The Governance Stress-Test Doctrine for Internet Institutions

This working paper proposes the Governance Stress-Test Doctrine for Internet Institutions: a model-neutral framework for assessing legitimacy under institutional stress. It argues that Internet governance institutions hold authority on behalf of, and derive authority from, the communities they coordinate. Their legitimacy therefore cannot be presumed from legal existence, technical continuity, elections, external assistance, or institutional survival alone. The doctrine distinguishes operational continuity from legitimacy, and assistance from mandate substitution. It acknowledges that ICP-2, the current RIR Governance Document process, RIR accountability assessments, IANA numbering-service arrangements, and continuity mechanisms already address important operational and institutional questions. Its contribution is narrower: it defines a legitimacy-under-stress layer for situations where an Internet institution remains alive and operational while its authority, mandate, election legitimacy, external influence, reviewer integrity, or affected-community support becomes contested. The paper uses AFRINIC and APNIC as contrasting illustrations of institutional stress: AFRINIC as a late-stage stress case involving litigation, emergency administration, continuity concerns, and regional/global effect; APNIC as a preventive election-stress case involving by-law reform, candidate eligibility, corporate-group influence, geographic concentration, and electoral safeguards. The framework is also applicable beyond RIRs to Internet Exchange Points, national Internet councils, IPv6 councils, digital-governance committees, and externally funded reform processes. The paper includes definitions, a governance stress-test framework, safeguards against misuse, and legal/institutional translation tables for applying the doctrine in governance, policy, consultation, and institutional-review contexts.