ABSTRACT
The Internet grew dramatically, as did its problems, and ICANN began to expand, but the international political dimension of Internet governance did not emerge until the World Summit on the Information Society in 2003. This led to a reflection on what kinds of institutions and arrangement might be needed, and solidified a growing approach based on effectively involving all stakeholders in governance, a new model for international institutions. While the management of the critical Internet resources was being
developed through ICANN, the intergovernmental system was also becoming interested in Internet governance. The International Telecommunications Union (ITU) secretariat had sought to become involved through the MoU-TLD and had almost succeeded when opposition in the United States had derailed the project in 1997. At the same time that the White Paper was being considered, the ITU was holding its quadrennial Plenipotentiary Conference in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The ITU was trying to adapt to rapidly changing information technology that had made much of what it had been doing obsolete. This coincided with an increased interest in other United Nations organs with the role of information and communication technologies in development. One of the recommendations from Minneapolis was that a World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) be convened. Organizing a world conference or summit has been a favorite vehicle for launching new or revised international initiatives to solve global problems, as has been analyzed by Michael Schechter in another volume in this series.1
