees, the Western Balkan states have sourced investment and technology transfer from the EU and the United States as well as from China and other non-Western countries. They are therefore on the frontline of conflicting connectivities and vulnerable to a hardening of barriers between major economic powers. This paper will provide an overview of legal tools of geotechnological rivalry and their application to the general-purpose digital technologies that are vital to economic development and the climate transition. It will take stock of the challenges for third countries presented by the deployment of these tools in the context of competing ‘connectivity’ projects promoted by major economic powers, such as China’s Belt and Road initiative. It will focus on the position of Western Balkan states as EU candidate countries that simultaneously pursue economic relations with other major powers. The paper will reflect on what studies of legal pluralism suggest regarding the capacity of third states to preserve space for maintaining relations with the multiple poles of the global economy. It will suggest potential legal strategies for third states to navigate conflicting connectivities in order to pursue their national developmental objectives. The paper will suggest that by negotiating rather than participating in geotechnological rivalry, third states can both preserve their capacity to make autonomous choices and mitigate against the coalescing of rival blocs.