[governance] Internet Governance Debate (Silence and Fatigue)

[Milton Mueller]

Jovan:
I think your comments skim the surface of a political situation that is
much deeper. 

Contention over policy issues in global Internet governance will be
around as long as there is an Internet. As ICANN and other
identifier-related institutions mature, attention may move away from
ICANN's structure and oversight to other issues, but something equally
pressing will arise to take their place. I say this as someone who
observed, researched and sometimes participated in telecom policy issues
since 1981, at the dawn of the AT&T breakup (a process that spanned 30
years). I've seen many an ICT policy issue come and go, and believe me
the global governance arrangements around Internet and other ICTs are
extremely meaty and no flash in the pan. Maybe to you it was no more
than a passing wave to be caught, but not me.

So where do things stand now?

The root server issue (as IGP predicted at the last IGF) is now
reinvented and renewed thanks to the prospect of DNSSEC implementation.
(See our serial blog at http://blog.internetgovernance.org) ICANN's new
TLD process fuses freedom of expression, economic regulation, process
and multilingual issues. The deregulation of domain name registry prices
raises classical issues in regulation, with a somewhat new twist given
the global scope, ICANN's lack of any legal foundation (or competence)
in that area. Whois/privacy is still unresolved. There is an impending
fight over address scarcity in IPv4 and the difficult transition to
IPv6. The beat goes on. 

In addition, there are a host of non-ICANN related Internet governance
issues, from net neutrality to WIPO treaties to continued efforts to
regulate internet content. Each of them as deep and involved as the
ICANN issue. The digital identity issue will emerge in full force within
5 years, take my word for it.

Further, all these issues exist in a context of economic globalization,
which has created challenges to and reform of other global institutions,
and severe political reaction to globalization, raising issues which are
linked in numerous ways to what happens to the Internet. 

Many of us -- and I am obviously one of them -- find these struggles and
issues intellectually fascinating and politically important. It's truly
unfortunate that some people apparently feel threatened by our attempt
to engage in the scrutiny, discussion and debate that inevitably occur
around such global processes. But the debate becomes particularly odd
when those people attempt to portray university-based research and
policy experts as per se illegitimate for....raising the money needed to
engage in research and policy analysis. 

>>> jovank at diplomacy.edu 04/22/07 12:37 PM >>>
Dear Wolfgang,

You are right that IG is no longer on the radars of governments
worldwide
(if it ever was). There are many reasons for this. First--and the most
important--is that the world has changed substantially between 2003,
when IG
was put on the WSIS agenda, and  2007. 

Back in 2003, the IG-debate was, to a large extent, "collateral damage"
of
the Iraq war. Today, the situation has substantially changed. In the US,
there is strong political opposition to the Iraq war and a gradual move
back
to multilateralism (even in the field of environment!). 

Beside the suspicion about the US foreign policy, the second reason for
initiating the IG-debate was the story that "a country can be removed
from
the Internet by the US government." It was a powerful trigger and it
created
concern among diplomats and policy-makers. It was the most frequent
question
I was asked by diplomats in Geneva. The story led to a crisis (at least
in
perception). 

After that... you know what has happened.... WGIG... discussion became
substantive... there was an extensive learning process.... Ultimately,
it
became clear that the theoretical possibility of removing a country's
domain
from the root zone file is not real possibility for various reasons,
including decentralized root-servers and the possibility of creating
parallel roots, etc. 

In fact, the power over the root server is an example of the paradox of
power. The possibility of removing a country from the Internet can
hardly be
described as a power, since, effectively, it can never be used. The
central
element of power is forcing another side to act in the way the holder of
power wants. The use of US power over the root could create a different
outcome--that countries and regions establish their own Internets. The
US
would then be a bigger loser than the other players in a possible
disintegration of the Internet. The US would face the loss of the
predominance of US-promoted values on the Internet, English as the
Internet
lingua franca, and the global market for US-based Internet companies
(Google, e-Bay, Yahoo,...).  

All in all, the two elements that shaped discussion back in 2003 do not
exist any more (strong suspicion about US foreign policy, misperception
of
the possibility of removing countries from the Internet).

Today? It is not very likely that the IG-debate will gain momentum. The
reason is simple... there is no crisis. The Internet was created to
survive
a major "crisis" (nuclear war). The potential major failure of the
Internet,
which could trigger a strong policy reaction, is not likely to happen.
Moreover, in the most recent crises (9/11, London terrorist attack,
Tsunami), the Internet has proven itself the most reliable communication
structure. The latest example of Internet robustness was the cut of the
Asian telecom cable. While it slowed down Internet traffic and attracted
a
bit journalistic attention at Christmas, it did not create a major
crisis. 

Without a crisis-driven process (fertile context for simplifications and
stereotypes), ICANN and the US government have a unique chance to
introduce
a new and innovative global governance model, which should address a few
open issues including involvement of other governments and
internalization
of ICANN's status. They are no longer under "siege" as they were during
the
WSIS. It should provide them with more space for creative and
forward-looking solutions.  A promising sign was ICANN's presidential
debate
on the future of ICANN. A potential problem is that there is no external
pressure for reform.  This list and GIGANet should help in discussing
and
proposing some policy solutions. In my "batch-processing" of latest
messages, I will also reflect on the Framework Convention and
Triangle/Variable Geometry of IG.

Best, Jovan  

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