High on the agenda as Internet stakeholders gather in Berlin, Germany for the 14^th annual meeting of the Internet Government Forum (IGF), is discussion of the recently released Report of the UN Secretary-General’s High-level Panel on Digital Cooperation. The report is the next step in an international dialogue on the benefits and challenges of technology that began in 1985 with the Maitland Commission’s The Missing Link, and the subsequent 34 years of conferences, meetings and negotiations, including the UN World Summit on the Information Society. This most recent effort shifts the discussion away from the underlying infrastructure issues to the societal and social impacts that technology is having in the 21^st century. Called by some, governance on the Internet as opposed to governance of the Internet. As stakeholders grapple with how best to meet the challenges of today while preserving prosperity and innovation, it is worth reflecting on the conditions that enabled a successful global Internet governance solution.

The U.S. government’s efforts to privatize and internationalize the global coordination of the Internet’s domain name system (DNS) took nearly two decades to complete. Initiated in 1998 with the Memorandum of Understanding signed between the Department of Commerce and the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), it culminated with the transition of the stewardship of the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) functions to the global Internet community in 2016. Arguably one of the most convincing displays of global digital cooperation via a multistakeholder process, the IANA functions stewardship transition involved hundreds of stakeholders all around the world.

Participants spent more than 800 working hours in meetings on the proposal, exchanged more than 33,000 messages on mailing lists, held more than 600 meetings and calls and incurred millions of dollars in legal fees to develop the proposal. The proposal was evaluated against the initially announced criteria, assessed against the Committee of Sponsoring Organizations (COSO) internal risk controls framework and evaluated by a team of independent corporate governance experts on the possibility of institutional capture. The transition faced a series of political hurdles in the United States, including a last-minute federal lawsuit. On October 1, 2016, the IANA functions contract expired, signifying the end of the transition.

In the face of legal, political and technical complexities, below are four conditions that enabled the success of the IANA stewardship transition.

● Resilient political commitment: The DNS project as it was called, spanned three U.S. presidential Administrations and initially enjoyed bipartisan support from Congress. It was not fully supported by the international community and featured prominently in the heated debates of the WSIS process, several meetings of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), and the first ten years of the IGF agenda. These discussions often pitted the U.S. and a handful of allies against a majority of other nations. As ICANN matured, and coalitions of support grew over the years, the Obama Administration announced in March 2014 its intent to transition key Internet domain name functions to the global multistakeholder community. The response from a limited domestic political base was swift and hostile. As global stakeholders worked tirelessly through the proposal development process, the Administration had to defend the effort in Congressional hearings, federal budgeting debates and legal challenges, among other things. Without a robust and durable political commitment from the Clinton, Bush and Obama Administrations, the IANA stewardship transition would not have occurred.

● Engaged participants: The development of the IANA stewardship transition proposal and the accompanying improvements to ICANN accountability were developed by ICANN community volunteers from industry, civil society and governments. Participants spent more than 800 working hours in meetings on the proposal, exchanged more than 33,000 messages on mailing lists and held more than 600 meetings and calls. This was often in addition to individuals existing workloads. Without incentivized and willing stakeholders, the IANA stewardship transition would not have occurred.

● Agreed problem set: The announcement of the transition was specifically about the role played by the Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) in the coordination of the Internet DNS. As part of the response to the NTIA announcement, stakeholders raised a number of an unrelated DNS issues, both political and technical. Ultimately an ICANN accountability workstream was added so that the final proposal had two components. The ability of all involved to identify, describe, understand and agree the scope of the issue was critical. Without a stable and clear problem set, the IANA stewardship transition would not have occurred.

● Available resources: There is not a monetary estimate of the work hours and travel that stakeholders and the U.S. government spent on developing, evaluating and implementing the IANA stewardship transition. ICANN projected that it spent $34.4 million between personnel, travel and meetings, external legal advice, other professional services, and program administration costs on the proposal development alone. Without clear and sustainable revenue streams and human capacity, the IANA stewardship transition would have occurred.

As the next phase of global Internet governance and digital cooperation discussions move forward, it is worth reflecting on the history of the field. There are lessons to be learned from previous successes and failures. Without the above-mentioned conditions being met, new efforts at global digital collaboration will be limited at best.