Empowerment of non-governmental actors from outside the United

States in multistakeholder Internet governance

Alejandro Pisanty

Departamento de Fsica y Qumica Terica, Facultad de Qumica, Universidad Nacional

Autnoma de Mxico, Av. Universidad 3000, 04510 Mxico, DF, Mxico

Email: apisan@unam.mx

1. Abstract

This paper reports research on the empowerment of Internet governance actors

from developing countries, BRICS and the European Union, with emphasis on the

first, relative to the US. The main findings are that non-governmental actors find

particularly strong empowerment in the multistakeholder arrangements, compared

to alternatives such as multilateral institutions; and that paradoxical effects may

arise within stakeholder groups. Examples are provided for ICANN, the IGF, the

construction of new RIRs, IXPs, the Internet Governance Forum and the

NetMundial meeting of 2014. Some aspects from NetMundial that may not scale to

the other mechanisms are discussed.

2. Introduction

a. This paper started as a reply to a project in the Hague Institute based on the

following question (numbering in original):

RQ3: Do current Internet governance arrangements empower the United States at the expense of developing countries, emerging BRICS and the EU?

Prompt: For many years, there have been complaints that the Internet is US-centric

and that some of the basic governance institutions are under US control. This research

should attempt to find out whether these charges are true. The research should identify how

the US benefits from existing Internet governance arrangements (if it benefits at all) and

how non-US parties are harmed or handicapped (if at all). One specific aspect to consider is

whether the US government should give up its special authority over the Internets domain

name system. What would be the risks and potential benefits of doing so, and what, if

anything, should replace it?

The research for this paper led to investigate empowerment outside the

intergovernmental sphere in more depth, with some surprising results.

The data that back the conclusions of this paper have been obtained from ICANN and

the IGF reports, as well as from a review of archives and the authors own participation. I

have chosen to present a more narrative writing, while preparing a separate publication

oriented to the numerical data in detail. Discussion is available upon request.

.

b. Setting the scene

i. Multistakeholder Internet governance has become an issue of the

day for broad audiences in 2013-2014, meriting mentions in broadly

distributed general media such as the magazine The Economist and

several newspapers in the United States.

ii. ICANN has also become an object of news and comment in

mainstream media, especially in the United States (US), as the US

government has announced a major change in its relations with the

organization (a change in the oversight of the IANA or Internet

Assigned Names Authority function performed by ICANN.) A flurry

of proposals, discussions and flame wars has ensued and is on its

way to last at least into late 2015.

iii. The golden paradigm of Internet governance is often referred to the

Internet Engineering Task Force so this work will start by exploring

the impact of this organization, followed by a description of

mulstistakeholder Internet governance and an analysis of its

manifestations in different organizations under the light of

empowerment of non-US actors formulated in the original research

question.

c. The IETF in the Internet governance imaginary

The Internet Engineering Task Force was set together in the very early years of the

Internet as the venue in which Internet standards are created, that is, where the behaviors of

the Internets technical protocols are set in order to ensure interoperability among devices,

software and technologies.

Very early in the history of the Internet the engineers, computer scientists, and many

others who were creating the technologies realized that, as in any other

telecommunications-related field, a level of standardization was needed for interoperability

and thus as a foundation for innovation. Some of them sought out the ITU (International

Telecommunications Union) for this purpose and were rejected. Previous work in

standardization of telecommunications protocols had taken place in the ISO (International

Standardization Organization) and produced the Open Systems Interconnect (OSI) model.

Thus it was clear that the standardization process for Internet protocols would have to

take on completely different characteristics than the ITUs processes. It would have to be

lightweight, agile, in direct contact with the technologies creators and very much in their

hands. Since many of these creators were working individually (albeit in some cases in

large companies) or in small outfits, the formalities and overhead of the standardization

process would have to be minimal. Further, for a new technology, the process of standards

development would at times be interlaced with that of technology creation itself.

The Internet would bring together several cultures in which either individual

independence or collective growth were primal; both were outside the margins of the

conventional telecommunications establishment of the time. From these roots would

emerge the Declaration of Independence of Cyberspace, the statement we only have rough

consensus and running code, and various other threads of cyberutopianism.

