[Chapter-delegates] Report on 14 December consultation on enhanced cooperation

[Veni Markovski]

Thanks, Bill!
Very helpful. This story at the US National Public Radio is also good
(and quotes Isoc!):

U.N. Delegates Debate Control Of Internet

http://www.npr.org/2010/12/17/132144972/U-N-Delegates-Debate-Control-Of-Internet?sc=tw&cc=shareby

Tom Gjelten
December 17, 2010

Among the little-noticed debates at the United Nations this week was
one that focuses on a potentially explosive issue: the future of the
Internet. On one side are those countries favoring more governmental
controls. On the other are the advocates of Internet freedom.

The debate has its roots in the 2005 World Summit on the Information
Society (WSIS), a U.N.-organized conference that addressed the
"digital divide" between countries over their relative access to the
Internet. One result of the conference was a mandate that the U.N.
should explore ways to internationalize the governance of the
Internet.

For all its power and worldwide reach, the Internet is still largely
an unregulated space. But many governments, especially in the
developing world, argue that it's time to strengthen international
oversight, with intergovernmental bodies such as the United Nations
taking a lead role.

At issue is the extent to which private industry, civil society
groups, and other nongovernmental actors should continue to play
significant roles in the management of the Internet. At this week's
hearing, organized by U.N. Department of Social and Economic Affairs,
some countries, including China, favored limiting the oversight role
to governmental and intergovernmental bodies.

"The governments are located in the center of this process," argued
Tang Zicai, representing the Ministry of Industry and Information
Technology in Beijing. "This process cannot be accomplished without
the meaningful participation of the governments."

The current organization of the Internet, however, leaves little room
for government control, and many civil society groups say it should
stay that way.

"The Internet is a network of networks working cooperatively together,
designed to operate without centralized control or governance
mechanisms," argued the Internet Society, a nonprofit international
organization focusing on Internet standards, education, and policy.

In a statement prepared for the United Nations debate, the
organization said the "intelligence" of the Internet is "predominantly
at the edges, with the users. ... This model has proven to be
flexible, adaptable and responsive to users' needs, and is itself the
source of the tremendous innovation the Internet has created."

But support for increased government regulation of the Internet is
growing, especially among the developing countries who constitute a
majority in the United Nations General Assembly. Several were
outspoken in presentations this week at the U.N. hearing.

"Developments have not been supportive of increasing the leverage of
developing countries in policy issues pertaining to the Internet,"
said Mohammed Hussain Nejad, representing the government of Iran. "The
few developed countries are either monopolizing policymaking on such
issues or entering into exclusive treaties among themselves, while
further marginalizing other countries, mainly developing ones," he
said.

For those governments who simply favor more control over the Internet
and for those who want to see the network reformed for the benefit of
less powerful countries, there is one obvious solution: the United
Nations should take more responsibility. Among those backing such a
move are Brazil, India, Saudi Arabia, and other emerging powers.

On the other side, in addition to civil society groups, are the United
States and its western allies.

"The worst case scenario would be the imposition of U.N. types of
governance over the Internet," says Philip Verveer, the Coordinator of
International Communication and Information Policy at the US State
Department. "[It would] inevitably bring with it tremendous slowness
in terms of reaching critical decisions, because you can't have
decisions taken among nations on anything that won't take a very long
time. It would potentially [slow] changes in the architecture of the
Internet, the adoption of technology, or the commercial arrangements
that surround interconnection."

Of additional concern to U.N. critics is the prospect of governments
pushing for new international rules to limit the political impact of
the Internet.

"[These governments] don't like the idea of the free flow of
information," Verveer says, "and intergovernmental controls would be a
way of controlling the content that passes over the Internet by
requiring, by treaty if you will, other administrations to cooperate
in terms of suppressing speech that they didn't like."

The government of Mauritania, in its contribution to the U.N. debate,
proposed that "international policy in the field of Internet should
urge each country to ensure control of Internet content" in order to
block the dissemination of any information "not authorized by law and
morality" in some other country.

Such views, however, may reflect some naivete. The WikiLeaks episode
showed how hard it can be to keep content off the Internet. Upset as
it was by the disclosure of state secrets, the US government had no
real way to keep users from finding the WikiLeaks material.

Indeed, more broadly, the U.N. debate over the future of the Internet
shows that governments are still figuring out which Internet policies
make sense and which don't.

"We're getting an opportunity for governments to ask dumb questions,"
says Gregory Francis, managing director of Access Partnership, a
London-based lobbying firm that follows global Internet regulation
issues. "If Mauritania asks Russia or France, 'Is this possible?' and
the governments of those countries reply, 'No, it ain't,' they'll
probably pipe down and go away."

