Internet Governance: The US position is politically untenable globally

Author: Ang Peng Hwa is the Dean of the School of Communication and Information and Director of the Singapore Internet Research Centre at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. He was also appointed by Kofi Annan as a member of the Working Group on Internet Governance, which issued a report recently calling for a change in the global system of Internet Governance.

So, Larry Lessig, law professor at Stanford, in his interview in Foreign Policy thinks the EU distrusts the US and that is why the EU is recommending an independent body to oversee the root functions of the internet. Well, with the greatest respect for Prof. Lessig, and there is indeed much to respect him for, he is wrong on this one. The reason the EU, and the rest of the world for that matter, wants control of the root to be taken out of US hands and into that of a third international body is simple: the US position, that control of the root server system should remain in the hands of ICANN, is simply politically not defensible.

Here's why.

To begin at the beginning, one must understand that the internet is not entirely decentralised. At its apex is a server, the A-root server, sometimes called the "Number 13 server, " because there are 12 other similar root servers, and this server is under the control of ICANN. The A-root server works from data sent it by a " hidden server, " so called because it is hidden from hackers. This hidden server then feeds the A-root server, which then publishes the data to the other 12 servers, keeping all of the information on all 12 servers synchronized. And it is this server that is at the core of the dispute: who gets to decide what goes on and what goes off? Currently, it is ICANN, a California company operating under the authority of the US Department of Commerce.

Now to be fair, ICANN is doing an excellent job technically. No one seriously disputes that. It even has an international corp of officers and managers. But the politically indefensible question is this: What happens should there be a war between the USA and another country? This hypothetical case turned real with Iraq. The TLD (top level domain) name .IQ, representing Iraq-based websites, disappeared from cyberspace. And it disappeared because the owners of the domain name, who were based not in Iraq but in Texas, were jailed for unauthorized sale of computer parts and for aiding terrorists.  A coincidence?

Now, if ever there was a case that put governments on edge, that was one. Many countries were looking at how the USA would handle the issue of a dispute. This case demonstrated that the US could make any nation virtually "disappear" from the Internet altogether, and if governments were not concerned with internet governance up to that point, this case brought it to life. It is not surprising, therefore, that there were initially two positions: the US position of status quo, and the Brazil-China-India position to let the UN run it. It would be too crass for any government to say that it would run the hidden server.

The US, however, distrusts the UN even more than the EU distrusts the US. So, the EU inserted itself into this impass. Now, it should be noted that this is a strange insertion. The EU presidency rotates once every six months. At the time when the proposals were floated, the presidency was with the UK. Of all the governments in the world, who is the friendliest to the US? It is the UK. So in fact, at the PrepCom3 meeting that concluded last October, it seemed as if the US position would prevail. But the US position is simply indefensible. No government can agree that it would put the internet, on which critical infrastructure is now being built, in the hands of the US and only the US. If anyone needed convincing, the treatment of .IQ is enough. The difference between the EU and the Brazil-China-India position is this: the EU takes it out of the UN.

The EU proposal has its own problems.  Within the EU, not all nations are comfortable with the proposal, including the UK. Many stress that it is not that nations don't trust ICANN, but that politically, it is too important to leave it in the hands of one nation, particularly the US.

Although some nations are more sympathetic to the US position, including Australia, Canada, and Japan, ultimately, it is just not defensible. In my lectures across the US earlier in October, I did not encounter a single person who could support the US position, especially against the backdrop of .IQ. Officially, the .IQ TLD was in limbo because, supposedly, since the owner was in jail, there was no one to hand it over to. Well, within days of the Working Group on Internet Governance (WGIG) report being published, the report that made the recommendation that the UN take control of the A-server, the .IQ TLD was handed back to the interim Iraqi government. Another coincidence? It's beginning to feel like the X-Files coming to life.

In my book, Ordering Chaos: Regulating the Internet , I've predicted that in general, the EU is the place to look to for guidance on internet law and policy. They are smart, they try to maintain a sense of balance of competing interests (as in here too) and they reconcile various cultural differences. I never expected the EU to come up with a position like they have. Given the compromise it offers, it looks like it could be a winning formula in Tunis.

Comments

[Jimbouie]

Why should the U.S., which has been very generous in sharing the Internet with the rest of the world, be obligated to keep sharing it in all instances, under all circumstances, even with a country that becomes an enemy?

If there were a Nazi Germany today, would Ang Peng Hwa recommend inviolable access to the Internet for them?

The U.N. -- that social club for despots -- in its remarkable corruption, is the LAST entity to have control over something so important as the Internet.

[UNCLE MEAT]

CERT RULES !!! The UN can piss in its own pants for all we care. Go ahead and invent another internet you ungrateful cretins!!!

[tangonine]

Sorry. NFW. The internet, created by the USA, will stay controlled by the USA as it is a national security issue. Don't like it? Come take it from us.

[Daniel]

So Hitlers, Stalins, and Saddams comprising the so called MRW can do a better job at ensuring freedom of information how?

[Jim]

I would have to agree with the other posters to the article. The UN can't even adequately govern itself as we have seen in the oil-for food scam. Mr. Anan should be swinging from the rafters for his complicity in this. The UN is haven for wishy-washy terrorist loving countries and liberal socialist leaders and their minions. The net in the UN's hand, I really hope not.

[Traveller69]

The problem with the UN is that it is a quasi-democratic organization while most of the represented countries are not democracies. Therefore, the despot countries get to use the semi-democratic nature to advance their interests. Turning *anything* over to the UN is a bad idea. Ang Peng Hwa got his position by being a loyal nationalist in the very despotic and nationalist china. He wouldn't have risen to his position without being a communist aparatchik, so it is no wonder that he is such an proponent of seizing the Root servers.

The US must be stalwart on this issue.

[Lily Downing]

I can't think of any good reason to cooperate with the UN on anything relating to ethics and fairness. Allowing them to muck up the most well-functioning communication medium we have would certainly prove disastrous.

It's time to work around the UN, not with it.

[Elizabeth]

Dr. Peng Hwa Ang commented that Tunis "spoke on behalf of the Arab countries in putting ICT for development on the agenda back in 1998." His complaint about the US management however comes from an incident in 2003 leading up to the Iraq invasion. If the plan to change Internet governance germinated in 1998, what was the concern then? There was no Iraq, no Sept. 11, so why was the move on then to change it? This leads me to believe that the "Iraq Incident" is the straw man for the current internet grab. Yes, I meant "grab."

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