In these the IETF was both recognized and at times idealized, but certainly became a

paradigm that in turn has become an ethic in itself, the standard against which other

decision-making or governance mechanisms would be measured. This is the paradigm of

equitable, open participation, of meritocracy, of a flat organization, of self-management, of

accountability by all-eyes vigilance, and of the measure of success by efficacy. While it

may be documented that reality is less than perfect, the paradigm both holds at the IETF

and holds sway in a broader community of Internet stakeholders involved in governance

debates. In particular, when the need for a transition from Postels IANA to a more

complex organization was identified, being like the IETF was in most minds as an ideal,

and deviations would be failures that needed justification.

d. Definitions and baselines

For the sake of space, the reader is referred to the working definition of Internet governance

crafted by the WGIG (Working Group on Internet Governance) for the WSIS (World

Summit on the Information Society.)

Multistakeholderism as a concept and a noun was introduced in the Internet governance

environment during and after the World Summit on the Information Society. During the

Summit a group of governments realized that Internet governance was working quite well

without their participation and demanded a place at the table, under wordings such as

equal participation of all stakeholders.

The use of the word multistakeholderism should be limited because the ism suggests a

belief, a faith or an ideology, or a trend. In so far as it appears in this paper it will be

shorthand for participation of all [or many different] stakeholders. In this context, each

adoption of such a model becomes an instantiation of the more general concept of

multistakeholder governance, and adopts a particular version of that concept to meet its

needs.

When this language was incorporated into the resolutions of WSIS, the jargon in the field

started requiring that all organizations and mechanisms be multistakeholder as shorthand

for participation of all stakeholders.

It is useful to establish some baselines to measure degrees of involvement of multiple

groups of stakeholders and its efficacy.

The main measures of the involvement of stakeholders in an Internet governance

mechanism or organization have to be breadth (outward looking how many stakeholder

groups are involved, how diverse and broad they are) and impact (inward looking what

does the stakeholders participation achieve.)

Thus for example the ITUs claim to be a multistakeholder forum in the context of Internet

governance, or even telecommunications governance, is hollow. The ITUs decision-

making is formally performed only by governments. In recent years part of it, in specific

fields like technical standards, has been partially delegated to Study Groups whose

decisions can be used as final, but the membership continues to be mostly from large

telecommunications companies and their equally large suppliers. The organizations that are

members of the ITU and not governments or large companies are trade associations. There

are very few exceptions to this rule (the International Committee of the Red Cross, the

International Astronomical Union, the Internet Society, all with restrained, special roles, are

the prime examples.)

Multistakeholder participation mechanisms in decision making has a history that long

predates Internet governance. In particular one can mention the governance of the

environment and phenomena related to it such as anthropogenic climate change and the

more specific global warming. Environmental governance with the participation of

stakeholders from civil society, environmental science experts, industry and governments

has taken hold at the local, other subnational, national, supranational regional, and global

levels (Kane and Haas, 2004) and more recently see the work of the IPCC

(Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change)

To varying degrees multistakeholder participation has an impact in many other fields of

human activity: health, weapons control and traffic (notably landmines), trade, labor, etc.

(Lipschutz and Fotel, 2002)

3. Multistakeholder participation in Internet Governance

a. ICANN (for domain names)

From its inception ICANN was premised on the participation of all stakeholders (White

Paper). This was a result of the proposed privatization of the administration of the DNS and

the ensuing international as well as US-based debates. The original proposal would have

transferred the IANA function to a private operator in the United States.strong calls from

the European Union and others for international participation and the calls from non-

profits, academics, and others for participation derived in a complex institutional design.

Originally the stakeholders meant to participate in ICANN were understood to be direct

stakeholders of the central coordination of domain names, IP addresses and protocol

parameters. Concentrating on the DNS in particular, this meant TLD registries and

registrars, ISPs and connectivity providers, businesses using the DNS for their activities,

domain-name holders in the academic and non-profit sectors, as well as the contribution of

technical knowledge and guidance for future technical evolution of the system.

Universities and research institutions were considered stakeholders mostly as a source of

innovation and a space of experimentation in technology, and a source of political-science,

economics and related knowledge. Added to this, due to their own and their clients

pressure, were intellectual-property concerns separately from the businesses themselves.

ccTLD (country-coded top-level domain) managers were initially part of the DNSO

(Domain Names Supporting Organization.) The later emergence of the ccNSO (Country-

coded Names Supporting Organization) as a separate Supporting Organization gave them

further empowerment.

More recently a more expansive view of stakeholders of ICANN has taken root. In this

view, every human being has something at stake in the Internet, even if he/she is not using

it, and structures and rules have been adapted to progressively include new stakeholder

groups.

