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Governing The Internet

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Kal Raustiala
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Editorial Comment
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American Journal of International Law , Volume 110 , Issue 3 , July 2016 , pp. 491 - 503
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Copyright © American Society of International Law 2016

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References

1 Giuseppe Tomasi Di Lampedusa, The Leopard 40 (Archibald Colquhoun trans., 1960).

2 See Fung, Brian, The U.S. Just Took One Step Closer to Privatizing a Core Part of the Internet, Wash. Post, June 9, 2016, at https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2016/06/09/the-u-s-just-took-one-step-closer-to-privatizing-a-core-part-of-the-internet Google Scholar; Wyatt, Edward, U.S. to Cede Its Oversight of Addresses on the Internet, N. Y. Times, Mar. 14, 2014, at http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/15/technology/us-to-give-up-role-in-internet-domain-names.html?_r=0 Google Scholar; Press Release, NTIA, NTIA Announces Intent to Transition Key Internet Domain Name Functions (Mar. 14, 2014), at https://www.ntia.doc.gov/press-release/2014/ntia-announces-intent-transition-key-internet-domain-name-functions [hereinafter NTIA Press Release]. Internet governance is more than the functions performed by ICANN, but these functions receive the lion’s share of public attention. For simplicity, I use “Internet governance” to refer to these functions. Indeed, one can go far wider. See Joseph S. Nye Jr., The Regime Complex for Managing GlobalCyber Activities (Global Comm’n on Internet Governance, Paper Series No. 1, May 2014), available at https://www.cigionline.org/sites/default/files/gcig_paper_no1.pdf.

3 Zittrain, Jonathan, No, Barack Obama Isn’t Handing Control of the Internet Over to China, New Republic, Mar. 24, 2014, at https://newrepublic.com/article/117093/us-withdraws-ICANN-why-its-no-big-deal Google Scholar.

4 Newt Gingrich (@newtgingrich), Twitter (Mar. 14, 2014, 2:55 PM), at https://twitter.com/newtgingrich/status/444592735983390720.

5 I discuss the relatively weak basis of federal government assertions of control below.

6 See, e.g., Jonas Tallberg, Thomas Sommerer, Theresa Squatrito & Christer Jönsson, The Opening Up of International Organization: Transnational Access in Global Governance (2013); Raustiala, Kal, The Role of NGOs in Treaty-Making, in The Oxford Guide to Treaties 150 (2012)Google Scholar; Charnovitz, Steve, Nongovernmental Organizations and International Law, 100 AJIL 348 (2006)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

7 Nye, supra note 2, at 5.

8 Jonathan Zittrain, The Future of the Internet—and How to Stop It 27(2008) (“The UCLA programmers typed “log” to begin logging in to the Stanford computer. The Stanford computer crashed after the second letter, making “Lo” the first Internet message.”).

9 Int’l Telecomm. Union [ITU], [Information and Communications Technology (ICT)] Facts & Figures: The World in 2015 (2016), at http://www.itu.int/en/ITU-D/Statistics/Pages/facts/default.aspx. To learn more about the key role of California and its culture, see generally Scott Malcomson, Splinternet: How Geopolitics and Commerce are Fragmenting the World Wide Web 71–137 (2016).

10 See ICANN, ICANN Strategic Plan July 2010 –June 2013, at i (Feb. 19, 2010), available at https://www.icann.org/en/system/files/files/strategic-plan-2010-2013-19feb10-en.pdf (noting that “ICANN’s community-devel oped policies govern over 180 million domain names, the allocation of more than four and a quarter billion network addresses, and support a trillion daily [domain name system (DNS)] look-ups across 240 countries and territories, connecting billions of computers, phones, and other devices, across the Internet”); ICANN, ICANN Strategic Plan for Fiscal Years 2016–2020, at 7 (Oct. 10, 2014), available at https://www.icann.org/en/system/files/files/strategic-plan-2016-2020-10oct14-en.pdf (“In 2013, 35 percent of the world’s population was online, with almost half in Asia. There are over 635 million websites accessed through more than 200 million domain names.... By the time ICANN’s Five-Year Strategic Plan is complete in FY2020, it is estimated that 63 percent of the world’s population will be online (five billion users)....”).

11 See, e.g., The Great Firewall: The Art of Concealment, Economist, Apr. 6, 2013, at http://www.economist.com/news/special-report/21574631-chinese-screening-online-material-abroad-becoming-ever-more-sophisticated.

12 ICANN, The IANA Functions: An Introduction to the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) Functions (Dec. 2015), available at https://www.ICANN.org/en/system/files/files/iana-functions-18dec15-en.pdf.

