[Chapter-delegates] [MemberPubPol] ISOC at ITU Plenipot 2006

[Matthew Shears]

Franck, all,

Many thanks for you note.

We will put out a weekly round-up for week three as soon as we can.  (It has
been difficult to do reports on a more frequent basis as the documents and
everything else is so much in flux.)

You had asked for some impressions, so here are a few.  

As you know I am participating in the last week (this week) of the
Plenipotentiary - largely a rush to finalize text, agree Resolutions etc.,
to approve initiatives, the strategic plan and some sort of financial basis
for the Union moving forward for the next four years.

According to delegates a number of interesting forces are at play at this
Plenipotentiary, including, but not limited to, a more diverse, less
polarized membership; a number of political issues on the table (including
how Palestinian Sector Members could participate in the ITU); a desire by a
number of Member States to use the ITU as a means to influence the "enhanced
cooperation" process on international Internet public policy issues; a more
pronounced developing country voice; new leadership (and the likelihood of a
greater focus on bridging the digital divide); and budgetary pressures that
will force the ITU to look closely at its projects and human resources going
forward.

Issues of interest to the Internet community were many.  From technical work
on IP based networks, moving forward on IDNs, the ITU's role in public
policy issues pertaining to the management of Internet resources, security
in ICTs, a World Telecommunications Policy Forum (possibly/likely on
Internet related issues), to ITU and WSIS implementation, among others.
These should be available in final adopted form on the ITU site eventually.


As we had anticipated, the biggest challenge arose from those Member States
that wished to see the ITU have a greater role or say in Internet
governance, resources and the DNS.  These were, from their perspective,
inadequately addressed in WSIS and not at all in the IGF.  While these
Member States may not have got exactly what they wanted at Plenipotentiary,
there is language that could be interpreted by some to mean a greater role
for the ITU.  However, much of this awkward language is qualified in many
places and gives other delegations plenty of ammunition to blunt attempts to
do so.  Another focus of this group of Member States was to emphasize the
ITU's role in the WSIS "enhanced cooperation" process driven by, I suspect,
the notion that their representation in this process will be enhanced(!)
through individual and collective (via the ITU) engagement.

An interesting element will be the influence of the new Secretary General
and his immediate reports.  Clearly he has development issues top of mind
(along with the continuing financial situation of the ITU).  How this will
translate in terms of the day-to-day work and how this will mesh with the
desire of those Member States that wish to see the ITU expand its role in
the Internet governance space remains to be seen.  

Regardless, we will have to watch closely what happens with regards the
Internet-related work items and focus areas going forward.

Coming from the IGF and its dialogue among (largely) equals the
Plenipotentiary was a reminder that multi-stakeholderism is far from
realized in these environments.  Efforts to address the participation of
Civil Society were moved to a study group with a widened mandate to look at
all non-Member State entity involvement.  It is far from clear what will
come of this.  During the discussion over the budget many Member States
proposed hiking the dues of Sector Members (private sector, ISOC, others).
Fortunately this decision was moved to the next Plenipotentiary but clearly
many Member States are not overly inclined to non-government participation.
Also, a common refrain that was heard in the sessions that covered WSIS and
Internet issues was the need to have a place where governments could talk to
each other about such issues.

That's a high level view from my perspective during the last week.  

Looking forward to any thoughts, comments, questions.

Best,

Matthew





-----Original Message-----
From: memberpubpol-bounces at elists.isoc.org
[mailto:memberpubpol-bounces at elists.isoc.org] On Behalf Of Franck Martin
Sent: Wednesday, November 22, 2006 9:51 PM
To: Constance Bommelaer
Cc: memberpubpol at elists.isoc.org; chapter-delegates at elists.isoc.org
Subject: Re: [MemberPubPol] [Chapter-delegates] ISOC at ITU Plenipot 2006

Constance,

Merci for this very good report, but what is your opinion/analysis about 
this conference?

Constance Bommelaer wrote:
>
> Dear all,
>
>  
>
> The Internet Society is participating in the ITU Plenipotentiary 
> Conference that is currently (6-24 November) held in Antalya, Turkey.
>
>  
>
> Please find enclosed a report summarizing the first two weeks of the 
> Conference.
>
>  
>
> Regards,
>
>  
>
> Constance Bommelaer
>
> Internet Society (ISOC)
>
> Public Policy Manager
>
> +41 22 807 1444
>
>  
>
>
............................................................................
.......
>
>

-- 
Franck Martin
ICT Specialist
franck at sopac.org
SOPAC, Fiji
GPG Key fingerprint = 44A4 8AE4 392A 3B92 FDF9  D9C6 BE79 9E60 81D9 1320
"Toute connaissance est une reponse a une question" G.Bachelard

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