Global Commission on Internet Governance

The Global Commission on Internet Governance is a two-year initiative that will present a comprehensive stand on the future of multi-stakeholder Internet governance.

Chaired by Sweden's Foreign Minister Carl Bildt , the commission will include about 25 members drawn from various fields and from around the world, including policy and government, academia and civil society. All commissioners are listed at the commission's website, www.ourinternet.org

The commission will address four key themes, within which are a number of sub-themes:

• Enhancing governance legitimacy — including regulatory approaches and standards
  
• Preserving innovation — including critical Internet resources, infrastructure and competition policy
  
• Ensuring rights online — including establishing the principle of technological neutrality for human rights, privacy, cyber-crime and free expression
  
• Avoiding systemic risk — including establishing norms regarding state conduct, cybercrime cooperation, and proliferation and disarmament issues

Why is the Commission Important? The current mechanism of Internet governance, colloquially called the 'multi-stakeholder' model, is under threat. This threat to a free, open, and universal Internet comes from two principal sources. First, a number of authoritarian states are waging a campaign to exert greater state control over critical Internet resources. Second, revelations about the nature and extent of online surveillance have led to a loss of trust. Collectively, these circumstances have created a need to update legacy mechanisms for Internet governance; but deadlocks in international dialogue mean the potential exists for the fragmentation of the Internet. Accordingly, a significant and timely opportunity exists to feed innovative new ideas into these negotiations through the establishment of the Global Commission on Internet Governance. See full Article: http://www.chathamhouse.org/research/current-projects/global-commission-internet-governance