13 Letter from Robert P. Murphy, General Counsel, U.S. General Accounting Office, to Judd Gregg, Ranking Minority Member, Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, State, and the Judiciary, and Harold Rogers, Ranking Minority Member, Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, State, and the Judiciary, and Related Agencies, Committee on Appropriations, U.S. Senate, B-284206, at 17–18 (July 7, 2000), available at http://www.gao.gov/assets/90/89949.pdf [hereinafter GAO Summary].

14 Postel Disputes, Economist, Aug. 2, 1997, at 88 (citing Networker (Summer 1997)).

15 For brevity, I leave out the role of Network Solutions, a Virginia-based firm that for several key years in the 1990s was awarded the contract to administer the Internet’s name registry.

16 Milton L. Mueller, Ruling the Root: Internet Governance and the Taming of Cyber Space 136 (2002) (emphasis added).

17 Id. at 137.

18 Id. at 162.

19 Jack Goldsmith & Tim Wu, Who Controls the Internet?: Illusions of a Borderless World 41 (2006).

20 See Zittrain, supra note 3. A U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO) report from 2000 noted the substantial ambiguity over these questions. As it reported, “Determining whether there is government property may be difficult. To the extent that transition of the management control to a private entity [ICANN] would involve the transfer of government property, it is unclear if the Department [of Commerce] has the requisite authority to effect such a transfer.” GAO Summary, supra note 13, at 4.

21 Lennard G. Kruger, Cong. Research Serv., R 44022, The Future of Internet Governance: Should the United States Relinquish Its Authority over ICANN? 2 (2016), available at https://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R44022.pdf.

22 Id.

23 Samantha Bradshaw, Laura DeNardis, Fen Osler Hampson, Eric Jardine & Mark Raymond, The Emergence of Contention in Global Internet Governance 3 (Global Comm’n on Internet Governance, Paper Series No. 17, July 2015), at https://www.cigionline.org/sites/default/files/no17.pdf.

24 Mueller, supra note 16, at 138 (citation omitted).

25 Drezner, Daniel W., The Global Governance of the Internet: Bringing the State Back In, Pol. Sci. Q., Fall 2004, at 477, 494Google Scholar; see also Goldsmith & Wu, supra note 19, at 37–39.

26 Pekka Tarjanne, ITU Secretary-General, Keynote Address at the Internet Domain Names Information Session at the Meeting of Signatories and Potential Signatories of the Generic Top Level Domain Memorandum of Understanding: Internet Governance—Towards Voluntary Multilateralism (Apr. 29, 1997), available at https://www.itu.int/newsarchive/projects/dns-meet/KeynoteAddress.html.

27 Id.

28 Id.

29 Mueller, Milton, ICANN and Internet Governance: Sorting Through the Debris of ‘Self-Regulation, ’ Info: J. Pol’y, Reg. & Strategy for Telecomm. Info. & Media, Dec. 1999, at 497, 502 n. 17, available at http:// home.uchicago.edu/mferzige/muell.pdf Google Scholar (quoting memo from U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright to the ITU (Apr. 1997)).

30 Andy Sernovitz, The U.S. Govt. Is Not Supportive of gTLD-MoU (July 27, 1997), available at https://web.archive.org/web/19980707070210/http://www.gtld-mou.org/gtld-discuss/mail-archive/04644.html (including copy of memorandum from U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright to the ITU (Apr. 1997)).

31 Management of Internet Names and Addresses, 63 Fed. Reg. 31, 741 (June 10, 1998) (noting Clinton administration directive of July 1, 1997).

32 Id. at 31,742. The white paper elicited substantial concern from gTLD-MOU proponents.

33 Magaziner, Ira C., Creating a Framework for Global Electronic Commerce, Progress & Freedom Found. (July 1999) (emphasis added), at http://www.pff.org/issues-pubs/futureinsights/fi6.1globaleconomiccommerce.html Google Scholar.

34 Reflecting the Internet’s roots, ICANN today is a nonprofit organization incorporated in California, under California law, and based in an unobtrusive glass-curtained office building not far from where Postel worked in Los Angeles.

35 Contract Between the U.S. Department of Commerce and Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (Oct. 1, 2012), available at https://www.ntia.doc.gov/files/ntia/publications/sf_26_pg_1-2-final_award_and_sacs.pdf

36 ICANN, About the GAC: Introducing ICANN’s Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC) (2016), at https://gacweb.ICANN.org/display/gacweb/About+The+GAC

37 For more detail, see ICANN, Beginner’s Guide to Participating in ICANN (2013), at https://www.ICANN.org/en/system/files/files/participating-08nov13-en.pdf

38 ICANN, Affirmation of Commitments by the United States Department of Commerce and the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (2009), at https://www.ICANN.org/resources/pages/affirmation-of-commitments-2009-09-30-en.

