The digital commons has become a new focus for global governance. Image generated by AI

The “commons” emerged as a concept focusing on the public management of natural resources such as pastures, fisheries, oceans, and the atmosphere. It advocates self-governance, protection of natural resources, and the resolution of the “commons dilemma”—a conflict between individual self-interest and collective benefit—through collective consultation and mutual supervision. The “digital commons” represents a modern extension of this idea, emerging with advancements in knowledge, digital technology, the widespread use of the internet and mobile devices, and the growth of technology companies and digital platforms. Through open source, collaboration, and sharing, the digital commons maximizes its capacity to attract participants from all over the world to independently produce and manage digital resources, while avoiding the “enclosure movement” against particular digital resources facilitated by laws and capital. The digital commons has become a new focus for global governance, stimulating changes within the system.

Artificial nature of digital commons

The digital commons is artificial, distinguishing itself from the natural commons that mainly depends on the geographical environment. The emergence of the digital commons demonstrates how individuals jointly create and share digital resources, including knowledge, culture, data, and information, relying on digital infrastructure like the internet and digital communities hosted on social media platforms. In this process, values and norms for the governance of digital resources take shape. Members are expected to cultivate mutual trust and understanding, and engage in digital production based on their contributions and personal concerns. Joint ownership and use of digital resources, along with open peer cooperation and mutual supervision are also among the values and norms. Both similarities and differences exist between the digital commons and the natural commons.

Both the digital commons and the natural commons are highly competitive spaces. Competitiveness within the digital commons is based on human knowledge innovation and conceptual change. By mining new knowledge, developing new technologies, and proposing new concepts, the digital commons has the power to initiate and define specific digital resources, thereby steering the evolution of universal standards for economic production and values and norms for social interaction. Conversely, competitiveness within the natural commons is based on the scarcity of natural resources. Expansion of user numbers and the maximized pursuit of personal interests may deplete natural resources.

Unlike the natural commons, the digital commons is infinite. The digital commons has potential producers and encourages the sustainable development of digital resources. It enriches humanity’s cognition and understanding of particular objects and gives rise to new digital production relations and social interaction models.

The digital commons is interactive, but the natural commons is not. Digital resources in the digital commons rely on digital infrastructure and digital communities for interaction. Their internal structures are loose and nested, with producers of digital resources coming from diverse sources and cultures, each with their own perspectives. These characteristics make digital resources prone to change across different times and scenarios, increasing the complexity of the digital commons.

Institutionalizing digital resources

As a new type of public resources arising from the development of human knowledge and digital communication, the production and maintenance of the digital commons requires humanity’s collective consultation on the governance of the collectively produced and owned digital resources to achieve common goals and implement common ideas. By doing so, the institutionalization of resources in the commons can be achieved.

Boundaries and categories within the digital commons need to be clarified. In the digital commons, qualification certification tools such as licenses are the primary means for setting the conditions for accessing digital infrastructure and digital communities, as well as the classification and composition of digital resources that members produce and own. This protects the incentives for members to continuously produce digital resources independently and enables open sharing. It also prevents users outside the digital commons from privatizing, commercializing, and profiting from resources within the digital commons.

Rules in the digital commons should be refined to address the development goals and production processes of digital resources, the scope of open source and sharing channels, as well as standards for storage and disposal. The aim is to maintain the qualifications of digital producers and the quality of digital resources while enhancing the transparency and effectiveness of the digital commons’ operations. Although the digital commons is infinite and digital resources are inexhaustible, it can fall into disuse if digital resources are not edited and updated regularly. Digital resources are jointly produced and owned by members of the digital commons. Individuals must abide by the rules of the digital commons and cannot change or delete digital resources arbitrarily at their own will. It is also necessary to exclude erroneous information and data and punish actions that intend to undermine the digital commons.

The value realization model of the digital commons should be articulated. Digital resources in the digital commons are valuable primarily because they can enrich human understanding and knowledge of specific objects, help form new common concepts, establish public authority, and foster the development of digital infrastructure and digital communities. The digital commons is established on the basis of cooperative production and sharing of digital resources among members. Digital infrastructure serves as a tool for members to speak their minds, and digital communities embody common values and norms that have evolved. By participating in the production of digital resources, and developing digital infrastructure and digital communities, members enhance collective cognition and knowledge, strengthen relationships with other members, and establish personal reputation and confidence.

