National Sovereignty and Global Institutions.

An Analysis of Recent Developments in Internet Governance.

Christine Pommerening
Senior Research Associate
June 2006

Abstract

After the events of September 11, 2001, concerns about the vulnerability of Internet users to targeted cyber-attacks were amplified to include the possibility of debilitating the underlying architecture including root servers and the domain name system (DNS). Some of the vulnerabilities of the DNS are a result of the unique mix of public, private, domestic and international actors that are involved DNS development, operation, and management. The most prominent one is the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), which is chartered by the U.S. government.
The Department of Commerce has affirmed its authoritative role in a June 2005 statement of four principles, the first of which is the security and stability of the DNS. However, other countries have criticized the U.S. approach, culminating in a near-stand-off at the 2005 UN's World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS). The U.N. has now convened a new mechanism for multi-stakeholder policy dialogue, the Internet Governance Forum (IGF).
The question is now how issues of efficient management and technical stability can be reconciled with national security interests and sovereignty concerns of other countries, and what role existing institutions such as ICANN have in this process.
This paper analyzes the developments on the international level since 2003, and the U.S. response. It is suggested that the U.S. should be focusing on cooperation within existing structures, rather than risking the evolution of parallel institutional or even technical structures for DNS management.

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