Converging on the future of global Internet governance

The occasion of Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff’s visit to Washington, D.C. on June 30, delayed almost two years due to the crisis precipitated by the 2013 Snowden revelations on U.S. surveillance via the Internet, is an appropriate moment to reflect on the importance of a “unified and unfragmented” Internet and the key roles played by Brazil and the United States in its governance.

In a new Brookings report, Harold Trinkunas and Ian Wallace document the remarkable story of how, in the wake of the crisis, Brazil and the United States found a way to work together constructively to preserve and advance the global Internet freedom agenda. The question now is what role these two countries will play in addressing critical remaining issues in global Internet governance, such as the internationalization of ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers), the outcome of the WSIS+10 (World Summit on the Information Society) multilateral process at the United Nations, and in finding solutions to key Internet public policy challenges faced by late-adopters in the developing world.

On Thursday, July 9, the Center for 21st Century Security and Intelligence and the Latin America Initiative at Brookings hosted a panel discussion on the future of Internet governance with a focus on Brazil and the United States.

Join the conversation on Twitter using #InternetGov