EuroDIG 2016: Multi-Stakeholder Soul-Searching

By Monika Ermert for Intellectual Property Watch

Some 800 registered participants gathered for the European Dialogue on Internet Governance (EuroDIG) in Brussels today to talk about internet privacy, security and access. Besides the topical issues, the opening sessions speakers came back time and again to the discrepancy of theory and practice of the much-belaboured “multi-stakeholder principle.”

“Where are the stakeholders in the UN Government Group of Experts,” asked Nigel Hickson, vice president of ICANN and former British government official. The GGE is a government-only working group talking about cyber war, peace and security.

Wolfgang Kleinwaechter said neither the GGE, nor the G7 Working Group on Cyber had spared a thought on stakeholder comments. Governments had “nice words for the multi-stakeholder principles,” he said, but for example for the G7 principles on cyber “there has been no call for public comment, there was no draft which could have been circulated among stakeholder groups” for the respective documents.

Kleinwaechter criticised what he called mere lip-service to the multi-stakeholder principle. Therefore, the community should not wait for legislators and politicians to come to events like the EuroDig – government participation in fact seems to be dwindling – but instead go to G7, G20 and UN working groups to make their input also on topics like national security. “You have to practice what you preach,” he said.

Addressing the very issue of theory and practice of multi-stakeholder principle, former UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression Frank La Rue, now assistant director-general for communication and information at the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), announced a study on multi-stakeholder processes in practice.

“Everyone agrees on a multi-stakeholder dialogue, everybody talks about it,” said La Rue. But the big question is if relevant decisions are influenced and taken by using it for real-world decisions. UNESCO would check on that for countries all over the world.

EuroDIG is the biggest regional version of the UN Internet Governance Forum, and has fed its messages into the IGF for a decade.