Information Society Watch

2007, Jeremy Malcolm, PhD Thesis

This thesis describes how the Internet Governance Forum (IGF), might participate in the development of public policy on Internet-related legal issues (such as cyber crime, spam, privacy and e-commerce), using a governance model that draws inspiration from the existing institutional structures for governance of technical issues (such as the development of Internet standards and the allocation of Internet resources). This model is geared towards the achievement of consensus on legal norms for the Internet by an open and informal deliberative process in which the role of civil society is not subordinated to that of governments. It is theorised that such a model is better suited to the distinctive cultural and architectural features of cyberspace than a hierarchical model that would provide governments or intergovernmental authorities with a pre-eminent role. In the course of the development of this model, the thesis outlines existing Internet governance regimes and examines their limitations. The work of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) that led to the formation of the IGF is examined and compared to alternative proposals. The thesis draws together its findings by describing a collaborative model of Internet public policy governance and discussing how it might be implemented by the IGF (Adapted from author).

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