IGF-Japan 3rd Plenary Meeting / Launch of the IGCJ — In-Depth Report: Minutes Digest & 3-Line Summary

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The 3-Line Summary

Japan IGF 2014 東京 — 3-line summary

  1. In 2014 Japan's domestic IGF activity ran on two tracks: IGF-Japan's 3rd Plenary at Aoyama Gakuin University on 14 March (about 150 participants), and the first meeting of the Internet Governance Conference Japan (IGCJ) at JPNIC on 18 June (38 participants).
  2. The plenary swept across privacy, new gTLDs, IPv6 and security; on the same 14 March (US time), the US government announced it would relinquish stewardship of the IANA functions — and the IGCJ was founded as Japan's dedicated forum to grapple with that transition.
  3. A pivotal year in which JAIPA's IGF-Japan and JPNIC's IGCJ came to coexist: the IGCJ went on to meet 27 times through 2019, building the discussion infrastructure that leads to today's Japan IGF.

Welcome — this is the Japan IGF Support Organization. This in-depth report on IGF-Japan 3rd Plenary Meeting / Launch of the IGCJ draws on official outputs, session records and on-site reporting. In a hurry? The three lines above and the diagrams carry the gist.

Conference at a Glance (from official records)

Japan IGF 2014 東京 — Conference at a glance

Item Detail
Official name IGF-Japan 3rd Plenary Meeting / Launch of the IGCJ
Dates 14 March 2014 (3rd Plenary) / 18 June 2014 (1st IGCJ meeting)
Venue Aoyama Gakuin University, Shibuya, Tokyo / JPNIC meeting room, Chiyoda, Tokyo
Theme Regional governance themes
Participants 150
Host 3rd Plenary: IGF Japan (secretariat JAIPA, supported by MIC) / IGCJ: secretariat JPNIC
Outcome The IGCJ (Internet Governance Conference Japan) was founded, beginning a roughly bi-monthly meeting series that ran until July 2019 (27 meetings)

(See the source list at the end of this article.)

Discussion Digest — from the Session Records

Japan IGF 2014 東京 — Discussion map

Key exchanges extracted from session records and transcripts.

1. IGF-Japan's 3rd Plenary — a 150-person stocktake of governance

Sessions: 14 March 2014, 9:30–18:00, Aoyama Gakuin University

  • Keio's Jun Murai, MIC bureau chief Hiroomi Kira and JAIPA president Takenori Watanabe opened the meeting, which drew about 150 participants [1]
  • Sessions covered global trends (Adam Peake, Izumi Aizu, Toshiaki Tateishi, MIC's Mari Ichikawa, JPNIC's Akinori Maemura), privacy and personal data (lawyer Yoichiro Itakura and others), new gTLDs and IPv6, and user-participatory governance (MIAU's Keisuke Katsuki, ICANN NomCom's Rafik Dammak) [1]
  • Yasuhiko Taniwaki of the Cabinet Secretariat's security centre briefed on the security landscape, before a closing all-hands discussion on Japan's role in internet governance moderated by Motoyuki Kato [1]

2. The IANA stewardship transition — a historic announcement on the very same date

Sessions: The US NTIA announcement (14 March 2014, US time) and the 1st IGCJ lectures

"The IANA stewardship transition did not come out of nowhere — it had been envisaged ever since ICANN was founded (translated)"
— Jun Murai (Keio University), as recorded in the 1st IGCJ meeting report [8][3][2]

  • On 14 March 2014 (US time) — the same date as the 3rd Plenary — the US Commerce Department's NTIA announced its intent to transition stewardship of the IANA functions to the global multistakeholder community [8][3][2]
  • Responding to that announcement was the direct trigger for JPNIC to convene the 'Meeting to Consider Internet Governance' — the 1st IGCJ meeting — on 18 June [8][3][2]
  • Worst cases raised at that meeting included the US Congress blocking the transition, decision-making processes that could break the internet's operation, and expanded ITU involvement, with the IANA contract's expiry on 30 September 2015 seen as the decisive milestone [8][3][2]

3. The IGCJ is born — from a one-off study meeting to a standing forum

Sessions: '1st Meeting to Consider Internet Governance', 18 June 2014, 17:00–20:00, JPNIC

"The ideal outcome is that stable operations continue, the IANA functions are preserved, and they are run within ICANN's accountability framework (translated)"
— Akinori Maemura (JPNIC), as recorded in the meeting report [3][4][2]

