Understanding Internet Governance: Implications for Digital, Data, and AI Governance Wednesday, May 28, 2025 11:00-12:30 EDT / UTC - 4
June 2025 is the 20th anniversary of the report by the UN Working Group on Internet Governance (WGIG). Convened by the UN Secretary General to help resolve key questions that were blocking the World Summit on the Information Society negotiations, the WGIG produced a report that inter alia advanced a broad and holistic “working definition” of Internet governance and proposed the establishment of the Internet Governance Forum with the same character. The definition highlighted that Internet governance involves shared frameworks developed by both states and stakeholders for both the underlying infrastructure and its diverse uses. The WGIG’s recommendations helped to deescalate a divisive battle over intergovernmental vs. multistakeholder governance and were incorporated into the negotiated outcome, and the definition has been invoked as foundational in UN processes and beyond ever since.
But while governments and stakeholders signed onto the WGIG’s understanding of Internet governance in 2005, the international debates and politics over the twenty years since suggest that commitment to it has not been uniform or deep. The balance between intergovernmental and multistakeholder approaches has remained contested, and attention to improving the design of institutions has been limited. This has special salience today not only because the UN is reviewing the World Summit’s twenty-year implementation in order to determine the next steps, but also because we are once again in a period where there are pressures to establish new international governance mechanisms. In and outside the UN, there are multiple processes underway concerning the governance of the digital economy, data, and artificial intelligence that are raising challenges akin to those confronted in the Internet governance battles of the past.
Among the questions worth exploring in this context are: 1) Has the WGIG’s understanding of Internet governance stood the test of time? What are its strengths and weaknesses, and with the benefit of hindsight would a similar exercise produce the same results today? 2) To what extent is the approach taken in 2005 useful in addressing the contemporary push for governance of the digital economy, data, and artificial intelligence? Are there lessons to be learned that would assist in managing the analytical and political challenges? 3) What are the implications of the new governance debates for the Internet Governance Forum and related institutions?
This webinar will explore these questions. A panel of WGIG veterans will lead off the conversation, and then the rest of the session will be devoted to open discussion among all interested attendees. At the June 2026 Internet Governance Forum meeting in Norway, a larger WGIG+20 session will build upon this discussion. Introduction of the topic
Eli Noam is Paul Garrett Professor of Public Policy and Business Responsibility, Emeritus, and Director of the Columbia Institute for Tele-Information at Columbia Business School.
Moderator
William J. Drake is Director of International Studies at the Columbia Institute for Tele-Information and an adjunct professor at Columbia Business School. He was a member of the WGIG and edited open access books produced by some of its members in 2005 and in 2015.
Panelists Avri Doria is an independent researcher and consultant. She has served on the Board of Directors and chaired the GNSO Council of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), and was a member of the WGIG, the UN Working Group on Enhanced Cooperation, and the Multistakeholder Advisory Group of the Internet Governance Forum. In the technical community, Doria is a member of the Internet Engineering Task Force’s Ombudsteam and has been chair of the Internet Research Task Force’s Routing Research Group and founder and co-chair of the Research Group on Human Rights Protocol Considerations. (USA)
Wolfgang Kleinwächter is Professor Emeritus of International Communication Policy and Regulation at the University of Aarhus. He was a member of ICANN’s Board of Directors, served as Special Ambassador for the NETmundial Initiative, is the founder and Chair of the European Summer School on Internet Governance, and was a member of the Global Commission on Stability in Cyberspace and of the WGIG. (Germany)
Markus Kummer is an Internet governance and policy expert with extensive experience in government, the United Nations, Internet institutions and non-governmental organizations. Currently, he is Senior Advisor to the Geneva Internet Platform and the DiploFoundation. Previously, he served on the ICANN’s Board of Directors, as Vice-President of the Internet Society, and as a Swiss diplomat. From 2004-2011, he worked for the United Nations, first as Executive Coordinator of the WGIG and subsequently as Executive Coordinator of the Secretariat supporting the Internet Governance Forum. (Switzerland)
Vittorio Bertola is the Head of Policy & Innovation at Open-Xchange, a leading provider of open source email and DNS solutions, where he follows regulatory and standardization developments advocating an open Internet based on user choice, privacy, and federation and contributing to the European Union's digital autonomy efforts. In the last twenty-five years, he was involved with several Internet startups and served in many Internet governance organizations, including ICANN’s Board of Directors and the WGIG. (Italy)
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