Defending Multistakeholder Internet Governance

An open, free, secure and global Internet requires effective ‘Internet governance’

 

The Internet has transformed our world, connecting people and businesses across borders, and enabling innovation and progress. It is a powerful tool for social, economic and cultural development, and underpins all aspects of daily life for many. 

Despite the Internet’s importance, most users will never spare a thought to why or how it works, and who makes it work. The Internet, as a network of networks, is governed through collaboration within and between a set of distributed and overlapping national, regional and global organisations and processes. This global Internet governance system ensures that the Internet we have today continues to exist and work effectively.

Much of this efficacy can be attributed to the multistakeholder approach that is taken in many Internet governance spaces and processes. The multistakeholder model sees governments, the private sector, academia, the technical community and civil society all participate in the governance of the Internet. Everybody shares their interests and ideas, and plays a role in decision-making.

This is a proven model for responding to the complex and dynamic policy and technical challenges that the Internet has presented. It leads to outcomes that work, because they have considered a full range of perspectives, and already have broad support.

 

Internet governance is at an inflection point where the multistakeholder model is at risk

 

As the Internet has become increasingly central to societies and economies, some governments have started to seek greater control over its governance, with debates increasingly influenced by geo-political power dynamics.

Between now and the close of 2025, a number of discussions on the future of global Internet governance are taking place that could result in significant and irreversible changes to how the internet is governed, and who gets to participate.  And the benefits of the current multistakeholder model may be lost. 

One of these processes is the United Nations (UN) Global Digital Compact (GDC), expected to be agreed at the Summit of the Future in September 2024. The GDC will “outline shared principles for an open, free and secure digital future”. Negotiations for the GDC are between Member States of the UN. A zero draft has just been released, and negotiations are about to start.

The other UN process is the 20 year review of the 2003-2005 World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS+20) due to take place in 2025. The original WSIS process formalised UN recognition of the multistakeholder model of Internet governance and set up the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) as a new forum for multistakeholder policy dialogue. 

WSIS+20 will see UN Member States consider whether to extend the mandate of the IGF. A specific concern is that provisions in the GDC that look to create new forums and put governments at the centre of dialogues about the Internet, could mean that Member States do not renew the mandate of the IGF at WSIS+20.

Sitting alongside these UN processes are other opportunities to discuss the future of global Internet governance. One of the most significant is the upcoming NETmundial+10 which is a rare chance for all stakeholders to discuss the global Internet governance system itself and identify practical and viable ways to improve and evolve the multistakeholder model.  It is hoped that the outputs from this event will feed into other processes and forums including the GDC and WSIS+20. 

 

If multistakeholder Internet governance is weakened, so is the Internet

 

The key risk is that the outcomes of these UN processes will weaken the existing, broad multistakeholder model of Internet governance in favour of an increased role for one stakeholder: governments. This risks not only the collaboration and consensus benefits associated with the model itself, but also the universality, openness, and freedom of the Internet that the broad multistakeholder model underpins.  

An increased role for governments would likely mean a reduction in the role of non government stakeholders, including the technical community.  This risks Internet related decision-making being led by individual nation-based political interests, without the transparency and accountability that the multistakeholder approach demands. 

Reducing the role of the technical community would mean critical decisions on how the Internet develops being made without the specialised insights and expertise of that community, which could undermine the overall open, seamless operations of the Internet. 

 

We have set up an informal coalition to defend and improve multistakeholder Internet governance so it supports the Internet we want

 

The multistakeholder model of Internet governance that currently exists is not set in stone. Its foundational materials are a mixture of norms, political agreements and trust. If we want an open, free, global and interoperable Internet, we must step up to defend and evolve the multistakeholder approach that underpins that.

The model can and will change if it is not defended by those who recognise that different forms of Internet governance produce different Internets.

So far however, there has been limited coordination and activation by the Internet technical community (and other stakeholders) to respond to these debates and issues. Concerned by this gap, InternetNZ has been working with auDA, CIRA and Nominet to establish an informal coalition of aligned members of the global Internet technical community. 

This coalition is looking for participation from around the world. Its purpose is to support the capacity of the technical community members to engage in the current Internet governance dialogues and processes, with a view to defend and improve the multistakeholder model of Internet governance as a critical foundation of an open, free and interoperable Internet. 

 

The work of the coalition has begun

 

Some initial meetings with other interested parties have already taken place in multistakeholder forums, such as at ICANN79 (San Juan). auDA, CIRA, Nominet, and InternetNZ also developed a joint response to the call for written inputs for the GDC (which closed on March 8), and each organisation lodged an aligned submission separately. You can read the text of the submission that InternetNZ lodged. 

This emerging coalition has set up a mailing list to share information on UN and related processes, and discuss opportunities for shared engagement and messaging. We are also developing a Statement of Purpose for the coalition so that interested parties can learn about and sign onto the coalition’s objectives. 

 

Want to find out more?

 

If you’re interested in finding out more about the Internet governance dialogues mentioned in this blog, or about this coalition, please contact the Internet Governance Policy Lead at internet.governance@internetnz.net.nz and/or sign up to dotNews where we will continue to periodically share updates on these processes.

This blog post has been coauthored by InternetNZ, CIRA, auDA and Nominet.