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 decisionmaking 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 nonprofits, 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 (Countrycoded 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 NonCommercial 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 policydevelopment 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 policymaking 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 lastmile 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 thenexisting 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 nongovernmental 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 domainname 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 inregion 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 nongovernmental 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 developingcountry 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 noncommercial 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/governanceecosystem/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

50
45
40
35

Civil Society

30

Private Sector

25

Internet Community

20

Media

15

Government

10

IGO

5
0
2004

2006

2008

2010

2012

2014

Figure 1b. IGF attendance by region

60
Asia-Pacific
50
Host Country
40
Eastern Europe
30
Africa
20
Latin America
10
0
2004

Western Europe and

Others
2006

2008

2010

2012

2014