Question

What should the role of the United States be in Internet Governance? Do you think International Institutions can be helpful in global cybersecurity?

Answer 1

Who should control the Internet?

Some years after the Internet became a mass medium, this issue has continued to grow in urgency. At the September 2005 preparatory meeting for the UN World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), a coalition of countries criticized the United States’ unilateral control of the Internet’s domain name system (DNS) and proposed the establishment of a multinational Council to supervise it.

This proposal emerged from the Final Report of the UN Working Group on Internet Governance. Researchers from the Internet Governance Project, a university-based consortium for policy analysis, have concluded that the United States should internationalize governance of the Internet, but in a way that avoids intrusive, centralized control.

Internet governance is nothing but it refers to the making and enforcement of collective policies for the global Internet community. Many of these policies are quite technical.

In 1998 the U.S. government established an innovative approach to Internet governance by subcontracting these functions to a private not-for-profit corporation with international participation.

International Institutions can be helpful in global cybersecurity by;

There is an urgent need for cooperation among states to mitigate threats such as cybercrime, cyberattacks on critical infrastructure, electronic espionage, bulk data interception, and offensive operations intended to project power by the application of force in and through cyberspace.

In fact, cyber threats are more diverse and complex, often targeting private enterprises and endangering the technical integrity of the digital world.

1. Governments, global industry, and experts from academia and civil society should work together to prevent cyberwar, restrict offensive cyber operations by non-state actors, and mitigate the daily economic threats that ICTs pose to the global economy.
2. The relationship between the United States and Russia is of crucial importance for the whole ecosystem of cyber policy and diplomacy. The two countries are among the most advanced cyber powers.
3. It would be beneficial to create an independent, international cyber court or arbitrage method that deals only with government-level cyber conflicts and, that would be recognized and respected by all parties.
4. The Cyber weapons that operate without human involvement, like the U.S. project Monstermind revealed by Edward Snowden, should be outlawed.
5. Codify cyberattack legislation into international law