데이터의 탈영토성과 사이버공간 주권

Currently, there is no common understanding among countries as to how existing international law applies in cyberspace. This is especially true of the issue of sovereignty applied to cyberspace. One of the main challenges in applying the concept of sovereignty in cyberspace stems from the nature of data. With the pervasive use of cloud computing services today, intangible data is crossing borders at a rapid pace, and its path of movement is arbitrary and unpredictable. In addition, data may be divided and replicated in various locations. This unique nature of data makes it difficult to determine how to apply the concept of territorial sovereignty, which has been applied to physical domains such as land, sea, and air. At the heart of the problem is the unterritoriality of data. This article takes note of the unterritoriality of data and seeks to suggest its implications for applying in cyberspace sovereignty and its derivative international rules. Thus, this article first examines the arguments over the unterritoriality of the data, through pointing outs the inherent nature of data. Second, this article concludes that data is unterritorial, by elucidating recent national legislations and other state practices. Finally, this paper suggests implications of data unterritoriality for applying in cyberspace not only sovereignty but also other international rues deriving from sovereignty, such as jurisdiction, the principle of non-interference, or the prohibition of the use of force.