The Brazilian Government have announced that they are to hold a global meeting on the future of Internet Governance.
It will take place in April 2014, as tweeted by the Brazilian president, Dilma Rousseff, on the 9th October 2013. According to an earlier tweet
Fadi Chehadé, the president of ICANN, had already spoken to her and shown his support for such a meeting.
He later confirmed that the meeting was to take place and that he would provide his support.
This follows the Brazilian President’s speech at the 68th Session of the United Nations General Assembly on September 24th where she
said that the NSA revelations had revealed a “violation of human rights”. She went on to say:
“Information and communications technologies cannot be the new battlefield between States. Time is ripe to create the conditions to prevent cyberspace
from being used as a weapon of war, through espionage, sabotage and attacks against systems and infrastructure or other countries.”
The influence that this meeting has is yet to be seen, but it’s a strong reaction to the negative reaction to the NSA scandal across the world. The meeting
will be attended by a number of representatives from governments, to academics, to representatives from powerful industry companies.
The meeting intends to be independent and provide a different view to the array of meetings currently held by individual governments, ICANN, or any other
Internet governance bodies currently in operation.
As mentioned previously, the NSA scandal has caused many organisations around the world to question the current direction of the current governance
organizations. Some are suggesting that a different approach to things may be more effective.
The globalisation of Internet governance can only be a positive and many are hoping that this meeting will help bring more and more global organisations
into the fold.
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