At a time when everything is digital and every aspect of our society, including how we communicate, socialise, make decisions, work and ultimately live is influenced by technology, the notion of digital interdependence becomes all the more relevant.

It is in this spirit that the UN Secretary-General established the High-Level Panel on Digital Cooperation (Panel) in July 2018. The Panel was tasked to “address the social, ethical, legal, and economic impact of digital technologies in order to maximise their benefits and minimise their harm.” Under the co-chairmanship of Melinda Gates and Jack Ma, 20 members of the Panel engaged in intensive consultations with governments, the tech industry, and local communities worldwide.

In June 2019, the Panel issued its Report titled ‘The Age of Digital Interdependence’ with the following five set of recommendations.

Firstly, the Panel recommends that ‘by 2030, every adult should have affordable access to digital networks, as well as to digitally-enabled financial and health service’. It is with this recommendation that the Panel attempts to fill in the gap in the 2030 Agenda that failed to dedicate a specific sustainable development goal (SDG) to digital technology. In truth, digital technology is only briefly mentioned in SDG 9 (Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure), target c, which in essence calls for increased access to ICTs and affordable access to the Internet in least developed countries by 2020.

This recommendation that could also be regarded informally as the ‘digital SDG’ allows the Panel to set the stage for a holistic mainstreaming of digital technology in the 2030 Agenda. As a practical first step, the Panel proposes the creation of a digital public goods sharing platform, and endorses digital inclusion and equality of women and other traditionally marginalised groups. The Panel also calls on the stakeholders to agree on a set of metrics for digital inclusiveness.

The second recommendation focuses on the development of human as well as institutional capacities of governments, civil society, and the private sector. The Panel proposes the establishment of regional and global digital help desks as practical mechanisms for fostering, coordinating, and implementing capacity development activities.

The third set of recommendations addresses the issue of human rights and human agency in the digital age. The Panel proposes an agencies-wide review of how existing international human rights accords and standards apply to new and emerging digital technologies. It recommends that this evaluation is conducted with the inclusive participation of civil society, governments, the private sector and the wider public. Furthermore, it goes on to underline that ‘life and death decisions should not be delegated to machines’. In this set of recommendations, it also encourages multistakeholder digital cooperation on the design of standards and principles for future AI developments. To this end, the Panel highlights a few guiding principles and approaches, namely, explainability of AI code, human accountability in AI, as well as respect of transparency and non-bias in use of AI system. The Panel also calls for action in order to address human rights violations on social media platforms, in particular those concerning children.

The fourth recommendation on trust, security and stability calls for the establishment of a Global Commitment on Digital Trust and Security which should complement the existing digital-related processes such as the UN Governmental Group of Experts (UN GGE), the UN Open Ended Working Group (OWEG), and regional cybersecurity initiatives.

The fifth and the final set of recommendations is dedicated to digital governance which was one of the main underlying reasons for the establishment of the Panel’s mandate. The Panel frames digital governance in the context of shared values, principles, understandings, and objectives that should be outlined in a ‘Global Commitment for Digital Cooperation’. The Panel proposes the UN’s 75th anniversary in 2020 as an adequate date for the adoption of the Global Commitment. Moreover, the Panel introduces the following three models as the basis for the discussion of governance mechanisms: Distributed Co-Governance Architecture (COGOV), the Internet Governance Forum Plus (IGF+), and the Digital Commons Architecture. Lastly, the Panel underlines that the digital governance processes should be strengthened by the appointment of the UN SG’s Technology Envoy, an option that the UN Secretary General said he will explore in his Strategy on New Technologies .

Discussions on these and other functions and models for digital cooperation will most likely dominate in the post-Panel dynamics. In fact, the Panel’s report along with its recommendations only marks an important step on the long journey ahead.

Answering digital policy calls - Proposals from the UN High-Level Panel on Digital Cooperation

In June 2019, the UN Secretary General’s High-Level Panel on Digital Cooperation presented a set of recommendations on sustainable development, human rights, cybersecurity and other aspects of digital cooperation in its report titled ‘The Age of Digital Interdependence’. In particular, the Panel sought to address the growing number of calls from citizens, companies, and governments worldwide for strengthening of digital governance. The two most recent ones, which are even calls by title, are the Christchurch Call^[1] issued by New Zealand and France to eliminate violent terrorist and extremist content online, and the Paris Call^[2], issued by over 100 governments and companies to strengthen trust and security in cyberspace.

In order to address the issue of digital governance, the Panel built on more than a 1000 mechanisms ranging from standardisation instruments used by, among others, the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) and the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) to guidelines and self-regulation tools used by the tech industry and their associations. It also reviewed legislation, treaties, and other legally binding mechanisms employed by governments and international organisations.

The Panel employed the ‘form follows function’ approach in order to ground governance proposals in digital reality, policy sensitivities and practical needs of actors and communities worldwide. It conducted its deliberation through a number of steps including: spotting gaps in the existing governance mechanisms, outlining the values that governance should support, identifying the core governance functions, and, lastly, landing all of them in three models for digital governance and cooperation.

