One of the issues that has arisen due to the Russia-Ukraine conflict is the collateral damage that is being caused to companies in India because some of the US companies have decided to join the war front by imposing various kinds of sanctions.
India has declared that it remains “Non Aligned” in this conflict and neither US nor Russia has the right to force India to join one of the fronts against its will.
While civilians in Ukraine out of their patriotic fervour are welcome to get themselves enlisted to the military and some foreign Governments such as Lativian Government has allowed its citizens in Ukraine to join the war front, citizens of other countries are not presently under obligation to join the war front as front line soldiers.
Similarly, when we discuss “Information Warfare” being part of the hybrid war, we are considering that the Government which is part of the kinetic war using information for propaganda or even conducting cyber attacks as part of its military operations. These are acceptable as part of the International war fare strategies.
But when civilians or companies try to impose sanctions of their own in support of one of the warring countries, there could be some legal issues of whether they have the protection of the international law for their information war.
For example if Google stops its map services or Dell and Apple stop contracted hardware supplies they are actively joining the war and need to be formally conscripted to the military of one of the warring countries.
We now have situations where an Indian company which has a contract to execute involving components from US companies being stopped on their tracks with the sanctions imposed by the Commercial companies. It is difficult to say if this is supported by any contractual clauses since US itself today is not at war (legally) and hence the “Acts of War” clause for disruption of service cannot be invoked.
While it is difficult for Indian companies to raise this as a dispute because of the continuing relations with the component suppliers, it is time for the Indian Government to consider the concept of “Deemed Conscription” of a company into military if it actively takes sides in such a war. If this is not ratified by their respective Governments like Laivian Government has done, then the actions of the individuals and the companies imposing sanctions of their own become illegal and qualify for penal action in the respective countries.
Such actions may also qualify as conducting “Warfare” in other neutral countries. Hence Dell stopping supply of computers under a contract and frustrating an Indian company from executing its contract is like bringing the war into foreign soil.
We can understand that the Corporate executives in these companies may not think deeply but the call for ICANN to stop its domain server for Russia (reported to have been rejected by ICANN) is an indication that “Critical IT Services” may become instruments of war fare without appropriate international legal justification.
Tomorrow if Microsoft jumps into war and stops all Windows servers or Gmail stops all its email services, or VISA stops all its card processing services, the activities of other nations can be crippled.
At a time when we are thinking of a new Data Protection Law in India it is necessary for us to see if we have sufficient legal backing to defend such actions even if it is purely speculative at this point of time.
I therefore call upon the Government of India to undertake such measures as are necessary to ensure that Indian companies are not held to ransom for settlement of international disputes of which we are not a party.
This could be achieved through declaring “Essential IT Services” such as internet transmission, hosting etc as “Critical Data”, imposing “Data Localization” and other security measures to ensure that we are not at the mercy of these companies in future.
Naavi
