With the digitalization of more and mopre spheres of our daily life, Internet Governance, which was a technical issue with some political implications twenty years ago, is now a political problem with a technical component. Cybersecurity, digital cooperation and human rights online are key questions on the political world agenda at G20, G7, BRICS, United Nations and elsewhere.
The growing tensions in international relations of the 2020s are reflected now in the global Internet Governance Ecosystem. And there is a schizophrenic situation: On the one hand governments negotiate in the UN OEWG on cybersecurity. On the other hand, Ukraine becomes a battlefield for an international cyberwar. Could a "Global Digital Compact", as proposed by UN Secretary General Guterres, be used as a bridge builder to avoid an "Internet bifurcation" or will be move towards a "Splinternet"?
About the speaker
Wolfgang Kleinwächter is a retired professor for Internet policy and regulation from the University of Aarhus. He was a member of the ICANN Board, a Special Ambassador to the NetMundial Initiative and a Commissioner in the Global Commission on Stability in Cyberspace. As as member of the UN Working Group on Internet Governance (WGIG), appointed by the then UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, he became one of the fathers of the Internet Governance Forum (IGF). Among his publications is "Internet Fragmentation: An Overview", published by the World Economic Forum in Davos.