Dawn Nunziato has developed a strong paper on the connection between Internet governance and freedom of expression. Her law review article, published on SSRN and freely available here, argues that the Internet governance regime centered around ICANN "has failed to implement substantive norms of democratic governance, most importantly, protection for freedom of expression." In her article, she challenges "the prevailing idea that ICANN's governance of the Internet's infrastructure does not threaten free speech."

Efforts to alert the global community to the significance of global internet governance regimes has been undermined repeatedly by the insistence of a few well-placed intellectuals that the whole thing doesn't matter. These people, many of whom profess to be supporters of free expression, seem surprisingly cavalier about the whole problem. Witness in particular Professor Jonathan Zittrain, who wrote in reaction to the "Keep the Core Neutral Campaign:"

"I find it hard to really care if ICANN wants to allow some names and deny others. I don't see how a willingness to have some content-based process for determining new TLDs can become "a convenient lever of global control by those seeking to censor unpopular or controversial expression on the Internet." How would this global control transpire, when one needs no particular domain name to put content up on the Net?"

I must confess that this comment astounds me. Only someone completely divorced from the realities of international politics and Internet control could make such a comment. Let us examine this comment first from the most basic, common-sense level, and then move to a more sophisticated analysis of politics and institutions.   more »