Brazil's Organization of the NETmundial Meeting: Moving Forward in Global Internet Governance

In the face of the apparent weaknesses of the state system to find meaningful solutions to global challenges such as the regulation of the Internet, more democratic forms of governance may show more creative and innovative ways to move forward. Instead of focusing once again on the usual suspects in this debate (civil society actors, Western state actors, or international organizations), this article sheds light on the role of Brazil, a developing democracy from the Global South. The article examines Brazil's organization of the 2014 Global Multistakeholder Meeting on the Future of Internet Governance (NETmundial) in São Paulo. NETmundial allowed governments, civil society organizations, private actors, and local Internet communities to elaborate a human rights declaration on global Internet governance. The article explores why this multistakeholder process was so successful compared to previous multistakeholder approaches in global Internet governance. In the same vein, it argues that Brazil was capable of organizing a multistakeholder meeting based on three particular democratic elements: the promotion of human rights, the creation of participatory mechanisms, and the establishment of accountability mechanisms.