The name constituency was adopted to group stakeholders by interest; the constituencies

at ICANNs foundation, in the DNSO, were registries, registrars, business, intellectual

property, Internet service and connectivity providers, non-commercial domain-name

holders, and ccTLDs, and an unsuccessful attempt was made to create an individual

domain-name holders constituency.

Under different guises ICANN has further opened the At Large, a space for the general

users of the Internet, considering that there may be questions which concern them all above

and across interests in domain names, IP addresses and protocol parameters. Initially these

at large users were also designed to directly elect Directors to the Board. The way to

achieve this was negotiated for an initial experiment in a global election

The unsatisfactory results of this experiment led in turn to a replacement mechanism in

which the ALAC (At Large Advisory Committee) carries the voice of general users through

a process based on organizations. These are brought together based on a Web of Trust

concept which limits certain grave risks of capture and other distortions (at a price which

continues to be acceptable.) Presently the at large users elect a Director through the

mechanisms of the ALAC.

The At Large structure, while evolving, provides avenues for the direct participation in

ICANN processes for participants from the European Union, developing countries and the

BRICS. The RALOs (Regional At Large Organization) show heterogeneous development;

those working best are able to have an impact on ICANN policy at a pace not available

through the lengthy, indirect more-traditional governmental and intergovernmental

consultation and decision-making processes.

Participants from the BRICS also cover a broad spectrum of activity and involvement, with

notable participation from Brazil and India. .

Another instance of ICANN which initially enabled and attracted a strong participation

from developing countries and Europe, as well as South Korea and Japan, was the Non-

Commercial Domain-Name Holders Constituency (NCDNHC), which later morphed into

today's Non-Commercial Users Constituency (NCUC.)

Developing-country and other non-US participation in the NCDNHC evolved at a par with

technical- and academic-community participation in the first years (1998/9-2003), then

diminished dramatically in quantity and intensity. After 2003 many universities had left,

and organizations like EDUCAUSE as well as some from outside the US like KAIST

(Korean Institute of Science and Technology, whose presence initially was led by Prof.

Kilnam Chon) stopped taking part in discussions. They may have stayed as members and

even contributed to financing the Constituency out of principle, but their representatives

have gone silent.

The shift came around 2003 with the redrafting of the Constituencys Bylaws handing

control to a small group of mostly US participants, and the concentration of the

Constituencys discussions on privacy (which members from outside the US and maybe

Europe saw as a second-order interest at the time, and many still do, especially in

connection with ICANN and domain names as compared as threats in other areas) and

ICANN procedural matters. Figures such as number and origin of participants, an

assessment of their involvement in the NCDNHC/NCUCs online and face-to-face

discussions, and interviews held since even earlier or for the purposes of this paper support

this conclusion firmly.

We can thus state that the cycle of empowerment of non-US constituents in the

NCDNHC/NCUC started and grew in a healthy way, then was cut off by US-based

organizations, individuals and points of view. Some of these constituents left ICANN

completely, others started activity in the At Large which was renewed at the same time, and

some of either and a few more are applying their efforts to the Non-Profit Operational

Concerns Constituency (NPOC.) This loss of empowerment caused within the sector itself

is the most notable paradoxical result of those mentioned early in this paper.

Of no less importance are two changes made to membership rules for the NCDNHC/NCUC

in the early 2000s. The first one was the removal of requirements for membership from

domain-name holders to a more open membership of users in general, thus diminishing

the linkage to ICANN policy and therefore the strength of commitment to policy-

development results. The second was the removal of requirements for membership from

organizations to the admission of individuals. Again this diminishes the linkage and

commitment to the results of policy development.

A further consequence of these shifts is the almost vanishing accountability and

requirement of transparency upon members, which results in uncertainty about whether

individuals taking part in the NCDNHC/NCUC are speaking for their organizations, with

some kind of consultation or even more formal processes determining their positions, or

only voicing their personal views.

The accumulated result of the current non-commercial representation is unfavorable to

empowerment of developing countries. It may work well for individuals and organizations

from the BRICS and Europe.

b. RIRs and empowerment for development

RIRs are the Regional Internet Registries, which manage the allocation of IP addresses and

a few other numerical Internet identification resources such as ASNs (Autonomous

Systems Numbers.) IP addresses are known to a fraction of Internet users whereas ASNs

are much more arcane, and of interest only to ISPs, network planners, operators and

administrators, IT managers, and people such as information security specialists.

