In a few decades, the Internet grew from an obscure byproduct of military research into a worldwide network of networks, connecting more than half of mankind, and becoming the operating system of most human activities. Unfettered by regulation and based on voluntary cooperation among autonomous networks, it defied the established world communications order and threw a gauntlet at governments, ‘weary giants of flesh and steel’, from whom John Perry Barlow proclaimed the independence of cyberspace in 1996. At that time, the Internet was a community of 150 million early adopters, its expansion was only starting and its future seemed bright.

Today, about four billion people are not only using the Internet but critically dependent on it. It used to be ‘nice to have’, now it is a ‘must have’, because the tools it replaced are no more. Climbing the ladder of technology, we destroyed the rungs we left below us. Regrettably, as users we thought of ourselves as customers but realized we were often just raw material for advertisers and cannon fodder for political campaigns. Liberated from the tutelage of media gatekeepers, we found ourselves confronted with hate speech, disinformation and alternative realities. No wonder that on the verge of new technological leaps into artificial intelligence, the fifth generation of mobile connections and the Internet of Things, our discussions about the future focus more on looming threats than on new exciting opportunities.

Not quite a quarter of a century after the independence manifesto of cyberspace, it is indeed time for a Declaration of Digital Interdependence, issued by the UN Secretary-General’s High-Level Panel on Digital Cooperation. The Internet and it’s users are not marooned in some separate space. Online and offline worlds are inextricably intertwined. There is a need for a holistic view.

The report of the panel is an authoritative effort to update some of the outcomes of the World Summit on Information Society (2003 and 2005) to cope with current realities. Back then, WSIS was still seen by many as just one in the series of UN sectoral summits. It is now understood that as a critical resource, the Internet is underpinning most other critical resources for the world, and its governance must be seen in that light.

Multi-stakeholder approach has been a household word in internet governance discussions since the WSIS, but the concept has not been widely understood, let alone endorsed, in the wider world. In that respect, the panel’s unequivocal support of multistakeholderism as an indispensable complement to multilateralism is very important. But this makes it even more urgent to develop practical modalities of cooperation between governments, international organizations, private sector, technical and academic communities and civil society. All stakeholders should contribute to turning the multistakeholder approach from a mantra into a method. It will be the language of the future, but it still lacks a grammar.

In addition to principles and norms, the panel also presents three alternative paths for mechanisms for global digital cooperation. At the WSIS and in its follow-up discussions, the m-word tended to raise red flags lest somebody somewhere was conspiring to “take over” the internet. Maybe we are already beyond that. Of the three options, at least at first sight, the safest bet seems to be to give more teeth to the Internet Governance Forum, which has a proven track record since 2006 and has spawned dozens of regional and national internet forums around the world.

Recognizing the interdependence among all stakeholders, we may, in the end, reach the very goal that, in its flowery language, the 1996 manifesto described as a ‘civilization of the Mind in Cyberspace’. In the words of the co-chairs of the 2019 UN panel: “No one knows how technology will evolve, but we know that our path forward must be built through cooperation and illuminated by shared human values”.