Why Internet Governance Is (or Isn't) Like Climate Change
Milton Mueller (together with a large distinguished team of academics) has put together a very short paper [pdf] suggesting that a framework of norms and principles be established for internet governance.
The team's paper should be taken seriously. They make the provocative suggestion that “The [internet governance] situation is very similar to that which was faced in dealing with climate change in the 1980's,” and so therefore innovative institutional ideas are needed — for climate change, the UN established a “framework convention” that set some key groundrules, and some similar effort (the team intimates) should be started here by the UN.
Hmm. Climate change. According to the UN,
“The average temperature of the earth's surface has risen by 0.6 degrees C since the late 1800s. It is expected to increase by another 1.4 to 5.8 degrees C by the year 2100 — a rapid and profound change. Even if the minimum predicted increase takes place, it will be larger than any century-long trend in the last 10,000 years. . . .
The current warming trend is expected to cause extinctions. Numerous plant and animal species, already weakened by pollution and loss of habitat, are not expected to survive the next 100 years. Human beings, while not threatened in this way, are likely to face mounting difficulties. Recent severe storms, floods and droughts, for example, appear to show that computer models predicting more frequent “extreme weather events” are on target.”
The internet is like the climate in that it affects everyone and doesn't obey geographical boundaries. There's a problem with the climate — it's getting hotter because of industrialization. So we have to cooperate to figure out how to turn the heat down. That's a hard problem.
But what's the “problem” with the internet? Doesn't suggesting a hybrid institutional approach modeled on climate change assume that there's a problem? And doesn't suggesting a “framework” suggest in turn that someone should be in charge — and that someone is the UN?
So — just asking questions here, guys – okay, the internet is a dynamic biosphere, fine. But I'm not convinced the internet biosphere is in trouble other than from well-meaning efforts to “govern” it. And I'm worried that the internet is more susceptible to international “governance” (closing-down) efforts — all in the name of security and protection against IP infringement — than the climate is.
We need World Net Day.
Comments
4 Responses to “Why Internet Governance Is (or Isn't) Like Climate Change”
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Susan,
try to ask to a Cambodian who can't even get his own script standardized right by Unicode, or to an average African whose Internet access fee per minute is a significant fraction of the average monthly salary because of the global interconnection pricing model, whether there are any problems with the Internet.
Your reply about the Internet not being a problem is exactly like the reason that certain developed countries gave to deny that the climate was a problem: “oh, we don't care about global warming - we have air conditioners”.
Of course those who “were here first” don't have a problem with the status quo, as they are the ones who designed it to fit their needs! But the problem now is how to make “Internet for everyone” something more than a marketing tagline.
Vittorio — I agree, of course, that there are connectivity issues for developing nations. But that's not part of “internet governance” — that category of problems is called “connectivity issues.” Those problems are exterior to the internet itself. Governance is about making rules for the internet. I am sympathetic to the access issues.
Susan
Well, if access is external to Internet governance, as Susan declares above, then applications must be external too, right? That is, if Internet governance is defined to be about The Internet Protocol only, well then spam, worms, etc., are simply data packed in packets defined by the Internet Protocol just like all other data, therefore the contents of packets — and the applications that use them — are also external to Internet governance. Right, Susan?
Ideally, this (is access included? are the contents of packets included? is how devices at the edge of the network process the contents of packets included?) would be the very stuff of the proposed Framework Agreement. And that would be nice, but I think the negotiation will probably be more about, “Who decides who gets to decide.”
The winners are likely to be the big telcos of the economically developed countries, assuming that the big telcos participate. If they don't, they're still powerful, because the Framework Agreement will be dead-on-arrival in their absence. Meanwhile, new entities — municipalities, school districts, villages, homeowner associations, new kinds of network service providers, small companies, end users, citizens — are likely to be relatively powerless even if they do participate.
All that said, sounds like the drafting of the Framework Agreement has the potential to become a useful exercise. And to go on for decades. Which might be the right amount of time.
Susan asks: Whatsa problem, eh? It's a good question. Anyone who can't answer it right shouldn't be involved in this effort.
We (the Internet Governance Project) explained in more detail what we thought the “problems” are in the State of Play papers and tables back in September. Some of the problems are obvious:
* The USG's supervisory role over the DNS root
* A significant number of governments and international orgs hate ICANN and want to take over some of its functions or abolish it;
* There are already many regimes dealing with different aspects of the Internet, from ICANN to WIPO to the Cybercrime Convention…
* The norms and rules applied by various regimes don't always mesh (e.g., ICANN's whois policies vs. national and regional privacy agreements) and there is nowhere to work these things out
* The Internet is borderless but states are territorial
In short, we agree that a big part of the problem stems from “well-meaning efforts to 'govern' [the Internet] - and some not so well-meaning ones. A framework convention might define the roles of the actors and, perhaps, limit the role of “governance” and governments to reasonable and constructive dimensions, and formalize and legitimize the self-governing roles of civil society, just as a constitution defines and limits the role of government nationally.