Legitimacy and Expertise in Global Internet Governance

14 Pages Posted: 7 Dec 2014 Last revised: 18 Feb 2015

See all articles by Olivier Sylvain

Olivier Sylvain

Fordham University School of Law

Date Written: August 5, 2014

Abstract

Over the course of the past decade or so, attention among Internet policymakers and scholars has shifted gradually from substantive design principles to the structure of Internet governance. The Internet Corporation for Assigning Names and Numbers in particular now faces a new skepticism about its legitimacy to administer the essential Internet Assigned Numbers Authority function. ICANN has responded to these doubts by proposing a series of major governance reforms that would bring nation-states more into the organization's decisionmaking. After all, transnational governance institutions in other substantive areas privilege nation-states as a matter of course. This Symposium Essay shows that these changes reflect a new era in which ICANN and other Internet policymakers no longer view the Internet as uniquely immune from the geopolitics of the physical world.

Keywords: Internet governance, Internet, ICANN, IANA function, NETmundial, multistakeholder governance

Suggested Citation

Sylvain, Olivier, Legitimacy and Expertise in Global Internet Governance (August 5, 2014). 13 Colo. Tech. L. J. 31, Fordham Law Legal Studies Research Paper No. 2534424, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2534424

Olivier Sylvain (Contact Author)

Fordham University School of Law ( email )

150 West 62nd Street
New York, NY 10023
United States

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