Brazil, US Convergence on Internet Governance a Possible Compromise Path Forward, Stakeholders Say
Brazil’s move toward at least partial acceptance of multistakeholder Internet governance and the U.S.’s decision to spin off its remaining oversight of the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) “have in essence opened the door” to a new compromise approach on Internet governance, said Brookings Institution Director-Latin America Initiative Harold Trinkunas during a Brookings event Thursday. Brookings released a report last week by Trinkunas and New America Foundation Co-Director-Cybersecurity Initiative Ian Wallace that outlined both Brazil’s move away from its traditional advocacy of multilateral diplomacy in Internet governance and U.S. willingness during President Barack Obama’s administration to change aspects of the current global Internet governance regime.
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Brookings released the report days after Obama and Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff said the two countries would resume their joint Working Group on Internet and Information and Communication Technologies and reaffirmed their commitment to cooperate at the Nov. 10-13 Internet Governance Forum meeting. The Brazil-U.S. working group had disbanded after former NSA contractor Edward Snowden began leaking information about controversial NSA surveillance programs (see 1506300054). The Brazil-U.S. announcement is particularly important because the joint working group’s bilateral engagement is “really important” for rebuilding trust lost after the NSA leaks, said Public Knowledge Vice President-International Policy Carolina Rossini during the Brookings event. Other Internet governance stakeholders at the event also noted the importance of Brazil’s effort to compromise on the multistakeholder model, though some questioned whether it was a primary factor in any perceived shift in global attitudes.
The Brookings report urged the Obama administration to “stand firm” on completing the IANA transition, with Wallace noting during the event that continued NTIA oversight of the IANA functions is “increasingly untenable” given perceptions that the U.S. retained too much control over Internet governance. Congress is continuing to push for an oversight role in the IANA transition process, with the Senate still considering the Domain Openness Through Continued Oversight Matters (DOTCOM) Act (S-1551). The House already has passed its version of the bill (HR-805), which would give Congress 30 legislative days to review an NTIA certification of whether ICANN’s IANA transition plan meets U.S. goals on Internet openness. NTIA Administrator Larry Strickling told the House Communications Subcommittee during a hearing Wednesday that NTIA would still give Congress a chance to review ICANN’s IANA transition plan regardless of whether the DOTCOM Act is enacted (see 1507080044).
Brazil should completely back the multistakeholder Internet governance model in the midst of the U.N.’s 10-year review of the World Summit on the Information Society outcomes, the Brookings report recommended. Brazil has continued to partially back multilateral Internet governance even as it has partially embraced multistakeholder authority, but should now fully shift its support to the multistakeholder model and use that shift to “demonstrate international leadership” on Internet issues, Wallace said. Such a move is especially important given India’s recent shift toward fully backing the multistakeholder model, he said. Brazil, the U.S. and the global Internet community should also continue to back the NetMundial Initiative (see 1404240071) despite ongoing concerns about its implementation, the Brookings report said.
The convergence of Brazil and the U.S. on Internet governance issues could signal a way to break what has long been considered a “deadlock” on broader Internet issues like cybersecurity, said New America’s Open Technology Institute Senior Policy Counsel Danielle Kehl. The argument over whether the multilateral or multistakeholder Internet governance model is superior “has slowed progress on actually dealing with the problems that we’re trying to solve,” Kehl said. “We can’t get there a lot of the time because we’re fighting about what kind of system we want to use to get there.” The IANA transition in particular is making it easier for the U.S. to articulate its position on Internet governance issues because the transition removes the U.S.’s remaining nominal Internet governance oversight role, which “has been a distraction for a long time,” Kehl said.
Former ICANN CEO Paul Twomey, now Argo P@cific CEO, said he also believes Brazil’s shift on Internet governance has “made a big difference,” but said U.S. engagement with India and nations in sub-Saharan Africa after the 2012 World Conference on International Telecommunications also shifted attitudes toward the multistakeholder model in those regions. Brazil’s shift has in some ways given other countries a “stalking horse” to back the multistakeholder model, Twomey said. But nations in the western Pacific and other regions question how major a player Brazil is in Internet governance, he said. The U.S. was originator of the Internet and is the world’s leading tech power, while “Brazil is neither,” Twomey said.