The Potential Role of the Internet Governance Forum

1
The Potential Role of the Internet Governance
Forum

• Presented at the APIA and ISOC-AU Open Forum
• by Jeremy Malcolm28 February 2006

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Outline

• The process that led to the IGF
• Challenges facing it
• A non-duplicative work programme
• Balancing participation of governments, private
  sector, civil society and IGOs
• Making decisions by consensus?
• How is its output received into International law?

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Internet Governance

• What is it?
• Internet governance is the development and
  application by Governments, the private sector
  and civil society, in their respective roles, of
  shared principles, norms, rules, decision-making
  procedures, and programmes that shape the
  evolution and use of the Internet.

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WGIG Report

• Definition from WGIG that reported to WSIS that
  established the IGF
• Identified 13 public policy issues

IP addressing Intellectual property Freedom of
speech Privacy Consumer rights Multilingualism
Root servers Interconnection Security/cybercrime S
pam Policy participation Capacity
building Top-level domains
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WGIG Recommendations

• Review root zones
• Equity in IPv6 allocation
• Review intercon-nection costs
• National law enforcers to link
• Joint statement on spam

• Ensure no violation of human rights
• Ensure multistakeholderism
• Privacy to be upheld
• Consumer rights to be monitored
• More effort towards multilingualism

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The IGF so far

• Preliminary meeting on 16-17 February produced
  consensus on
• IGF to include a developmental focus
• Some use of online fora
• Lack of consensus on
• Mandate/structure of steering body
• Priority themes for first meeting (spam, I8N,
  capacity building)

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Multi-stakeholder issues

• IGOs derive authority from states but
• Suffer from democratic deficits
• Do not have sovereignty over the net
• Multi-stakeholder structure helps but
• Digital divide must be overcome
• Inequality of power and resources of stakeholder
  groups

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Decision-making issues

• IETF, W3C, ICANN (theoretically) already act by
  (rough) consensus
• But so do the ISO and WTO
• Other models
• Digital democracy (horizontal communication,
  collective memory)
• Deliberative democracy (values opinion formation
  not just decision making)

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International law

• Governs legal relations between international
  actors
• Traditionally made by states
• Degrees from hard to soft
• Multilateral/bilateral agreements
• UN General Assembly resolutions
• Memoranda of Understanding between executive
  agencies, other stakeholders

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Non-governmental actors

• Can a non-governmental group make International
  law?
• Non-state actors act internationally
• Red Cross, Vatican, Microsoft
• Arguably, already make law
• Customary law authority control
• ICANN's DNS root management

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Conclusion

• We need to manage Internet-related legal issues
  globally
• The IGF is ready to take this on
• In developing a collaborative, inclusive process
  it should note
• The Internet's technical governance
• Actively bridging the digital divide
• Literature on deliberative democracy

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Questions?

• Email Jeremy_at_Malcolm.id.au
• Other resources
• http//www.malcolm.id.au/thesis/
• http//www.itu.int/wsis/
• http//www.wgog.org/
• http//www.intgovforum.org/