Adjusting global governance system

The digital commons transcends geographical and territorial boundaries, connects digital producers worldwide to consciously carry out cooperation and self-governance, and resists the erosion of digital resources by coercive and economic power. The digital commons has become a new focus in global governance, offering a new technical path for the global governance system to address global issues such as climate, poverty, the environment, health, and security.

The production and maintenance of the digital commons draws various actors from within the global governance system into collective consultation and decision-making. Global governance aims to safeguard the common interests of humanity and address the shortcomings of the “anarchic” international system in dealing with global issues. It relies on multiple actors, such as intergovernmental institutions and international organizations, to conduct interactions, ensure equal dialogue, promote cross-border cooperation, and provide global public goods. This process establishes a series of formal and informal norms, procedures, and institutions to guide and regulate the international community. Given the main features and logic of the digital commons, global governance can provide a suitable means to clarify its boundaries and categories, potentially leading to the creation of new international organizations and systems.

The digital commons facilitates the creation of new knowledge, common ideas, and public authority. It provides a new communication field and method for solving global issues, which helps to transform the value of particular digital resources into global public interests. First, the digital commons encourages a shift in mindset within global governance. In the digital commons, members trust and care about each other. Instead of focusing on copyrights, patents, and non-compete clauses, the digital commons is more concerned with engaging actors such as society, governments, multinational corporations, and digital platforms to participate in the production and sharing of global digital resources. The digital commons also incorporates the actual conditions of different regions into collective consultation and decision-making through the development of digital infrastructure and digital communities. This can provide pragmatic intellectual support for balancing global climate governance, addressing systemic inequality, managing environmental and technological competition, advancing education and scientific innovation, and promoting sustainable development. Unfortunately, the existing global governance system is constrained by strategic interactions among states and interest groups concerning the supply of global public goods and issues of “free riding.” It ignores the fact that humans can also participate in solving global issues out of trust and concern.

The digital commons pushes governments, enterprises, and other actors back into the global governance system. It resists erosion from coercive and economic power, but does not exclude these forces from participating in its own construction. In fact, governments, enterprises, and others are affected by the process of digitization embedded in their exercise of power. These actors also become owners and producers of particular digital resources, and actively explore their use to improve social public services and production processes while developing digital infrastructure and digital communities. From this perspective, the digital commons is where society, governments, and enterprises collectively produce and govern specific digital resources, and adjust the relationship between individuals and the collective in different scenarios. The global governance system once underscored its distinct non-governmental and non-commercial attributes and emphasized the role of social organizations and global citizens. However, the digital commons covers different categories of digital producers worldwide, which has prompted the global governance system to re-emphasize the role of governments and enterprises.

The digital commons can provide public authority for supervising the global governance system, implementing governance rules, and maintaining public interests. The digital commons involves cooperative production and sharing of resources around common goals and ideas, and allows resource producers to participate in collective choices and decision-making, ensure the quality of digital resources through mutual supervision among members, and adjust the supply and allocation of resources according to actual global and local conditions. These mechanisms help resolve collective conflicts and enhance the effectiveness of cooperation. When global issues are introduced and discussed within the digital commons, collective experiments are conducted, and problem-solving strategies are proposed, the vulnerability of public authority in the existing global governance systems to fragmentation and legitimacy crises will likely be reduced.

As the global governance system is undergoing major adjustments and states are renegotiating international norms, China needs to encourage governments at all levels, enterprises, digital platforms, social organizations, think tanks, and other actors to carry out international cooperation on issues such as climate, science and technology, medical care, and education in light of the characteristics and operation of the digital commons. It is also advisable to promote technological and cultural exchanges globally through the development of digital infrastructure and digital communities and explore and establish rules for the production and maintenance of specific digital resources.

Xie Hanbing is from the School of International Relations at Sun Yat-sen University.