IP address allocations were originally made in very large blocks (1/8 of the space could be

allocated to a single organization). As the Internet grew it became evident that a principle

of parsimony would have to obtain for a fair, durable allocation. Addresses are allocated

generally following a needs-based justification approach, in quantities sufficient for the

smooth operation of the recipient but otherwise only as large as justified by trends in use of

the already-allocated resources. I am deliberately not using the words classes or blocks

in order to skim over their technical implications as terms of art.

IP address allocation was originally a function of IANA only; later on it was restructured

into a central registry and a user-facing allocation unit and passed to ARIN in North

America and taken over for their regions by RIPE and APNIC (colorful history abridged

here.)

Technical considerations are of great importance in IP address allocation. The main

concerns are technical rationality, uniqueness of allocations, compactness and other

characteristics to optimize routing, and resource conservation, especially in IPv4.

As the Internet expanded beyond North America, and later also outside Japan, Europe and

other technologically developed countries, ISPs and network operators (many of them in

academic institutions at the time) started taking part in the decision-making processes of

ARIN, RIPE and APNIC. These (mostly) engineers were competent and received thorough,

cutting-edge training on many aspects of the Internets technology, economics and policy-

making by participating in these processes. The results of this training were expanded in

their countries of origin by the training they gave to other technology-related personnel as

well as the insights they shared with the leaders of their organizations. This processes

propagated not only technical knowledge but also policy-oriented experience and thought.

An important note for reflection on multistakeholder participation: many of these

professionals combined in a single person the now-established stakeholder groups of

technical community, academic community, civil society, business and government, either

simultaneously or over relatively short periods of time. They would be the only people

knowledgeable about the Internet in their countries and thus have to perform several duties;

they may have started working in academic institutions and then moved to government or

the private (for-profit) sector; and they were active in social-service projects bringing last-

mile connectivity, online content development, and capacity building to disadvantaged

communities, while taking part in influencing government policies and large-ISP policies,

either in consultations or in public protests, as well as by their writing in the press and

blogs. This contradicts and is severely damaged by the later form of multistakeholder

organization which places people in silos with non-porous walls. The compartmentalization

is also a feature of NetMundial, where it manifests itself for example in the existence of a

separate speakers queue for each stakeholder group.

Once ICANN and its basic relationships with the RIR community were established, and

since the use of IP addresses in Latin America and Africa were growing at a high speed,

leaders in these communities started planning and presenting options for managing the

numerical resources in-region.

The multistakeholder, participatory, competence-building construction of LACNIC and

AFRINIC was prompt and effective. It had to cut through numerous obstacles and was

aided by good-faith cooperation and large investments of energy and work by the then-

existing RIRs. Governments and regulators were also suspicious and often tried to

intervene unfavorably with mantras from the telecommunications owned-networks

paradigm such as national management of technical numbering plans, which are not

applicable for IP addresses and ASNs. In parallel there was a battle on this subject in the

ITU, with then ITU-T Director Houlin Zhao pushing a compulsory national-allocation

scheme which finally did not succeed.

LACNIC is the Regional Internet Registry for Latin America and the Caribbean. It was

formed in order that the region have and operate its own IP address registry and therefore

not have its registry functions exerted by ARIN, as was originally. AFRINIC, started a few

years later, serves Africa with the same purpose. The coordination effort to build AFRINIC

faced more hurdles than LACNIC, given the larger diversity including languages of

Africa and the lower resources as well as development level of networks and capacities.

Additionally, it was harder for AFRINIC proponents to deal with governments closer to the

ITU, with fewer officials involved in the Internet.

LACNIC was built mostly by Internet community members from the region who were

technically knowledgeable and involved in Internet operations, often requiring resources

from ARIN. AFRINIC had a similar relationship with RIPE.

The advantage of LACNIC over ARIN is that it can operate with parameters adequate to its

region, such as minimal size of IP allocations, discussions in languages of choice in the

region, and support available closer to the users (an RIRs users and members are mostly

ISPs; stakeholders most involved include these and the technical community closer to the

IETF. The same applies to AFRINIC but for the language issue.

