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Introduction
Internet governance is crucial for the security of the world’s nations. The Internet is the most commonly used source of information in the modern digitalized economies regardless of a nation’s development status.
On the other hand, terrorists use the Internet to access information about their target areas of attack across the world; hence, there is a great need for Internet governance that offers security mechanism for shielding information that could benefit terrorists in their missions.
Since its inception, the Internet has lacked a centralized governing body, hence making it freely accessible to everyone with an Internet access around the globe. Consequently, many people have suffered from acts of terrorisms and huge data leaked to the hands of the Internet hackers.
In addition, individuals, corporate organisations, and even governmental bodies have suffered huge losses due to the Internet virus spread coupled with malwares that corrupt computer memories leading to loss of data. In addition, many people have lost trust with the Internet security mechanism for its lenience on tightening security for fear of denying people the freedom of expression over the Internet.
Some countries oppose the idea of introducing central governing bodies for the Internet fearing that their communication technology development might be hampered by the developed countries. In contrast, some developed nations fear that other countries would take that advantage to hinder their development thus opposing the idea of centralised Internet governance.
Internet Governance Forum (IGF)
There is no universal definition of the term “Internet Governance”, which has been agreed upon by the involved stakeholders. The simplest definition of Internet Governance is the management, control, and coordination of the Internet. However, in 2005, the United Nations held the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), in which the delegates agreed upon the definition of the term “Internet Governance”.
According to Kruger, the agreed definition defined the Internet Governance as “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 programs that shape the evolution and use of the Internet”.
The coming of the Internet has led to the changes in the mode of international telecommunications processes in the world. Initially, growth and development of the Internet had been without guidance and participation of intergovernmental processes until the adoption of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in 1973.
However, the Internet had not fully grown to a level of becoming a global communication, economic, political, and social platform as it is in the contemporary times. The role of ITU was to manage and standardize the technical and operation tasks of the Internet, which include the standardization of communication protocols, managing web names, and numerical addresses used over the Internet.
The rapid growth and development of the Internet in many countries all over the world stirred concerns over the introduction of a multi-stakeholder Internet governance rather than giving the United States full control over the management of the Internet.
Fidler claims that the main objective of these countries was “to bring the role of Internet governance within the intergovernmental processes and under the international Internet law treaties”.
In 1988, members of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) adopted the International telecommunication Regulations (ITRs), which according to Fidler ,it “focused on interconnection and universal operation ability of communication services brought about by the growth of the Internet, and hence replaced Telegraph and Telephone Regulations that ITU had espoused upon its adoption in 1973”.
According to Kruger, the ITRs contained the “governing principles rather than rules that formed a simple framework for the international communication cooperation, which are still been in use today”. Over the last few decades, the use and development of the internet in the world has been growing rapidly, and that has posed a great challenge on the Internet governance and administration policies.
Internet governance underscores a wide area of study and it entails a number of administrative aspects that seek to keep Internet content under check. Some policies are difficult for national regulative mechanisms, and thus they require international co-operation, of which some policies are often difficult to agree upon their international uniformity.
There have been heated deliberations over the aspects that touch on Internet governance coupled with the necessary regulations governing the same. According to Kruger, “the United Nations held the World Summit on Information Society (WSIS) in two stages, viz. the first and the second in 2003 and 2005 respectively, which gave momentum to the debate on Internet Governance”.
The ultimate goal of holding the summit was to discuss the methods that would increase the access of communication and information technologies in the applied when applied on the global platform.
Much of the discussions made in the summit relied heavily on the centralisation of the technical administration of the internet, which disappointed a majority of the participants and especially the delegates from the third world countries.
However, a key outcome of the summit was an agreement upon the establishment of the Internet Governance Forum (IGF), and the aim of the governance forum was to bring together multi-stakeholders in its management, which included the governments, industry, and civil societies.
