Digital Reach

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ORLD

UMMIT

on the Information Society (WSIS)

began as a response to the major shifts that the Internet was

causing in social arrangements. Those same factors persist

at the end of the WSIS process: the Internet’s growing importance

has left the state in a position of reliance on private enterprises

for expertise and flexibility in decision-making. Meanwhile, the

international nature of the Internet has forced states to recognize

their interdependence, with a certain tendency toward interna-

tional federalism emerging. As individuals perceive this shift, they

are asking what this international integration means for their rela-

tionship to the state, and their very rights as citizens in the

Information Society. Still, many people are simply embracing the

Internet and forming new, international communities online, while

business opportunities abound. Because these societal shifts were

recognized by representatives at the Geneva Phase of WSIS, they

agreed on the Declaration of Principles – calling for multilateral,

transparent, democratic, coordinated, and multi-stakeholder

approaches to decision-making in the networked world.

Fine-tuning the present

In recent years, more than a dozen intergovernmental organiza-

tions have been making rules for the networked world. Because

these bodies deal with hundreds of other topics as well, infor-

mation on Internet-related initiatives is lost amongst other

material on their websites and in written reports. In other words,

with the current arrangement, the mere task of tracking what

Internet governance is taking place, and where, is enormously

time consuming. A person has to sift through hundreds of web

pages to arrive at this information.

Indeed, participants in the technology development commu-

nity, academia, the media, government, intergovernmental

organizations and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) attest

that it has been exceedingly difficult to follow international

Internet governance as it occurs in diverse bodies. For example:

• Government representatives are often too busy carrying out

their own work to follow the whole range of developments in

Internet policy. Large delegations may distribute work in such

a way that representatives fail to update each other as they

report back to separate agencies in their capital. Meanwhile,

small delegations (e.g., from developing countries) are too

thinly stretched to cover all the meetings

• So, too, staff of intergovernmental organizations have pre-

assigned work, and tracking Internet policymaking in other

organizations on subjects beyond their specific duties would

seem to go outside their mandate

• Nor can businesses intent on the bottom line afford to employ

people to monitor all Internet-related activities of intergovern-

mental organizations. While these activities may be important,

if they are not directly related to that company’s current goals,

shareholders do not want to bear the cost of contributing to

the policy process for the general good

• NGOs and academic researchers focusing on specific aspects

of Internet policy are on even more restricted budgets, so

despite their interest in following the totality of Internet deci-

sion-making, they simply cannot afford to do so

• The media know that reporting on the successive stages of poli-

cymaking does not draw large audiences, so they choose to

wait until rules are ripe for decision, or until their implemen-

tation raises problems, before reporting on them.

In short, no group that is normally involved in international

Internet governance has been able to follow the full range of devel-

opments. It is not surprising, then, that there has been little

appreciation for the cumulative effect of international Internet

governance, and negligible public input. Clearly, these intergov-

ernmental processes are not yet adapted to the Declaration of

Principles.

To show how the Principles could be incorporated in the near

term, Net Dialogue, a joint project between the Harvard Berkman

Centre and Stanford Centre for Internet and Society, constructed

a web site for presentation during the open consultations of the

UN Working Group on Internet Governance. The site is meant to

demonstrate how a single web portal can consolidate informa-

tion on Internet-related rule-making by intergovernmental bodies

and offer online discussion tools, in order to make Internet gover-

nance more accessible to the public.

Net Dialogue perspectives on

international Internet governance

Lawrence Lessig, John Palfrey and Mary Rundle, Net Dialogue

Photo: ITU/Sanjay Acharya

Delegates meeting ITU Secretary-General Mr Yoshio Utsumi in the

plenary hall at the Palais des Nations, Geneva.