LACNIC and AFRINIC have developed into solid organizations which undertake their

duties in a competent manner. They are able to work both in the cutting-edge environment

of the RIRs most advanced policy issues (involving e.g. cryptology and cryptography for

the RPKI scheme to increase security in IP address management) and in the more basic

capacity building that allows the emergence, growth and consolidation of small ISPs and

other Internet businesses in their regions. Further they work constantly together with other

Internet community members to improve the public understanding of Internet technology

and policy issues in regional and national contexts.

LACNIC and AFRINIC use their funds, staffing, infrastructure and clout for action related

to stewardship of a healthy, evolving Internet ecosystem in their regions. This action is

reflected in funding for projects that support continuing growth of Internet penetration and

use, as well as capacity building; prizes to stimulate and recognize outstanding community

members; participation in regional organizations such as CITEL (Inter-American

Telecommunications Commission, the ITU counterpart in the region); education, outreach

and policy discussions with all stakeholders including government; collaboration with

ccTLD managers, particularly those who historically have also been NIRs (National

Internet Registries) or otherwise involved in IP address policy.

LACNIC and AFRINICs constituents are primarily ISPs and network operators. The

majority of the participants in their policy forums and decision-making come from these

two groups. Due to the diversity of institutional origin they do represent a broader

stakeholder group. Further, these two registries outward-looking activities make them the

center of much multistakeholder activity.

Thus, LACNIC and AFRINIC are true multistakeholder organizations which have resulted

from the empowerment of developing-country Internet communities and continue to

contribute to a geometric growth of this empowerment.

c. IXPs

IXPs (Internet Exchange Points) are computer and network sites in which ISPs and other

network operators interconnect their networks to exchange IP-protocol traffic. The basic

physical infrastructure of an IXP is a box, a switch or router, into which cables coming

from the different interconnected parties are connected.

IXPs, as NAPs (Network Access Points) earlier, connect and exchange traffic assuming

peer interconnection, i.e. the traffic volumes exchanged are similar enough to and from the

different parties that it is less expensive to exchange without charging than calculating

detailed rates and charges. Administratively the IXP is mostly a good-faith agreement

among the parties.

In many developing countries IXPs may bring positive effects to the functioning of the

Internet: they may avoid expensive sending and receiving traffic across borders to

interconnect abroad, shorten and make more predictable the actual paths IP packets

traverse, diminish delay and jitter, and thus reduce costs for all involved and improve the

user experience.

In markets where there is monopoly, quasi-monopoly or oligopoly in the physical layer,

incumbent telco/ISPs may have no incentive to interconnect in this fashion and IXPs thus

become harder to finance and operate, but they still can be based on the workable

proposition that they will either be large enough to peer with the incumbent or at least they

will be able to aggregate traffic for exchanging as clients and reduce rates and costs.

Further, content providers, OSPs (Online Service Providers such as search engines, email

and portal providers, etc.), OTTs (Over The Top services such as video streaming on

demand), and CDNs (Content Distribution Networks) can place servers at the IXPs to

shorten their own paths close to the consumer, with additional gains for all.

In recent years there has been a revived trend to build and operate IXPs in developing

countries. They are being built by multistakeholder alliances. At their core are ISPs and

data centers, and possibly entities like universities or academic networks (especially

NRENs, National Research and Education Networks), and lobbying and negotiation are

accompanied and strengthened by other stakeholders. Business models vary but rarely are

based on for-profit companies only. The most recent IXPs at the time of this writing are in

the Gambia and one is starting operations in Mexico, mostly as an alliance between the

NREN or National Research and Education Network (CUDI, Corporacin Universitaria

para el Desarrollo de Internet, the Mexican Internet-2 counterpart), Kio, a for-profit data

center, and smaller ISPs, and has attracted donations or facilitating operations from content

providers.

The IXPs thus provide empowerment to the Internet communities of developing countries

vis--vis foreign telecommunications providers and in-country incumbents, on the basis of

multistakeholder collaboration.

d. Internet Governance Forum (IGF)

The Internet Governance Forum is a unique construct that brings together diverse

stakeholders to annual meetings under the aegis of the UN. Its multistakeholder character,

beyond the mere enumeration of participants, should be assessed by comparison to

mechanisms like the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, mentioned

earlier.)

The IPCC is more able to reach and publish resolutions than the IGF. The IPCC is oriented

to negotiated outcomes because of the stronger role governments play they have final

word and may be bound by the agreements reached. Experience also shows that the

intergovernmental nature of the IPCCs final decision-making may lead to logjam.

