Research Consultant Amay Korjan represented IT for Change at the Global Digital Compact’s ‘Deep Dive Consultation on Internet Governance’ on 13 April 2023.

This session focused on answering the following questions:

1. How can we ensure a safe, global, secure, and inclusive internet amidst the rapid growth and emergence of new internet-based tools?
2. The 2005 Tunis Agenda endorsed a multi-stakeholder approach to the governance of the Internet. How have we succeeded in realizing this vision?
3. How do the roles and functions of various multi-stakeholder forums such as  Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), and the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) come together to support Internet governance? And how can they be strengthened?
4. How can governments, technical standard bodies, civil society, industry, and all stakeholders work together for an open, indivisible, free, interoperable, global, secure, and inclusive Internet?

The IT for Change input contested the predominant understanding of the day’s Internet Governance problem, which sees the rise of authoritarianism as the main hindrance that may fragment the internet. While acknowledging this issue, the input contextualizes it within a larger history of democratic deficit that has characterized the governance of the internet. Thus, in terms of discussing solutions, the input stressed that a much more radical transformation of institutions was necessary. To this end, it recommended that the ICANN must be accorded jurisdictional immunity from potential political interference by the US government. Additionally, the Internet Telecommunications Union (ITU) should be mandated to create binding international standards for network-data technologies, such as interoperability, security, personal data protection, and quality benchmarking.

To learn more about the intervention, read it in full.