Gaps

The Panel identified, among others, the following main gaps in the current digital governance:

● A relatively low place on many national, regional and global political agendas of digital technology and digital cooperation issues.

● Weak level of inclusion, in particular, of small and developing countries, indigenous communities, women, young and elderly, and those with disabilities in digital cooperation arrangements.

● Overlap, high complexity and ineffectiveness of mechanisms covering digital policy issues.

● A relative lack of reflection of the cross-cutting nature of digital technology in traditional policy work.

● Lack of reliable data, metrics and evidence on which to base practical policy interventions.

Key Principles

The Panel listed the following main principles and characteristics which should respond to digital governance gaps: consensus-orientedness, polycentricity, customisation, subsidiarity, accessibility, inclusiveness, agility, clarity, accountability, resilience, openness, innovation, tech-neutrality, and equitability in outcomes.

Key Functions

Once it identified the gaps and key principles, the Panel listed the core ten functions that digital governance architecture should perform: leadership, deliberation, inclusivity, provision of evidence and data, norms and policy making, implementation, coordination, partnership, support and capacity development, conflict and crisis management.

Governance Models

Lastly, the Panel proposed the following three governance models which should address the above described gaps, support values and principles, and perform core governance functions:

● Internet Governance Forum Plus (IGF+)

● Distributed Co-Governance Architecture (COGOV)

● Digital Commons Architecture (DCA)

At a time when there is no appetite for new multilateral mandates, one of the main strengths of the IGF Plus proposal is that it could build on the existing mandate provided by Article 72 of the 2005 Tunis Agenda for the Information Society.

In addition, the IGF Plus uses an evolutionary approach by:

● building on the achievements of the existing IGF process: gender balance (difficult to achieve in the digital field), innovative working methods, and a well-developed network of national/regional IGFs; and

● addressing major weaknesses of the IGF such as a lack of actionable outcomes, lack of dedicated discussion tracks for governments and other stakeholders, and limited participation of actors from small and developing countries.

The IGF Plus would consist of: Cooperation Accelerator, Policy Incubator, Observatory, Help Desk, and Advisory Group.

The Cooperation Accelerator would connect as many dots in the digital policy space as possible by bringing forth a multidisciplinary approach and by including diverse perspectives from across the policy spectrum. It would improve and accelerate the cooperation between different events and processes covering the same issues such as AI, cybersecurity or data. With better coordination, organisers of parallel processes could become, at the least, aware of each others’ activities, and at best, specialise in specific coverage of certain aspects including ethics, security, standards, and data, to name a few, of complex matters such as AI.

The Policy Incubator would provide the right environment to develop, monitor, and adjust policies and norms in an expedient manner. For instance, after receiving requests for action such as the Christchurch Call or the Paris Call, the Policy Incubator would identify whether existing regulations could be applied or adjusted to take prompt action. In many cases, the existing rules would suffice. However, should there be a gap the Policy Incubator would develop new solutions in an evidence-based and transparent manner that could be used by governments, tech companies, and international organisations as an input for their policy and regulatory activities. The Policy Incubator would not itself adopt legally binding rules.

Lastly, an Observatory and Help Desk would be established to improve and increase coordination and information-sharing, and to provide more efficient capacity development in the digital policy realm. The highly decentralised structure of the IGF Plus would be co-ordinated by an Advisory Group gathering leaders from the tech industry, governments, academia, and civil society. To ensure legitimacy and success, it would be desirable that the Advisory Group is chaired by, or in close involvement with, the UN Secretary-General.

The main weakness of the IGF Plus proposal is its name. Digital policy has moved beyond the core Internet issues towards policies on data and artificial intelligence. Since ‘digital’ is a common denominator for all of them, the most appropriate name for the IGF Plus would be the Digital Cooperation Forum or even the Digital Cooperation Council.

Whereas the IGF Plus proposal is the most mature and closest to the digital reality, the COGOV and DCA proposals also provide useful building blocks for governance in the digital policy space.

The COGOV would foster new cooperation networks which would help find innovative solutions that governments and other stakeholders could immediately utilise. The DCA would establish dedicated tracks to support sophisticated and efficient communication on individual issues between all relevant actors, with particular attention given to the promotion and realisation of SDGs. In all three proposals, there is a definitive aim to streamline deliberations in order to deliver prompt and evidence-based policy actions.

History has shown us time and time again that the only way to make real progress on global issues is through global cooperation. After decades of experiments and academic discussion on digital governance, it is now time for consolidation and action. The next stop on this journey is the 14th IGF in Berlin^[3], where the Panel’s recommendations will be discussed and the digital governance architecture should start emerging.

^[1] See https://dig.watch/newsletter/may2019.

^[2] See https://www.diplomacy.edu/blog/table-paris-call-trust-and-security-cyberspace.

^[3] See https://dig.watch/events/14th-internet-governance-forum.