The Future of Internet Governance: Dystopia, Utopia, or Realpolitik?

Abstract

The first discussions regarding issues that are now included under the rubric "Internet governance" date back to the 1990s. Discussions were formally brought into the arena of intergovernmental discussions in 1998, at the Plenipotentiary Conference of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) and continued in particular at the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) in 2005. Discussions have tended to be difficult, and little consensus has been reached, regarding a number of issues. The factors that make discussions difficult are financial, geopolitical, but also ideological. Some of the ideological approaches are idealistic and propose governance models that are new and innovative; other approaches are conservative and propose either to continue unchanged the current Internet governance arrangements, or to apply traditional intergovernmental mechanisms to at least some aspects of Internet governance. This paper concludes that an agreed international framework is needed in order to ensure that Internet governance can evolve to meet the interests of all concerned parties.