The IGF favors non-US participation and gives non-governmental participants much higher

weight in the organization of the meeting (through the MAG, (Multistakeholder Advisory

Group) and its conduct than regular UN (United Nations) proceedings.

Of the stakeholder groups identified by the IGF Secretariat for statistical purposes, Civil

Society has shown the most growth and presence. Developing-country, European and

BRICS participation is strong. Participation from countries with strong governmental

control and limitations on civil-society self-organization is biased towards government. In

general, businesses are the least represented sector both in the organization and in the

meetings themselves. There are wide variations in the geographic composition of

participants by region where the meetings are held. This is due both to geographical

proximity which makes travel easier, and to specific causes like subsidies to travel granted

by the host country and by regional organizations. See figure 1.

e. NetMundial

NetMundial was premised on multistakeholder participation and was oriented from the start

to deal with some forms of US asymmetric weight in Internet governance. While the

meeting resulted in large part from a strong reaction to the Snowden announcements, i.e.

revelations about US and alliesmassive surveillance of communications, the derivation to

other issues of Internet governance made less clear which these would be. It is not

surprising that ICANN was once again put in the center of debates, in this case also

possibly because of ICANN CEOs co-convenership of the meeting.

It is impossible for now to know in detail how much NetMundial was oriented to enhancing

developing-country, BRICS and EU participation because the participant selection had a

non-transparent step which still has to be investigated. However the statistics of the meeting

do reveal a relatively broad geographic participation, also across functional sectors.

NetMundial produced an outcome document through a process focused on two issues only,

namely the search for principles for Internet governance and a roadmap for its evolution,

which ended up concentrating on ICANN (the IANA transition) and the IGF.

NetMundial left most of its participants at ease with the result, albeit all with some

objections or reservations. Observers opinions are also not strongly unfavorable at the time

of this writing.

Three factors differentiate NetMundial from other processes described in this paper and

may mean that the method and products may not be easily transferred and scaled to other

organizations and processes:

i. NetMundial was a highly driven event, with very strong process

control by its organizers. The top-down character of this control was

mildly buffered by inclusion of accepted members of stakeholder

communities in the organizing and operational structures.

ii. NetMundials drive came from a small number of actors with strong

and temporarily tightly aligned incentives. The ICANN CEOs drive

to involve the ICANN community (and more broadly the technical

organizations involved) aligned well with the Brazilian government

and other Brazilian participants intent of gaining attention and

scoring some form of major achievement. This does not detract from

longer-term drivers in Brazil but did catalyze events such as the

passing of the Marco Civil legislation in that country.

iii. NetMundial left behind the IGF precautionary advice of not

attempting to obtain agreed text from a multistakeholder meeting.

This IGF precaution has been based on long-standing multilateral

experience in which national interests may cause complex conflicts

and negotiations, and of all other types of negotiation where the

binding or even indicative character of the agreements causes all

parties to harden their positions in order to contain possible damages.

iv. A draft of what would become the final outcome text existed for

months before the meeting and was negotiated mostly in a small

group away from open participation. At least one version of it was

held closely by officials of the government of Brazil who consulted

selectively on it. Disclosure came only following strong public

pressure after a possible version of the draft was published in

Wikileaks. The similitude of the leaked text to the versions that

became public confirm that the leak was indeed a document in

process.

v. The NetMundial process and text show significant effects of this

approach. One example among many is the sudden, last-minute

appearance of negotiators and text in defense of copyright. Another

is the give-and-take till the last minute on the fundamental issue of

whether stakeholders roles would be constrained (as in the WSIS

texts) or flexible, as it finally turned out.

vi. In part most stakeholders were able to allow some slack in their

positions on the NetMundial outcome text based on the reaffirmed

non-binding character of the meeting and document, and the

perspective of continuing the pursuit of their strategies in more

meetings and mechanisms down the road. Russia was able to decry

failures of the meeting counting on its leverage in the upcoming ITU

Plenipotentiary as much as the US intellectual-property industry

could be satisfied with a general statement about respect to all

rights counting on the venues it has in treaty negotiations (TPP

Trans-Pacific Partnership and its Transatlantic equivalent), WIPO

(World Intellectual Property Organization), WTO (World Trade

Organization), and national laws and courts. Forum shopping is still

going on.

The approach of this paper is to explore the extent and importance of empowerment of non-

governmental actors. The metrics therefore can be reduced to a comparison between

measures or indicators of empowerment of non-governmental actors vis--vis governmental

actors, in the frameworks of ICANN, the IGF and others studied.

