Deborah Brown

The 26th session of the Human Rights Council (HRC) opened this week and there are a number of internet-related human rights issues on the agenda, including a new resolution on promotion, protection, and enjoyment of human rights on the internet.

Outcome document of the global multi-stakeholder meeting on the future of internet governance

Access provides analysis of the this week’s NetMundial meeting, noting the highs and lows, and reflecting on what is needed to achieve internet governance that is truly democratic and multistakeholder, ensuring the meaningful and accountable participation of all stakeholders.

Last October, in the aftermath of the revelations of mass government surveillance, the government of Brazil and the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) announced a joint initiative that would bring together government, industry, civil society, and academia in a meeting in Brazil in April 2014 to discuss the future of internet governance. This evolved to become the Global Multistakeholder Meeting on the Future of Internet Governance, better known as NetMundial, an initiative of 12 governments — Argentina, France, Ghana, Germany, India, Indonesia, South Africa, South Korea, Tunisia, Turkey, and the United States have since joined Brazil– with representatives of civil society, academia, and the technical community participating in various planning committees.

Yesterday, the Open Technology Institute at New America Foundation, Public Knowledge, Access, Center for Democracy & Technology, Freedom House, and Human Rights Watch, ahead of the April 10th hearing “Should The Department Of Commerce Relinquish Direct Oversight Over ICANN?”, sent a letter to the House Judiciary Committee restating their support of the NTIA’s decision to transition key Internet domain name functions to the global multi-stakeholder community and the organizations’ concerns regarding the DOTCOM Act. The DOTCOM Act is a piece of legislation that was introduced this past March that would require a Government Accountability Office review and report prior to the NTIA transition, a process that could take up to a year.

Today marks the first in what is likely to be a series of congressional hearings called in response to the U.S. Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) historic announcement of its intent to transition key Internet domain name functions (DNS) to the global multistakeholder community. In advance of today’s hearing, Access, along with the Center for Democracy & Technology, Freedom House, Human Rights Watch, The Open Technology Institute at New America Foundation, and Public Knowledge have sent a letter to Congress expressing our support for the proposed transition.

Access has supported greater international oversight of internet resources. We welcome today’s announcement that the U.S. Department of Commerce intends to transition its current coordinating role over the internet’s domain name system — the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority, or IANA — to the ‘global multistakeholder community.’

This week the United States will stand before an expert body at the United Nations and be forced to face difficult questions regarding its human rights record, including its performance on the right to privacy. Among the list of issues prepared by the Human Rights Committee for the review and shadow reports by human rights organizations is mass government surveillance and the U.S.’s refusal to recognize the extraterritorial application of human rights obligations.