2014 was a quite big pivot year for the APNIC community. One of the important happenings was that NTIA announced in March its intent for the “IANA stewardship transition“. Since then the IP Numbers Community, as well as others for Protocol Parameters and Domain Names, have been discussing the new IANA stewardship arrangements. The CRISP Team did a great job to integrate the inputs from five RIR regions to craft a consolidated transition proposal, by the deadline of 15 January 2015. We will discuss the way forward on this in Fukuoka, during APRICOT-APAN 2015.
Another thing was NETmundial Conference in April. It was a very unique conference for broader Internet Governance, which gathered a huge amount of inputs from various stakeholders all over the world, and compiled the outcome document named “Sao Paulo NETmundial Multistakeholder Statement”. I’d encourage you to read it, if you haven’t, because it is an excellent snapshot of “what is Internet Governance all about”, as of April 2014.
The NETmundial Conference was hailed as a success, and was followed later in 2014 by the “NETmundial Initiative” (NMI). The NMI was proposed as a new platform, serving in some way, for the global Internet community to continue its work in light of the NETmundial principles.
I don’t think this description will be enough for you to fully realize what NMI is, and what it could be in future. Some clues have been presented by Organizing Partners who convened the Initiative (and these are available on the NMI website), but rather than trying to find every answer in that place, it should be a good idea to find some answers in your own thoughts and interests.
Right now in fact, the NMI Coordination Council (CC), of which I am a member, is seeking the inputs from the community on NMI’s Terms of Reference (ToR), in order to develop the draft of ToR. This reflects the fact that the community consultation is the important basis of what NMI is, what NMI does and what NMI should not do.
Here I should not overlook the fact that some of the earlier NMI preparation processes were questioned by some organizations, including ISOC and IAB. A joint statement of ISOC and ICANN was made to address these concerns, and suggest that NMI should start its activity after defining the ToR through a community consultation process. The current consultation follows this suggestion.
The NMI CC is very keen to hear the voice from the community, to address the concerns and to get NMI right. It’s somehow an uncharted work to craft a new platform to catalyze the existing institutions and activities to address the many diverse issues of Internet Governance. To have NMI better serve the Internet, your input is indispensable, and it is you that can help to establish a firm base on which the NMI is crafted.
The deadline for public comments is already around the corner, on Monday 16th of February. The weekend would be a good time for you to think about it.
Maemura Akinori is currently the General Manager of the Internet Development Department at the Japan Network Information Center (JPNIC). He is the Chair of the APNIC Executive Council, and a member since 2000. He has also been a visiting research fellow for GLOCOM (Center for Global Communication of the International University of Japan) since 2007, and Director of JPCERT Coordination Center since 2014.
The views expressed by the authors of this blog are their own and do not necessarily reflect the views of APNIC. Please note a Code of Conduct applies to this blog.