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In conjunction with the WSIS summit in Tunis, the U.N. Working Group on Internet Governance has released a book: Reforming Internet Governance:Perspectives from the Working Group on Internet Governance. In the book, different authors elucidate on the framework of the Working Group, as well as their rationale on why one nation (the United States) should not be permitted to control the internet. Abdullah A. Al-Darrab, a member of the U.N. working group, argues in his chapter “The Need for International Internet Governance Oversight”:
Since the Internet is a global network which knows no national boundaries, and the security of the Internet is of concern to all States and impacts their national security, it is not reasonable for one Government to undertake the oversight role on behalf of all the Governments of the world.
Thus, Al-Darrab has two reasons why the U.N. should remove the U.S. from internet governance: First, the internet is a world-wide phenomenon; Second, international security (including the hated spam).
It is indeed the case that the internet (aka world wide web) is accessible across the globe. However, any multi-national corporation (e.g., Microsoft and Coca-Cola) qualifies as “global network[s] with no national boundaries.” Moreover, doesn’t the availability argument circumvent the intellectual property rights (not to mention the taxpayer investment) that the United States acquired designing, building, and launching the internet?
The international security argument doesn’t work either. How should the United States (or any nation) believe that the post-Oil for Food U.N. can properly handle the security issues that will fall under its jurisdiction? Isn’t the international security argument really about the ability to prohibit unwanted sources of democratic thought from entering into countries who are ruled by dictators and thugs?
The U.N.’s quest for digital rule is not because the United States and ICANN are doing a paltry, disorganized job. Rather, it is the sensational organizational success of the internet that drives this international quest for monopolization–which as with all America’s successes, is difficult for the liberal internationalist intelligensia to swallow.