The Issue of Jurisdiction on the Internet

The issue of internet jurisdiction assumes an international character for its intangible presence, irrespective of territorial boundaries and due to such nature, it poses a challenge to the Westphalian philosophy of international relations which relies broadly on maintaining territorial sovereignty. There are several forms of interactions taking place on the world wide web every second, from data transmission to transactions. Courts all over the world have attempted to prescribe certain guidelines and tests to tackle the determination of jurisdiction in cases of contentions arising on the web, but it is challenging to determine a uniform jurisdiction over an area that doesn’t occupy any physical space. Hence, even the notion of having a single governing body for the same would be considered to be arbitrary by most of the nation-states. It is therefore necessary to deliberate upon bringing a global consensus on how to formulate some standard of ascertaining jurisdiction that would be acceptable to all.