The WSIS of 2003 summit did not reach a consensus because of presence of many disagreements between the proponents and proposers of the adoption of the multi-stakeholder approach to the Internet governance.
While China and third world countries proposed for the adoption of the Multi-stakeholder approach, the United States and other western developed countries advocated for the introduction of more governmental and intergovernmental control mechanisms. Those disagreements led the WSIS to advising the then UN Secretary-General to establishing the Working Group on Internet Governance (WGIG) in December 2004.
Much heated debate over the Internet control led to the confrontation of the WGIG by the parties of both sides. Those confrontations forced the WGIG to recommend the establishment of the Internet Governance Forum (IGF), which was passed on the second WSIS summit in 2005.
However, the initial IGF lacked the decision-making authority, despite its being a multi-stakeholders discussion forum. Moreover, in 2006 ITU members decided to hold an international conference on the international telecommunication for the ITRs that would empathize on the much-evolved international telecommunication environments, which they proposed to hold in 2012.
In 2012, delegates filled the ITU conference on the international telecommunication with heated debates over the stand of the ITU on Internet governance.
Proponents of the multi-stakeholders approach believed that ITU was using the conference as a platform of bringing Internet governance under the control of both the governmental and non-governmental organisations and hindering innovation, growth of the e-commerce, the Internet development, people’s democracy, and the human rights.
Many scholars viewed the idea of the reviewing the ITRs as a move to tie the government regulations on the Internet, and hence keeping the free usage of the Internet away from the future generations. They argued that in order to prevent that case from happening coupled with any fundamental shift concerning the modern Internet governance, influential stakeholders should seek ways of protecting it.
However, the secretary general of ITU, Hamadoun Touré, had stated that the conference would not address any issues relating to the Internet governance, but some members proposed for changes that focused much on Internet governance, and they considered it prudent to hold discussions over them.
For instance, according to Fidler, in an article on the Internet, Russia had discussed on the multi-stakeholder model, viz. “Member States shall have equal rights to manage the Internet, including in regard to the allotment, assignment and reclamation of the Internet numbering, naming, addressing and identification resources, and to support for the operation and development of the basic Internet infrastructure”.
Other forms of proposed revisions on ITRs included the financing model for the Internet communications and measures that affect the security of both computer and the Internet security. Unfortunately, the conference ended without mutual consensus. There were 144 delegates having the voting rights out of whom eighty-nine appended their signs on the revision of ITRs including many from the third world countries, China, and Russia.
On the other hand, delegates from the Unites States, European nations, and Australia did not sign for the revision. The fact that both sides had powerful nations led to the ending of a conference without consensus.
However, the ITU secretary-general noted later that the revised ITRs did not mention the word ‘Internet’; hence, there was a need for the revision and thus he made a resolution to adopt the revision. The new revised ITRs included a preamble language, which required ITU members to remain committed in implementing the proposed regulations in manners, which respected and upheld human rights.
The major difference between this form of language and others is its responsiveness to debates over the human rights and the Internet while others relied heavily on the freedom of expression as the only basic human right over the communication technologies.
In addition, there were articles of the revised ITRs that brought controversies among the members of the ITU. For instance, article 1 contained a provision that allowed private institutions that engage in the provision of international communication services to govern the Internet. This move brought about the question on the purpose and scope of the ITRs to the government of the United States.
Hence, according to Drake, “the United States strongly opposed the provision by arguing that the revised ITRs broadened the scope of Internet governance to the point that the private sector and government operators could play a crucial role in the governance of the Internet across the world”.
There was also a controversy about the added language in the article1.1 (a), which touched on the human rights and addressed the Internet content as a human right. In essence, content-related issues cannot be termed as human rights to the freedom of expression.
The provision failed to convince the majority of members, and as a result, ITU dropped it after much criticism concerning its provision to post harmful contents over the Internet under the human rights provision.
Article 5A provided for the provision of information security and cyber-security by individual member states. The United States strongly opposed that provision and described both ITU and ITRs as inappropriate avenues for the world’s Internet security issues.
