The internet is a transnational resource. Much like the ocean and the air we breathe, the internet is not created by any one nation, and cannot be disproportionately regulated by any one nation. Our anarchic world system, absent of international government, leads to complications regarding internet governance. What is more, the internet has a vast range of uses for all stakeholders. Students, governments, corporations, nonprofit organizations, and individuals are but a small list of the endless groups within society that all rely on the internet. However, lack of ownership over this infinite resource makes oversight and regulation complicated. This is why multistakeholder governance over the internet is crucial to ensuring that regulation of this recourse is inclusive and transparent, and collective responsibility, and effective decision-making and implementation are maintained.

Originally developed for US military purposes, the internet’s uses and accessibility have dramatically expanded and are continuing to do so. ICANN (the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) oversees internet governance and assigns domain names and transport controls. This organization handles the maintenance of the central Internet address pools by authorizing domain name sales and handling registrations. It is run by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), which is an agency of the U.S. Department of Commerce. This is why the recent transition of the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) is so important. In 2013, Internet Society (IS) members demanded that IANA’s oversight role be distanced from the US government and oriented more towards the international, multistakeholder community. The US government responded positively, demonstrating a willingness to transition oversight to make it internationally equitable.

The issue of Internet governance in today’s hyper globalized world is quiet complex due to the fact that as an entity, the Internet is not technically owned by anyone. This lack of concrete ownership complicates the organization of oversight and regulatory management. Starting as a military research project, the Internet has grown at incredible speeds and spread across the entire world. All corners of the world have been touched by the Internet and in fact, almost everything in one way or another now depends on the Internet, whether it be businesses, schools, governments, or individuals. With so many individuals and organizations dependent on the Internet and with only parts of the Internet being owned, the best approach to Internet governance is through a multistakeholder approach in which decision-making is accountable, sustainable, and effective (Internet Governance (IG) – reading). However, the multistakeholder approach cannot be seen as the single solution but rather as a toolbox in which a source that has been developed and maintained by many actors can by governed by an open, distributed and interconnected governance force (IG – reading). Due to the Internet being transnational in scope, the multistakeholder governance attributes such as inclusiveness and transparency, collective responsibility, and effective decision-making and implementation are crucial and it is why it is important to ensure the survival of a multistakeholder approach to Internet governance.

Since there is no global government in place, there are a couple of multistakeholder platforms that help maintain an open dialogue around the key issues in Internet governance. First off there is the Internet Governance Forum (IGF), which brings people together and facilitates the discussion around public policy issues relating to the Internet. Although it does not create a concrete negotiated outcome, its importance lies in informing and inspiring those that do have policy-making power both in the private and public sector. Meetings for the IGF are held annually and all of their sessions are live streamed allowing as many people as are interested to join in. Another important global body is the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). Its main function is to coordinate the maintenance and procedures of databases related to the namespaces of the Internet. Ultimately, ICANN performs more of the technical maintenance work of the central Internet address pools by authorizing domain name sales and handling registrations. The main critique of ICANN is that it does not do enough for development, but that is not really its focus.

As most things, if not all things, Internet governance is far from perfect. However, as with other topics in development, there is the concern that the global North is too involved in the process and doing as it pleases without concern for the rest of the world. In the summer of 2013, after the Snowden revelations, ex Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff accused the U.S. of breaking international law. The outcome of this was the NETmundial meeting that focused on the elaboration of principles of Internet governance and the proposal for a roadmap for the future development of this ecosystem (NETmundial). Apart from being a very open and transparent process, NETmundial was important also for the fact that it was hosted and organized by the global South. Although the meeting was successful, the follow up NETmundial initiative was said to be hijacked by the north. Therefore, this concern will continue to be at the forefront. However, what is important is that we as a world community continue to participate in and respect the importance of the multistakeholder approach to Internet governance.