  • Of 55 registrants, 38 attended; twelve guests took the stage — Izumi Aizu, Yoshiki Ishida, Mari Ichikawa, Hiroshi Esaki, Tsuyoshi Kinoshita, Shigeki Goto, Toshio Tachibana, Toshiaki Tateishi, James Foster, Hirofumi Hotta, Jun Murai and Shuji Yamaguchi (two joining remotely) [3][4][2]
  • Two aims were set: building a domestic foundation for well-informed deliberation, and preparing proposals to feed global directions and implement them in Japan — with meetings roughly every two months [3][4][2]
  • The first gathering ran under the provisional name 'Meeting to Consider Internet Governance'; on 24 July the formal name Internet Governance Conference Japan (IGCJ) was announced [3][4][2]

4. Two lineages — JAIPA's IGF-Japan and JPNIC's IGCJ side by side

Sessions: (the year's overall structure)

  • 2014 became the turning point at which IGF-Japan (founded 2011, secretariat JAIPA) and the new IGCJ (secretariat JPNIC) came to operate in parallel [7][6][5]
  • JPNIC later reflected that running the two independently 'demanded heavy planning and operational resources and dispersed creative energy' [7][6][5]
  • The IGCJ adopted the philosophy of 'a gathering of individuals hosted by the community itself, with no defined organiser', and went on to meet 27 times — mostly at JPNIC in Tokyo — through July 2019 [7][6][5]

Three-Minute Short Talk — Your Questions Answered

Q. Why bundle two meetings into one year's entry?

A. Because both belong to the same national IGF story: JAIPA's plenary in spring, then JPNIC's launch of the IGCJ in summer. The series verification treats the pair as the year's real substance.

Q. Why was the IGCJ created?

A. The immediate trigger was the US NTIA's announcement of 14 March 2014 — a historic decision to hand stewardship of the IANA functions (the internet's address book) to the global community. Japan needed a standing forum to work through it.

Q. What happened afterwards?

A. The IGCJ met roughly every two months, 27 times through July 2019. In 2016 Japan registered 'Japan IGF' with the UN as its national IGF — the foundation of today's activity.

What Is Japan IGF? (for first-time readers)

Japan IGF 2014 東京 — About Japan IGF

Japan IGF is a National or Regional IGF Initiative (NRI), aligning local internet governance discussion with global IGF principles.

Why It Matters to You

What was discussed here becomes the baseline for national digital policy, platform rules and AI regulation worldwide within a few years. The principles confirmed at the 2014 meeting are the foundation of the "next rules" for the phones, social platforms and AI services you use every day.

Sources & References

  1. IGF-Japan 第3回全体会議 — 日本インターネットプロバイダー協会（JAIPA） (accessed 2026-07-11)
  2. 第1回インターネットガバナンスを検討する会（1st IGCJ） — 日本インターネットガバナンス会議（IGCJ） (accessed 2026-07-11)
  3. 第1回インターネットガバナンスを検討する会レポート — 日本インターネットガバナンス会議（IGCJ） (accessed 2026-07-11)
  4. 「日本インターネットガバナンス会議(IGCJ)」発足のお知らせおよびIGCJ第2回会合のご案内 — 日本インターネットガバナンス会議（IGCJ） (accessed 2026-07-11)
  5. 日本インターネットガバナンス会議(IGCJ)とは — 日本インターネットガバナンス会議（IGCJ） (accessed 2026-07-11)
  6. 日本インターネットガバナンス会議(IGCJ)ミーティング（会合一覧） — 日本インターネットガバナンス会議（IGCJ） (accessed 2026-07-11)
  7. 日本におけるインターネットガバナンス関連活動の経験と課題 — 日本ネットワークインフォメーションセンター（JPNIC） (accessed 2026-07-11)
  8. NTIA Announces Intent to Transition Key Internet Domain Name Functions — US Department of Commerce (accessed 2026-07-11)

Quotes are translated or condensed from the records listed above. Bracketed numbers [n] refer to the source list.

Related links

Revision History

Rev. 1 — published 22 August 2014, 14:00 (Article published)

Rev. 2 — updated 16 July 2026, 20:09 (Fully revised into the in-depth edition: added the 3-line summary, minutes digest, short talk, source list and diagrams (all quotes verified against the listed sources))

— 中澤祐樹

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