For this purpose then the figure of merit, if a single one is sought, will be the ratio between

the relevant participation numbers.

Without going into extreme detail, in ICANN the easiest measure to take is ccTLD

participation against government participation for the same geographical entity. Figures

show a consistent, years-long significant difference in favor of ccTLD participants.

f. Are the European Union, the BRICS and developing countries

disenfranchised/disempowered?

i. Governments vis--vis non-governmental actors

1. The US has had a preponderant though diminishing role in

ICANN, both in the organization in general and in key points

such as holding the legal instruments for ICANNs existence

(MoU, JPA, AoC, and the IANA contract.)

2. Progressively other countries have eroded the asymmetry. In

particular the EU, Japan, Australia, and individual European

countries have acquired weight. This is particularly clear in

the GAC, in which issues like data protection and geographic

indicators have slowed policy-development processes almost

to a halt (witness the data protection issues regarding domain-

name registration, and the .vin/.wine controversy over

regional denominations in the second level.)

ii. Degrees of influence, speed, impact

1. A detailed measurement of degrees of influence by different

actors is left for a separate publication.

2. The degree of influence of organizations in Internet

governance is determined among other factors by the speed at

which they can make and disseminate proposals, as well as

react to changing circumstances.

3. Through speed and agility, organizations may amplify their

weight and influence by agenda-setting for others.

iii. Empowerment and disempowerment by factor: structural,

evolutionary, governmental and non-governmental

1. Enfranchisement or empowerment of the concerned actors

may be structural or circumstantial, and evolve in different

directions (increasing or decreasing empowerment) over

time. Further, these factors or trends may depend on the

action of different actors, be they governmental or members

of the community itself.

2. ICANN structurally empowers parties in participation for

decision-making by providing an open participation in all its

platforms and a cost-free registration for attendance to

physical meetings. Further, meetings are structurally

mandated to take place in all regions over time; this

compensates for the costs of travel to the meetings in two

ways, first, by reducing distances for travel, second, because

in developing regions there are regional and other organisms

which may subsidize travel. Empowerment is a relative term

and in this paragraph it is meant at the very least in

comparison with mechanisms outside ICANN.

3. Participation in meetings shows some patterns over the years.

Host country participation may be tenfold the participation of

that countrys nationals abroad depending on where meetings

are held. Total numbers of participants grow over the years.

Regional participation is also larger for meetings held in-

region than outside.

4. Participation is enhanced, especially for newcomers and

weakly-endowed parties, by Fellowship programs, outreach,

the creation of sessions for newcomer orientation, a

newcomers lounge, etc. These apply equally to all

stakeholders but apparently are used more by non-

governmental actors, non-native English speakers, etc.

5. Participation is deterred and disempowerment sets in by some

of the following factors: constant, intense, often colloquial

use of English language, bandwidth and Internet availability

asymmetries, use of idioms in language, acronyms, and social

conduct.

6. The technical community of developing countries comes to

ICANN meeting with a larger shared language with the

technical community in general than may happen with other

stakeholder groups. To a degree something similar happens

with businesses. The gains for the technical community are

particularly important. The empowerment of developing-

country technical communities is under risk by the increasing

silo classification of participants, in cases where they are

placed together with the academic institutions in which they

often work. A sign can be observed in the NPOCs recovery

of their participation in ICANN.

7. Developing-country civil-society organizations are at the

most risk of disempowerment. Besides the general perception

that their contributions are more to the frameworks than to

the actual conduct of ICANNs issues, the larger language

and cultural diversity, the lower level of connection or direct

interest at stake in the outcomes of ICANNs processes, these

organizations are often marginalized and even feel bullied

within some of the civil-society and other non-commercial

contexts of ICANN by participants from the global North

who speak English fluently, are able to maintain permanent

contact networks by attendance to other events, and have a

set agenda. On the other hand, the excessive concentration of

the At Large participant organizations and the ALAC on

representation and procedural issues militates against their

contribution to the effectiveness of ICANN and thus alienates

possible participants who prefer to apply their energy in

efforts that yield more tangible or urgent results.

