‘Coding multilateralism’: implications of the United Nations’ governance of free and open-source software for international organisations in the digital age

Since 2023, United Nations (UN) organisations have significantly shifted from their historically organisationally siloed, ad hoc relationship with free and open-source software (FOSS) as internal digital infrastructure to a novel system-wide, coordinated framework for FOSS governance, led by UN Chief Executives Board for Coordination’s Digital and Technology Network. Critically, that development both reflects and perpetuates the UN’s digital evolution, even as the institution faces existential pressures and digital technologies become an increasingly geopolitically contested space. While FOSS does not represent a panacea for this complex web of poly-crises, the UN often presents FOSS as a key solution that also complements the UN Secretary General’s broader digitalisation agenda for International Organisations (IOs). This rich case study on the UN’s governance of FOSS as internal digital infrastructure strikes at the heart of the question of what the UN is and how it is evolving to secure its future. The article maps why and what UN organisations have done to govern FOSS, through comprehensively mapping their diverse initiatives. Next, the article offers valuable, novel analysis of the resulting implications. Specifically, it explores how the UN’s burgeoning internal governance of FOSS changes our contemporary understanding of the extant role, identity and function of IOs in international law. ‘Thinking infrastructurally’ in the style of Kingsbury, FOSS is simultaneously embedded within and productive of different structures, processes and practices within UN organisations, and reconfigures relationships with distinct publics, encompassing Member States, the private sector and broader communities. Critically, this article illustrates how IOs are not only increasingly ‘entrepreneurial,’ but also how they have strategically reconfigured themselves through their internal digital infrastructures to advance their digital autonomy, security and resilience . In a world of geopolitical risks and re-ordering, IOs are not simply thinking about innovation and cost efficiencies, but also maintenance and security of their digital supply chains. While States speak of realising those objectives in terms of ‘digital sovereignty,’ IOs speak of their immunities and privileges. In the 21st Century, the modern IO is transforming to more concertedly develop, disseminate and maintain its internal digital infrastructure, including FOSS.