On September 22, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Global Digital Compact (GDC), marking one of the most significant intergovernmental agreements on digital issues in the past two decades. Appended to the Pact for the Future, the GDC is a non-binding agreement that outlines a global governance framework for a wide range of digital issues, including internet governance and the Internet Governance Forum (IGF).

From an internet governance perspective, the final text of the GDC represents a compromise between Member States advocating for multistakeholder internet governance and the sustainability of the IGF and those pushing for more government oversight over critical internet resources and a weakening of the Forum.

While the debate over the GDC revealed the key issues concerning the future of internet governance, it also signals that a larger confrontation is set to emerge at the UN’s upcoming World Summit of the Information Society (WSIS)+20 Review.

Let’s start with the positives. The adopted text of the GDC ultimately supports multistakeholder internet governance, recognizing that “internet governance must continue to be global and multi-stakeholder in nature.” It also recognizes the role of the technical community in internet governance—that is, the companies, organizations, groups and actors whose day-to-day job is to operate core infrastructure of the internet—a recognition that was notably absent in the zero draft. Furthermore, it acknowledges the IGF as “the primary multi-stakeholder platform for discussion of Internet governance issues.”

On the surface, these may not seem like significant victories but, as I will elaborate below, they were far from guaranteed when GDC negotiations kicked off.

On the flip side, there are elements of the GDC that should concern the multistakeholder community. Despite strong opposition from many Member States, the final text includes language around “enhanced cooperation,” a term historically used by some countries to advocate for an increased multilateral role in internet governance. The GDC also expands the number and scope of follow-up and review initiatives, including the establishment of a UN office to facilitate “system-wide coordination” that could undermine or make redundant key aspects of the IGF.

The negotiation process for the GDC was fraught with challenges and lacked transparency. Over the past six months, the GDC underwent several significant revisions, some which are, at the time of writing, still not available on the dedicated UN webpage. There were limited opportunities for multistakeholder engagement and many stakeholders had questions about how multistakeholder inputs were integrated into the revised texts.

During the negotiations, certain Member States exerted considerable effort to dilute references to the IGF, and we saw frequent, coordinated efforts to undermine multistakeholder internet governance. Dissenting Member States often withheld their positions until the last minute, effectively prolonging debates and wearing down Member States supportive of multistakeholder internet governance in the process. By the conclusion of the negotiations, it was evident that Member States opposed to this form of governance are highly-resourced, well-coordinated and ready for a fight.

The moments leading up to the adoption of the GDC weren’t without drama. The Russian Federation introduced a last-minute proposal to amend the text and a motion was subsequently introduced for Member States to take no action on it. Ultimately, 143 Member States voted in favor of the motion, while seven Member States (including Russia, Syria and North Korea) voted against, with 15 abstentions. This outcome paved the way for the Pact for the Future—the larger intergovernmental agreement to which the GDC was attached—to be adopted by the UN General Assembly without a vote.

Looking at the internet governance aspects of the adopted GDC text, I believe the technical community can live with it. Operators will need to keep a close eye on the new follow-up mechanisms and, with respect to “enhanced cooperation,” the devil will be in the details. But thanks to hard-fought advocacy from key Member States, we managed to mitigate many of the greatest threats to multistakeholderism.

That said, the most important policy debates are still to come.

The GDC highlighted the sticking points over the future of multistakeholder internet governance—but the upcoming WSIS+20 Review will be the dialogue that shapes the future of multistakeholderism for decades to come.

For technical operators and other domain sector stakeholders, the outcome of WSIS+20 will have a direct impact on our business. The process will fundamentally determine whether those who operate the infrastructure and services at the heart of the internet will continue to have the same say in its governance, or whether governments will gain more influence over our day-to-day business and operations.

A group of technical operators, including CIRA, is coming together to defend, evolve and strengthen the multistakeholder model. You can learn more about A Technical Community Coalition for Multistakeholderism and how you can join us at tccm.global.

The dust-up over the GDC taught us that without sustained advocacy from technical operators and like-minded Member States, the WSIS+20 process could lead to greater multilateral say in the governance of the internet, and drastically change our industry for years to come.