2. Internet Governance
• Is analyzed as a problem of coordinating a
multi-level, adaptive, socio-technical System
– that is embedded in and has effects on local, national, regional,
supra-national and global levels
• A broad spectrum of alternative coordination
mechanisms is available:
– Reliance on norms and traditions
– Decentralized market decisions
– Forms of self- and co-regulation
– Forms of government intervention and regulation
• IG: should not to be restricted to the
management of domain name and possibly
other technical issues
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3. 4 global Main Issues have to be
considered
1. Issues related to the network infrastructure upon
which the Internet rests
2. Technical coordination issues related to the
Internet as a logical layer protocols, including the
organization of the numbering and identifier space
3. Issues related to the content of the
communications, including intellectual property
issues
4. Issues related to the applications and services
offered using the Internet, including the
establishment of legal frameworks for electronic
commerce.
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4. IG and Specific Policy Issues
1. Content Issues
2. Crime and cybersecurity
3. The Economics of Interconnection for Developing Countries
4. Privacy and confidentiality of Information
5. Contracts and e-commerce
6. IP Telephony (VoIP)
7. Universal access and service policies
8. Liberalization of telecoms
9. Consumer protection
10. Taxation of goods and services on the Internet
11. Local content, languages and character sets
12. Enabling entrepreneurism and the private sector
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5. Alternative approaches to IG
• Based on those issues, different theories have
being considered:
1. Governance of large technical systems
2. Policy design in dynamic environment
3. Theory of complex adaptive systems
• And some alternative approaches to IG have
being identified:
1. Spontaneous self-organization
2. Forms of self- and co-regulation
3. The theory of distributed governance
4. Public interest government intervention
Actually, IG follows the second approach
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6. Internet Technical Management : Actual
Institutional Arrangements (1/2)
1. The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) is the
Internet’s standards organization, responsible for the
development of tested standards upon which the Internet
rests.
2. The Internet Society (ISOC) contains the Internet
Engineering Steering Group (IESG), which sets the
general agenda for the work of the IETF. In addition, ISOC
is the entity that provides the legal umbrella for the
activities of the IETF.
3. The Internet Architecture Board (IAB), chartered by
ISOC, provides oversight of aspects of the architecture for
the protocols and procedures used by the Internet.
4. The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and
Numbers (ICANN) is responsible for technical
coordination of the Internet address space (IP numbers)
and the Domain Name System.
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7. Internet Technical Management : Actual
Institutional Arrangements (2/2)
5. The Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT) in the U.S. and the growing
number of national CERTs in other countries have responsibility for monitoring network-
related threats to the integrity of the Internet and its attached computers.
6. The Regional Internet Registries (RIRs) are responsible for the allocation of IP
addresses in their regions of responsibility:
– ARIN
– RIPE NCC
– APNIC
– AFRINIC
7. The Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) is responsible for various
administrative functions associated with management of the Internet's domain-name
system root zone.
8. The root server operators maintain a synchronized set of distributed common data
base of the directories for top level domains.
9. The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is responsible for standards pertaining to the
World Wide Web.
10. The International Telecommunications Union (ITU) provides comprehensive
standards at layer 1, (e.g. telephony) for communications technologies that carry Internet
traffic. The ITU also provides international coordination of the allocation and use of the
communication frequencies of the electromagnetic spectrum.
11. The tier 1 ISPs, who provide the Internet’s backbone functions, coordinate their
activities through formalized network operators’ groups, and have peering arrangements
between themselves provide connectivity to other ISPs.
12. VERISIGN?????
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8. Organizations engaged in IG and public
policy
1. At the global level
• UNCITRAL (United National Commission on International Trade Law): e-
commerce and electronic signatures
• WTO: basic agreement on telecom, telecom liberalization
• OECD: guidelines on privacy, security, cryptography
• WIPO: intellectual property
2. At the regional level
• APEC: security
• EU: telecoms, e-commerce, privacy
• Council of Europe: cybercrime, freedom of expression
• Regional Trade Agreements (NAFTA, MERCOSUR)
3. Other international organizations, including NGOs
• G8: cybercrime and cybersecurity
• Human rights bodies
4. At the national level
• Government ministries
• Specialized organizations – universities and research institutions
• Private sector associations
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• Not-for-profit organizations
9. Observations
1. There are a large number of national,
regional and global institutions and
organizations whose mandate, at least
partially, includes their involvement in one or
more of Internet issues described above.
2. However, if the aim is to properly address
those issues, it is clear that most of those
issues go beyond the scope of anyone
institution or organization
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10. The Debate today is around the 5
following questions
1. Is there a need to create a variety of new
organizations?
2. Or are current institutions in some combination
sufficient for coping with the issues raised by IG?
3. What about developing country needs and
development processes?
4. Can one global institution alone take care of most of
the existing issues?
5. Is there and “institutional gap” that needs to be
filled?
There is indeed no easy answer to any of these
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questions.
11. The African Countries views on IG should be
based on the 2 main aspects:
• Management and Coordination of Internet names and
numbers:
– Afrinic represents the continent under the umbrella of ICANN
– Specific policies to guarantee that those administrative functions proceed
expeditiously and on a uniform standard must be under the responsibility of
ICANN
– More transparency on Afrinic institutional arrangements
– Need to enhance the participation of developing countries in ICANN board
– True internationalization and legal independence of ICANN from any national
government among others.
• Global Internet Governance issues
– The existence at the international level of a variety of intergovernemental, non-
governemental, and voluntary private organizations working on the various Internet
issues seems to support the thesis that the creation of yet other specilaized entities is
not required.
– Cooperation among national governments and these organizations spans all ICT-
related issues, and it seems evident that the extension of this cooperation should be
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the primary direction for addressing the Internet specific issues
12. The African Countries views on IG should be
based on the 2 main aspects:
• The question is: How this can be accomplished in an
open and balanced manner?
– Developing country governments need to have a focal
point within the government for overall coordination of
policy with respect to IG
– From the point of view of non-governmental stakeholders,
there is ample room for creating and strengthening new
and existing national and international networks
– In Africa, AU and RECs should play a significant role on
the IG
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13. Policies Implications & Transition
• But, Identifying possible alternative governance
options alone is insufficient
• Unless a feasible transition path from the status quo
to an alternative arrangement can be identified, the
status quo has to be considered superior
• A gradual transformation from the status quo ante is
probably the most appropriate approach
– Some issues, such as linguistic diversity, may be easily
be delegated to decentralized actors
– Other issues, which have high potential externalities, such
as security issues, may have to be dealt with in a more
centralized fashion, albeit with appropriate representation.
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