The manner in which some developed countries signed the revision of ITRs was questionable to the United States and consequently it viewed Russia and China as geared towards introducing the Internet security covers that could limit the public usage of the Internet at freewill. Hence, it strongly opposed that provision terming it as a risky move to the human rights.
The ITU also adopted an additional revision to the ITRs concerning the enabling of the greater growth of the Internet by all stakeholders called Resolution 3.
However, Resolution 3 was a non-binding regulation though it received much criticism from some countries especially the United States that viewed it as a contravention to the promise by the ITU secretary general, Hamadoun Touré that WCIT would not touch on anything related to the Internet in the discussions.
The United States feared that the proponents of the revision would extend this provision to the point of allowing government and non-government bodies to have great influence over the Internet governance.
However, the reviewed ITRs policies would be put in place at the start of 2015 to the countries that appended the revision. On the other hand, others, who did not append to the revision, would remain bound by the current ITRs. There are various questions about the adverse effect of Internet governance on businesses conditions, planning, decision-making processes, and other important sectors in an economy.
In addition, the scope of Internet governance also seems unclearly defined as to where it should take place, the Internet issues that should be addressed, and outcomes to be sought in the application of Internet governance mechanisms. These serious issues hamper good international relations amongst different states such as Russia, United States, and China.
Lack of consensus in the world conference of international telecommunication (WCIT) hints at a probable lack of signs of a meaningful comprise in the future. Going by the international laws, the WCIT tried to introduce Internet governance as a set of international rules. Opposition by any state to these rules did not pose any danger of prosecution, but rather the consequences of failing to adhere to such rules and policies.
The ITU members realised such discrepancies, which compelled the ambassador of the United States to conclude that his country would support the multi-stakeholders approach of the Internet governance, which incorporates industries, civil societies, and other major stakeholders of economic growth and development.
In October 2006, the UN summit held the first meeting that discussed issues on the Internet Governance Forum. In attendance were the delegates from different economic sectors and countries all over the world.
In addition, those delegates from different sectors that included government, industries, charities, and civil organisations. According to Drake, “the main theme of the conference was Internet Governance for economic growth and development, and had four main subcategories, which included viz. openness, security, access issues, and cultural and linguistic diversity”.
Internet Governance does not make decisions, but it provides an Internet platform for democratic decision-making by setting up dynamic coalitions for the process. The key issues in the dynamic coalitions include privacy, open standards, and rights and responsibilities of the Internet users.
Beginning with the privacy, the Internet governance forum provided for rules that regulate the web and the Internet users about the handling of privacy. Privacy protection is the first step to ensuring the security of the Internet users through emails, web pages, and databases.
Secondly, the Internet security is a major issue of concern in today’s digital world. The major Internet security threats include spam, malwares, and cyberspace attacks. Spam is unwanted message sent by unanimous senders to recipients and mostly contains immoral and security threatening messages. Internet governance has the responsibilities of prohibiting the sending of spam messages over the Internet.
Malware refers to application software products sent over the email and destroys the computer database whenever they run in a computer. However, there is a major concern that Internet governance should also control the Internet content despite it being open and global. However, since the inception of the Internet, it has never been under control of a controlling body or organisation.
The Internet abuse is controllable and Internet governance mechanisms need to be introduced for the execution of the Internet control processes. For instance, in the UK, unlawful Internet content leads to the prosecution whereby the Internet Watch Foundation controls the Internet contents that are abusive to under-aged individuals.
In addition, Ofcom, a UK Internet regulator, works to control the standards of the contents broadcasted over the Internet.
It does not prosecute the law offenders, but its duty is to raise awareness to the stakeholders, who include industries and civil societies among others, about the self-regulatory capability that each have over the content displayed over the Internet. Ofcom is a good example of the Internet governance by the multi-stakeholders.