Internet governance, as learned throughout the class discussions, relates to the internet community and the number of stakeholders that make decisions about the development and use of the internet. It was in WSIS 2005 that the term was coined and put to use. The Internet Governance Forum (IGF) was then created and has been able to provide valuable opportunities for thousands of representatives in a number of different stakeholder groups. All of these groups are all interconnected as they operate without a central governing body. The question that now arises is: how do we govern the internet? And if so, who governs it? The internet was created in the United States under ARPA (Advanced Research Projects Agency) and different decisions were made and established to spread the internet around the world. Because of this, the internet became more valuable when more people were using it.

ICANN (the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) oversees the majority of assignments within the internet such as: domain names, transport controls and even internet protocol addresses. ICANN is governed by the NTIA, which makes ICANN one of the few bodies with a global and centralized influence over the diverse number of groups that are on the internet. However, ICANN did have a number of controversial issues that did not make their decision-making process easy. This led to the creation of the IANA Transition Process on October 1^st of 2016 to enhance ICANN’s accountability and to illustrate the affirmation of the principles that best addresses the challenges of governing the internet and fulfill the global requirements that it gives to all of the countries using it.

Because the creation and most of the development efforts of the internet came from the USA, it was believed by many that there should not be a core resource that is solely based there. This is where the legitimacy of the ITU (International telecommunication Union) was being challenged. The purpose of the ITU is to “coordinate telecommunication operations and services throughout the world” but the purpose of the internet was for it not to be state owned and it was hard to fully trust that the development and use of the internet was not being compromised to benefit just the USA and the groups that reside within it.

It is hard to imagine the internet being managed by just one country or stakeholder group. The importance of having multi-stakeholders is so that they take the initiative to allow all the different communities to engage. Once there is full transparency, it will be easier to organize and make decisions when dealing with the internet. NETmundial was a critical opportunity to reinforce the IGF so that it can be strengthened and improved to enhance the participation of a number of countries, including developing ones. This global multi-stakeholder meeting on the future of internet governance was the mechanism needed to ensure the principles needed for a multilateral mechanism to work worldwide.

In our last  session we discussed how a transnational issue such as internet governance relates to the anarchy problematique in international relations. In an anarchic world system, with sovereign and equal states interacting without a global government, legal authority must be ceded by states in order to address issues such as internet governance. Transnational issues that goes beyond the level of any nation state thus necessitate a multistakeholder approach. No one nation, including the United States, should have an unproportionate amount of control over a public good such as the internet. The muiltistakeholder approach to internet governance services to advance ideals of equal treatment for internet access and net neutrality for all users.

Which is why the the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) transition is so important for strengthening multistakeholder internet governance. When many Internet Society members assembled in  2013 and  called for the transition of the IANA functions away from the US government’s control, the U.S. responded positively, soliciting  a plan for moving IANA’s oversight to the global, multistakeholder community. The plan was researched, debated and discussed by public and private sector organizations, technical experts, and civil society representatives from around the world, a reflection of the internet as a  globally distributed network. This is also significant in stakeholders realized that INANA functions could not simply pass from one state to another, but rather would necessitate a solution by all sectors of society. The Internet Society describes the importance of the endorsement of the IANA transition plan by all stakeholders in March of 2016, as a testament to the success of the multistakeholder internet governance approach. The process “worked to create a stable, secure, accountable, and transparent way to manage a critical Internet resource. Just as the Internet is a ‘network of networks’, so its global governance is a set of overlapping organisations with different roles and ways of working.”

Multistakeholder decision-making has proved to be successful for many reasons. Some of which include the fact that decisions on internet governance impact many actors, there are shared obligations across countries, and support for internet governance decisions directly impact its implementation. The Internet is a multistakeholder entity  by definition as it was developed by a group of diverse actors including  public and private sectors, academia, and civil society. Multistakeholders have been able  to capitalize on  the diverse expertise of the  global community and work towards finding the solution for the governance of this essential public good.