Internet Governance: the State of Play

The Global Forum on Internet Governance held by the UNICT Task Force in New York on 25-26 March concluded that Internet governance issues were many and complex. The Secretary-General's Working Group on Internet Governance will have to map out and navigate this complex terrain as it makes recommendations to the World Summit on an Information Society in 2005. To assist in this process, the Forum recommended, in the words of the Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations at the closing session, that a matrix be developed "of all issues of Internet governance addressed by multilateral institutions, including gaps and concerns, to assist the Secretary-General in moving forward the agenda on these issues." This paper takes up the Deputy Secretary-General's challenge. It is an analysis of the state of play in Internet governance in different forums, with a view to showing: (1) what issues are being addressed (2) by whom, (3) what are the types of consideration that these issues receive and (4) what issues are not adequately addressed

Die Regulierung des Internets zwischen technischer Koordination und politischer Steuerung : eine explorative Einzelfallstudie am Beispiel der Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers zur Rolle privater Akteure in den internationalen Beziehungen

Wie kann erklärt werden, dass die globale Autorität zur Verwaltung der bestandeswichtigen Ressourcen des Internets einer privaten internationalen Organisation mit Sitz im amerikanischen Bundesstaat Kalifornien übertragen wurde? Gemäss der bisherigen Regelungsgeschichte transnationaler Kommunikationstechnologien hätte man eine zwischenstaatliche Lösung erwartet. Die vorliegende Dissertation zur Entstehung und Entwicklung der Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) kombiniert zur Beantwortung dieses Rätsels aktuelle Ansätze der Global Governance-Literatur mit Aspekten der positiven Regulierungstheorie. In Abgrenzung vom dominierenden Selbstregelungsoptimismus hinsichtlich privater Akteure wird das Erklärungsmodell um neuere Machtansätze erweitert. Die Untersuchung zeigt auf, dass die US-Regierung ihre institutionellen Präferenzen zur Verwaltung des Domain Namen Systems weit gehend durchsetzte. Den Grundstein für ihren Erfolg legte die geschickte Instrumentalisierung einer dem Zeitgeist entsprechenden Selbstregulierungseuphorie. Im Zentrum stand die als soft power beschriebene Fähigkeit, die politische Agenda entlang den eigenen Wertvorstellungen zu gestalten. Somit wird der These vom Untergang des Nationalstaates in einem globalisierten Umfeld widersprochen. Im Gegenteil werden weniger gut sichtbare staatliche Strategien wie die gezielte Delegation von Regelungsautoritäten an nicht-staatliche Akteure oder das so genannte Forum-Shopping wichtiger. How can the transfer of the global authority over the core technical resources of the Internet to a private international organization under Californian law be explained? In the history of transnational communication technologies, intergovernmental solutions under the umbrella of established international fora are the rule. This dissertation on the emergence and evolution of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) seeks to solve this puzzle by bringing together the recent literature on Global Governance and positive theories of regulation. Compared to the predominant optimism for private sector self-regulation, the framework developed also draws upon power-based approaches and integrates them in the explanation. In its results, the analysis shows that the US largely succeeded in securing its own institutional preferences concerning the administration of the domain name system on a global scale. Because the US-government had the ability to build upon its soft power-resources, US-politicians were in the position to define the political agenda along their own ideas and interests, and hence, to control the outcome of the process. On an abstract level, the analysis contradicts the conventional thesis on the demise of the nation-state under the condition of globalization. On the contrary, state-driven strategies like the willing delegation of regulatory authorities to non-state actors or the so called forum shopping are getting more important