In the United States, network neutrality policy advocates for equal treatment of the information displayed over the Internet regardless of the nature and impacts of the content. Considering the future of Internet governance, this paper would conclude by saying that it is at a greater stake considering the policies that are available today for governing the Internet content.
This policy has brought issues in the United States over a majority of the Internet users displaying contents that are abusive to minors and insulting to the religious individuals. However, the government emphasizes on the issuance of freedom of expression to its citizens, and hence no limit to the Internet contents.
Through the Internet governance mechanisms, numerous organisations are involved in the administration of the Internet at both the national and international spectrum. The most common organisation that governs internet addresses and security is the Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) located in the United States. In addition, ICANN is a non-profit making organisation for assigning domain names and the IP addresses.
Domain Name System (DNS) is a system for allowing computers to identify each other through unique numerical labels and IP addresses. This system ensures security of the Internet users by the identifications of the computers being used over the Internet, and thus it is easy to track the Internet offenders by the location of the used computers.
University of Southern California was the first institution mandated, by the government of the United States, with the role of issuing DNS and IP addresses until the introduction of ICANN in early1998. The US government mandated ICANN with the role of delegating top-level domain names to some organisations that maintained two level domain names such as.com and.net.
Secondly, it is responsible for allocating blocks of the Internet protocol addresses to five most common regional Internet registries, and thirdly it authorises the creation of high-level domain names.
However, the US department of commerce had much control over the ICANN until in 2006 when a joint agreement to allow it to have full independence over its responsibilities was reached by various government institutions, but the department of commerce has the authority to oversee how ICANN issues the domain registries to some organisations and specific clients.
Internet Governance Forum wishes to introduce new technologies in the governing of the Internet activities that use the detection of the IP addresses of the computers being used for the Internet networking at certain locations. For instance, the Google map application is used in the identification of specific geographical locations of interest all over the world.
Google maps are widely used by navigators as well as the Internet governance bodies such as the United States Marine Corps who use special satellite assisted maps in the identification of locations of interest all over the world. However, some critics argue that Internet governance tends to limit the Internet freedom, and this assertion can be looked into two different perspectives.
First, Internet governance could limit the Internet freedom through allowing much involvement of the government regulators into the regulatory bodies such as the ICANN of the United States.
Secondly, the Internet freedom is denied when the Internet governance mechanisms, which control the nature of the Internet content, are put in place and they end up limiting some individuals from posting contents that are harmful to some individuals such as the Ofcom, which protects the minors.
Works Cited
Benedek, Wolfgang, Veronica Bauer, and Matthias Ketterman. Internet Governance and the Information Society: Global Perspectives and European Dimensions, New Jersey: Eleven International Publishing, 2008. Print.
Drake, William. Reforming Internet Governance: Perspectives from the Working Group on Internet Governance, New York: United Nations Publications, 2005. Print.
Fidler, David. “Internet Governance and International Law: The Controversy Concerning Revision of the International Telecommunication Regulations.” American Society of International Law 17.6 (2013): 7-14.
Gelbstein, Eduardo, and Jovan Kurbalija. Internet governance: issues, actors, and divides, Merbourne: Diplo Foundation, 2005. Print.
Kruger, Leonard. Internet Governance and the Domain Name System: Issues for Congress, Washington, D.C: The Library Congress, 2010. Print.
Mathiason, John. Internet Governance: The New Frontier of Global Institutions, London: Routlegde, 2008. Print.
Mueller, Milton. Ruling the root: Internet governance and the taming of cyberspace, Washington D.C.: MIT Press, 2004. Print.
Thierer, Adam, and Wayne Crews. Who rules the net: Internet governance and jurisdiction, Boston: Cato Institute, 2003. Print.
United Nations ICT Task Force. Internet Governance: A Grand Collaboration: an Edited Collection of Papers Contributed to the United Nations ICT Task Force Global Forum on Internet Governance, New York: United Nations Publications, 2004. Print.
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