39 See, e.g., Jeremy Malcolm, Multistakeholder Governance and the Internet Governance Forum 48–49 (2008).

40 NTIA Press Release, supra note 2.

41 Id.

42 Crovitz, Gordon, The Battle Over Obama’s Internet Surrender, Wall St. J., June 13, 2016, at http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-battle-over-obamas-internet-surrender-1465770111 Google Scholar. Crovitz explained: “It’s make or break for the internet as we know it. Unless Congress acts this summer, the Obama administration will end U.S. protection of the internet, handing authoritarian regimes the power they have long sought to censor the web globally, including in the U.S.”

43 See DOTCOM Act of 2014, H.R. 4342, 113th Cong. (2014).

44 Stewart, Kyle, Ted Cruz’s Fight to Protect the Internet from Authoritarian Regimes, Daily Signal, July 7, 2016, at http://dailysignal.com/2016/07/07/ted-cruzs-fight-to-protect-the-internet-from-authoritarian-regimes Google Scholar.

45 See Crook, John R., Contemporary Practice of the United States, 107 AJIL 431, 444–45 (2013)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

46 Greg Walden, Opening Statement for the Subcommittee on Communications and Technology Hearing on “International Proposals to Regulate the Internet” (May 31, 2012), available at https://energycommerce.house.gov/sites/republicans.energycommerce.house.gov/files/Hearings/CT/20120531/HHRG-112-IF16-MState-W000791-20120531.pdf

47 Id.

48 International Proposals to Regulate the Internet: Hearing Before the Subcomm. on Communications and Technology, 112th Cong. 80 (2012), available at https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CHRG-112hhrg79558/pdf/CHRG-112hhrg79558.pdf (statement of Vinton Cerf, Vice President and Chief Internet Evangelist, Google Inc.).

49 Pfanner, Eric, U.S. Rejects Telecommunications Treaty, N.Y. Times, Dec. 13, 2012, at http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/14/technology/14iht-treaty14.html?pagewanted=1&_r=0 Google Scholar.

50 The Future of Internet Governance, C-SPAN, at 13:17 (Apr. 4, 2014), at http://www.c-span.org/video/?318699-1/internet-governance&start=239 (panel held at the Hudson Institute in Washington, DC).

51 E.g., Walker, Tim, Edward Snowden: NSA Whistleblower’s Leaks Prompt US to Make Control of Internet Truly Worldwide, Independent, Mar. 18, 2014, at http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/edward-snowden-nsa-whistleblowers-leaks-prompt-us-to-make-control-of-internet-truly-worldwide-9200578.html Google Scholar; Bradshaw et al., supra note 23, at 2–3; Goldsmith, Jack, The Tricky Issue of Severing US “Control” over ICANN, Hoover Inst.: The Briefing (Feb. 24, 2015), at http://www.hoover.org/research/tricky-issue-severing-us-control-over-ICANN Google Scholar.

52 One major exception to this paradigm exists: material deemed infringing of intellectual property rights is vigorously policed by the United States and nearly every other state in the system. Intellectual property protection is now a major feature of not only the many treaties under the auspices of WIPO but also the rules of the World Trade Organization and other major multilateral trade agreements and organizations.

53 Ikenberry, G. John, Institutions, Strategic Restraint, and the Persistence of American Postwar Order, Int’l Sec., Winter 1998–99, at 43, 45CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

54 G. John Ikenberry, After Victory: Institutions, Strategic Restraint, and the Rebuilding of Order After Major Wars 4 (2001).

55 Patrick, Stewart M., Summer Reading: Ikenberry’s Liberal Leviathan, Council on Foreign Rel.: The Internationalist (June 3, 2011), at http://blogs.cfr.org/patrick/2011/06/03/summer-reading-ikenberry%E 2%80%99s-liberal-leviathan Google Scholar.

56 Ruggie, John Gerard, Multilateralism: The Anatomy of an Institution, Int’l Org., Summer 1992, at 561, 571CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

57 See, e.g., Abbott, Kenneth W., Green, Jessica F. & Keohane, Robert O., Organizational Ecology and Institutional Change in Global Governance, Int’l. Org., Spring 2016, at 247 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Informal International Lawmaking (Joost Pauwelyn, Ramses A. Wessel & Jan Wouters eds., 2012); Tim Büthe & Walter Mattli, The New Global Rulers: The Privatization of Regulation in the World Economy (2011). International organizations still retain considerable vitality. See, e.g., José E. Alvarez, International Organizations As Law-Makers (2006).

58 See, e.g., Stewart, Richard B., Remedying Disregard in Global Regulatory Governance: Accountability, Participation, and Responsiveness, 108 AJIL 211 (2014)Google Scholar.

59 See, e.g., Geoffrey Allen Pigman, The World Economic Forum: A Multi-Stakeholder Approach to Global Governance (2007).