APC's vision for future internet governance

Anriette Esterhuysen at IGF 2015

On 9 November, Brazil as the host country of the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) 2015 convened a High Level Leaders Meeting aimed at gathering prominent figures in internet governance – selected among all stakeholder groups – to dialogue on the future of internet governance beyond the year 2015.

Key issues in digital policy, from cyber security and the digital divide to the involvement of different stakeholders, were the focus of the meeting, which set the ground for the discussions happening over the next few days in Joao Pessoa. APC’s Executive Director Anriette Esterhuysen made an inspiring series of remarks on the future of internet governance that we have summarised here:

The future of internet governance should be

• Shaped by recognition of the internet as a global public resource that must be managed in the public interest.

• A resource that can help achieve more social justice, gender equality, tolerance, development and peace. Development that is not just higher GDP growth rates – but development that brings about sustainable changes in people’s lives.

The future of internet governance should not be

• Driven by fear, by increasing surveillance and militarisation of the internet.

• Built on the notion that the internet is a dangerous and insecure space, overwhelmingly populated by terrorists, pedophiles, drug dealers, and thieves of intellectual property.

• The narrative of fear and danger is driving regulation that limits, rather than maximises realisation of the internet’s potential. For example: disproportionate enforcement of copyright that reduces access to knowledge, and restrictive media and content regulation that stifles free speech.

• When we talk about security on the internet we should be referring not to terrorists or copyright thieves, but rather to resilience of the infrastructure in the face of climate change and natural disaster, and about the security of internet users’ privacy, communications and data.

How do we build this future for internet governance?

• By not thinking that multistakeholder and multilateral approaches are mutually exclusive; that enhanced cooperation among governments is undermined by the inclusion of other stakeholder groups.

• By asking questions to states: Are they doing enough to fulfill their responsibilities to uphold rights, ensure public participation in all policy making, build partnerships to ensure there is sufficient access for all? Are they participating in the IGF, and in national and regional IGFs? Are they using these platforms to build their own capacity, to build partnerships, to listen and learn and in this way become more influential globally?

• By not thinking that all rules are bad rules.

We must drop the assumption that rules are necessarily restrictive and consider what rules we need to keep the internet open, and to protect it as a public resource. Doing nothing is not going to achieve this result. To prevent those with the power to change the nature of the internet, to privatise it, or to colonise it, or to fragment it, we need principles and norms with which both governments and business should comply.

This does not mean we need new rules. What we need is to consider how we can apply established agreed principles and rights on the internet. We need a normative framework that can be used at all levels of internet policy making. We need principles that are rooted in agreed international human rights standards and development goals, and that will build a culture of transparency, access to information, inclusive decision making and accountability in internet governance.

Where do we start in building consensus on principles for internet governance?

With the NETmundial Multistakeholder Statement. I urge those states and non-state actors who did not support this statement to re-engage with its contents, to discuss it, improve it, and to consider seriously using it as a basis for establishing a framework, to talk about it at national level, in regional and global UN spaces, in multistakeholder spaces, in industry spaces and civil society spaces.

Watch the full video of the IGF 2015 High Level Leaders Meeting: (Anriette’s remarks on minute 3.12.00)