EIF Debate on IG with Fadi Chehade in Brussels 26 May 2015. Photo courtesy EIF
It's over a year since work started for several multistakeholder groups on the transition of the US Government stewardship over the IANA functions.
One of the four key conditions set by the US Government was that the transition proposal should 'Support and enhance the multistakeholder model'.
If the transition process itself is anything to go by, this condition will easily be met. In fact, this process has been a remarkable embodiment of the model, and is helping to make it stronger. The transition has provided a unique opportunity for the global community to gather with a shared purpose, to achieve the common vision of evolving the core Internet functions efficiently.
Bringing in these different views, perspectives and personalities together could have been a major challenge. Instead, the remarkable progress achieved so far, shows that this challenge has turned into a hugely positive exercise. The different stakeholder groups and different regions of the world, have come together as a team to produce high quality, highly researched work. The mix of lawyers, economists, engineers, civil society and user voices or academic experts in governance has ensured much-needed, robust exchanges and solidly developed material. The sensible and well thought-out proposals that have emerged are a testament to that impressive, pioneering collaboration.
And if several extra weeks have been taken here and there to ensure that the proposals would be as robust and consensual as possible, it has been a quick process by any standard: it would be hard to find an example in history of such a global exercise and major, critical evolution happening in such a short space of time, and with such quality and cohesiveness.
From a European perspective we can be proud, too: European stakeholders have been very active in the transition discussions, with in particular several positions of co-chairs of working groups held by Europeans. Several of these co-chairs joined us at a recent event on Internet Governance held by the European Internet Forum (EIF) in Brussels, where during his keynote intervention Fadi Chehade underscored how our region's participation, with its vast experience in building collaborative institutions, has brought strong input into both the structural aspects of the transition, and the accountability and governance work.
The Multistakeholder model comes out of this process not just as the proven way of coordinating the management of critical Internet resources, but more importantly, it is reinforced as a crucial method for handling the complex, transnational endeavours of our global age. Our community should be proud to have pioneered and evolved this system which drives successful global cooperation – a worthy direction for the future.