Futureofmultistakeholdermodel (1)
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The multistakeholder model of internet governance has emerged as a more viable option than intergovernmental approaches. It recognizes the roles of all stakeholders but still faces challenges regarding legitimacy, transparency and inclusiveness. The adoption of the multistakeholder statement at NETmundial was significant progress. The European Commission supports multistakeholder internet governance if it ensures representation and prevents corporate capture, and believes global processes could learn from its principles for legitimate multistakeholder conversations.
Futureofmultistakeholdermodel (1)
- 1. 1. The sustainability of the Multistakeholder Model (MsM) Over the last decade the MsM of Internet governance has emerged as a more viable option for the governance of the Internet, rather than a purely intergovernmental approach. The MsM (as acknowledged by the World Summit on Information Society in 2005) recognises the crucial role of all stakeholders in the Internet ecosystem, "each in their respective role". 2. What is the current situation? Given the transnational and multidimensional nature of the Internet, the multistakeholder approach has allowed the Internet to flourish, triggering innovation and bringing about the benefits of the digital revolution as we know it today. However, the fact that a process is claimed to be multistakeholder does not per se guarantee outcomes that are widely seen to be legitimate. The current MsM should be further strenghthened and improved in order to address the legitimacy, transparency, accountability and inclusiveness concerns expressed by many stakeholders. This is particularly important in order to ensure a broad legitimacy of the model and therefore avoid a political and technical fragmentation of the Internet along national lines. The adoption by acclamation of the "multistakeholder statement of Sao Paulo" in NETmundial was a significant achievement. The conference was the first of its kind, using the multistakeholder model to reach a negotiated outcome. 3. European Commission's perspective • We are clearly in favour of a multi-stakeholder model for Internet governance. • However, this should not affect the ability of democratic public authorities to fulfil their responsibilities. This includes their right to intervene with regulation where required. • Decisions are to be taken on the basis of principles of good governance, including transparency, accountability, and inclusiveness of all relevant stakeholders. • Building on the experience of NETmundial, multistakeholder approaches should make appropriate efforts to counter the significant differences in the ability to participate across the various stakeholder groups to better ensure representativeness. • We must prevent capture by special interests. Internet governance should not be dominated by corporate interests. • This requires a more inclusive dialogue with all players, including those with very different ideas from ours, as well as more capacity and confidence building to ensure everyone sees the benefits of a bottom-up, multistakeholder and inclusive approach to the governance of the Internet. • We would welcome the development of concrete guidelines by the Internet multistakeholder community. • We need to be practical and pragmatic, without turning this into a "struggle between civilizations". • The Commission has initiated a "Community of Practice" for better self- and co-regulation1 . This "Community of Practice" strives to promote design principles for efficient and legitimate multistakeholder conversations and outcomes. These principles could inspire also mutlistakeholder processes at global level. 1 http://ec.europa.eu/digital-agenda/en/communities/better-self-and-co-regulation