At the Internet Democracy Project, we believe that greater international coordination among governments at times is essential to safeguard the human rights of all Internet users, including in India. The problem lies, however, in the centralised nature of all proposals currently on the table to facilitate such coordination: whether they see the Internet Governance Forum or a new entity taking up this role, they all intend one body to become the ultimate clearing house for all Internet related policies at the global level.
In contrast, the Internet Democracy Project believes that the solution to global Internet governance challenges lies in the development of distributed, or networked forms of governance. At the heart of such a approach is the establishment of networks of governance actors and institutions, both domestically and internationally, who are linked in multiple ways and have a crucial stake in supporting and collaborating with each other: without the approval and agreement of others, no single actor can dominate the field.
In our work on the global Internet governance architecture, we develop these ideas step by step. We also follow closely two global processes in which the question of global Internet governance is addressed repeatedly and in some detail:
- The ITU and global Internet governance
- The WSIS+10 Review
This is in addition to the Internet Governance Forum and the Working Group on Enhanced Cooperation, which we will be updating you about whenever relevant as well. More recently, the NetMundial meeting in Brazil in April 2014 has emerged as another important venue for these issues to be discussed.
More details about the the ITU-related processes and the WSIS+10 Review can be found under their respective sub-headings.