15.        The issue here is whether an international effort to regulate children's access to
adult material on the Internet is worthwhile. In my view, nations should attempt to
regulate such access by cooperative regulatory effort. I base this view on the
universality and importance of the interest in protecting children from harm, and on the
inherently pandemic nature of the problem.
      Adults everywhere have a serious interest in limiting access by children to
pornographic material. Pornographic material tends to confuse children—distorting
their notion of sex, of themselves as sexual beings, and of how people ought to treat one
another. Particularly in the case of domination and child pornography, the messages
children receive from pornographic material cannot contribute in a healthy way to their
emerging sexuality. Given this important interest that knows no cultural bounds, we
should regulate children's access to sexually explicit material on the Internet.
      However, information on the Internet is not easily contained within national
borders. Limiting access to such information is akin to preventing certain kinds of
global environmental destruction. Consider the problem of ozone depletion thought to
be a result of chloroflourocarbon (CFC) emissions. When the government regulated
CFC production in the U.S., corporations responsible for releasing CFC's into the
atmosphere simply moved abroad, and the global threat continued. Similarly, the
Internet is a global phenomenon; regulations in one country will not stop
"contamination" overall. Thus, successful regulation of Internet pornography requires
international cooperation, just as successful CFC regulation finally required the joint
efforts of many nations.
      Admittedly, any global regulatory effort faces formidable political hurdles, since
cooperation and compliance on the part of all nations—even warring ones—is
inherently required. Nevertheless, as in the case of nuclear disarmament or global
warming, the possible consequences of failing to cooperate demand that the effort be
made. And dissenters can always be coerced into compliance politically or
economically by an alliance of influential nations.
      In sum, people everywhere have a serious interest in the healthy sexual
development of children and, therefore, in limiting children's access to Internet
pornography. Because Internet material is not easily confined within national borders,
we can successfully regulate children's access to adult materials on the internet only by
way of international cooperation.