8. This is one of the sets of explanations of the secession in non-

commercial space that gave rise to the NPOC, at the expense

of the NCUC, and that strengthen the regional conduct of

issues within the At Large space. Discussions within RALOs

can take place in regionally dominant languages and within

shared cultures in which legal systems are not a minor

consideration. Further, their meetings may warrant

simultaneous translation at least among two significant

regional languages or one of them and a lingua franca like

English.

iv. Winners and losers varying over time as the size of the pie grows and

interests change

4. Democratic deficit

a. For discussion purposes I will understand as democratic deficit as the

difference between the multistakeholder system and a full, imaginary and

heterogeneous, democratic system.

b. The deficit is found mostly in: limited guarantee for full representation of

potentially affected parties; work not conducted within the frameworks of

elected representation by universal vote.

c. A bitter truth is that maybe two thirds of humankind live in a democratic

deficit well before this is discussed for Internet governance, as measured by

the preceding paragraph.

d. The democratic deficit problem can be solved by involving an increasing

number of stakeholders, and adapting processes to increase their participation

and its effects. While by some measures this may be insufficient, progress is

constant.

e. The use of the category democratic deficit as comparison with a purely

multilateral intergovernmental system is a perversion of the term.

5. ICANN, IANA, NTIA, IGF and the future of Internet governance agreements and

negotiations

a. From the point of view of this paper, the evolution of Internet governance

arrangements related to the issues under ICANNs responsibility will have to

be based on the participation of all stakeholders. The often added

qualification in their respective roles impoverishes the field and adds to the

drought already started by the insistence of a silo approach to stakeholder

groups.

b. The Internet grew not only because of its engineering and engineers, but very

much by the engagement of truly Renaissance men and women who were

able to connect engineering and a long view for society. The evolution of

Internet governance needs to recover this multidisciplinary character.

c. From the point of view of this paper the evolution of the system need be

based in the constant empowerment of non-governmental actors, acting freely

and in advance of the establishment of formal, anchylosis-riddled systems.

This growth, based on loose coupling and subsidiarity, allows for prompt,

effective identification of new issues and response to them to a large extent as

well.

6. Conclusions

a. Leaving to a side intergovernmental relations and roles, the evolving regimes

of multistakeholder participation in Internet governance empower

organizations in developing countries, the BRICS and the European Union

more than traditional intergovernmental-only and multilateral mechanisms

do.

b. Paradoxical effects appear, such as communities of a given group of

stakeholders actually stifling participation from non-US organizations more

than the rest of the system does.

c. The evolution of Internet governance organizations and arrangements must

continue to proactively open doors to all stakeholders in a loose-coupling,

issue-defined and solution-oriented manner.

7. Acknowledgments.

The author wishes to thanks The Hague Institute for Global Justice for

admission of this paper for competitive participation in the project and event

of the Global Governance Reform Initiative: The Global Governance of

Cyberspace, and support to present it; an anonymous reviewer for

observations helpful in defining the focus of the final work; and Dr. Sash

Jayawardane, at The Hague Institute for Global Justice, for multiple forms

of support. Thanks are due to Prof. Laura De Nardis for her careful critique

of a version of this paper.

This paper benefitted from the careful reading and deep critique by George

Sadowsky (ret. NYU CIO) and Michael D. Roberts (Darwin Consulting);

needless to say I thank them for their invaluable contribution and exempt

them from any blame for my failures and those of this paper.

Facultad de Qumica UNAM provides a rich multidisciplinary environment

for this work and granted leave of absence for the Hague meeting.

References

ICANN Strategy Panel on ICANNs Role in the Internet Governance Ecosystem, Report,

https://www.icann.org/en/about/planning/strategic-engagement/governance-

ecosystem/report-23feb14-en.pdf visited 30.04.2014

N. Kane and P.M. Haas, eds. Emerging Forces in Environmental Governance, United

Nations University Press, Tokyo, 2004; see in particular fig. 4.1 in p. 81

Ronnie D. Lipschutz and Cathleen Fogel, Regulation for the rest of us? Global civil

society and the privatization of transnational regulation, in The Emergence of Private

Authority in Global Governance, R.B. Hall and T.J. Biersteker eds., Cambridge University

Press, Cambridge (UK), 2002, p. 115-140

Figures

Figure 1a. IGF attendance by stakeholder sector

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

45

50

2004 2006 2008 2010 2012 2014

Civil Society

Private Sector

Internet Community

Media

Government

IGO

Figure 1b. IGF attendance by region

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10

20

30

40

50

60

2004 2006 2008 2010 2012 2014

Asia-Pacific

Host Country

Eastern Europe

Africa

Latin America

Western Europe andOthers