But the debate over the Internet's future promises only to grow.
Diplomats are already preparing for a World Conference on
International Telecommunications, due to be held in 2012 in Malaysia.



On 12/17/10, Bill Graham <graham at isoc.org> wrote:
> All,
>
> As you know, the UN Under-Secretary-General, SHA Zukang, convened "open
> consultations on the process towards enhanced cooperation on international
> public policy issues pertaining to the Internet" in New York on Tuesday, 14
> December 2010.  I requested and received permission to speak as an NGO on
> behalf of the Internet Society as well as the IETF (at the request of the
> IAB).  This is a fairly extensive report on the session, because I thought
> you'd be interested in some of the positions taken.  All written
> contributions to the consultation, and the text of most of the speeches,
> along with a webcast, and the program are to be posted to the DESA web site
> at:
> <http://www.unpan.org/dpadm/wsisfollowup/>
>
> REPORT:
> Of the 25 formal presenters, 14 were governments, 10 were business or civil
> society organizations, and 1 was an intergovernmental organization (ITU).
> Several other governments and civil society organizations spoke during the
> open discussion.  My estimate is that a small majority of governments spoke
> in favour of any mechanism for enhanced cooperation being multistakeholder,
> although several were strongly of the view that enhanced cooperation is
> strictly meant to be inter-governmental.  Of course all business and civil
> society speakers were in favour of a multistakeholder model.
>
> In the most coherent expression of the governments-only view, Brazil spoke
> for India, Brazil and South Africa (IBSA) as a group, presenting their plan
> for "a new world order," in this case in the form of a new intergovernmental
> entity to deal with international public policy issues pertaining to the
> Internet.  It would have governments deal with issues such as:  stability,
> interoperability, network neutrality, human rights the balance between
> security, privacy, openness, and maintaning a development focus.  Brazil
> went on to say that there has been progress toward internationalization of
> ICANN, but it is still dependent on one government.  In their opinion, that
> contravenes UN practice and principles of multilateralism.  They said there
> is a need for an intergovernmental platform formally established under the
> UN to discuss critical internet resources and Internet governance.   That
> said, IBSA reaffirms commitment to the Internet as a global facilitiy based
> on the full participation of all stakeholders, in line with their roles and
> responsibilities.  and denied that their proposal is an attempt to have the
> UN take over the Internet.
>
> On the other side, IETF/ISOC, the European Commission, International Chamber
> of Commerce, ICANN, the NRO, the United Kingdom, the European
> Telecommunication Network Operators' Association, Finland, Tech America, the
> Internet Governance Caucus (David Allen), Italy, Serbia, the American  Bar
> Association, the World Federation of Engineering Organizations and others
> spoke about the benefits of the multistakeholder model.  Many examples of
> post-WSIS enhanced cooperation were offered and, in general, a pretty good
> case was made that enhanced cooperation is alive and well.  ISOC made the
> point that it is not enough for the inter-governmental organizations to
> invite stakeholders to work in forums of their creation; it is also
> necessary for the IGOs to recognize there are many other forums within the
> existing Internet organizations where governments and IGOs need to go to
> cooperate.
>
> After the formal presentations completed, USG Sha opened the floor for
> discussion.  Milton Mueller expressed concern about the IBSA proposal, which
> will fragment cooperation, not enhance it.  He said a purely
> intergovernmental platform means that governments do not take seriously
> their interaction with other stakeholders.  Nor would all governments agree
> to such a forum.  He went on to remind the group that governments have no
> trans-national authority over the Internet.  Public policy is the sovereign
> right of states, but there is no sovereignty over the Internet, which
> negates the position of several governments.  He posed the question to
> governments: why not embrace this challenge rather than running away from
> it?  John Curran (ARIN) and others questioned how the idea of a
> government-only enhanced cooperation process could possibly be considered,
> given the WSIS Tunis Agenda's insistence that "The international management
> of the Internet should be multilateral, transparent and democratic, with the
> full involvement of governments, the private sector, civil society and
> international organizations."  IGC pointed out that  there is still a very
> long way to go before all stakeholders deal with each other in a
> constructive manner; thus work needs to be continued to enhance cooperation
> among all the stakeholders.
>
> China took a new tack by saying that the existing Internet organizations
> have done a very good job of enhancing cooperation but that doesn’t mean
> UNSG doesn’t need to start a governmental process toward enhanced
> cooperation.  They criticized the UN Sec-Gen for not having started the
> process he was asked by WSIS to start by first quarter 2006, and said that
> governments need a private place to discuss how to deal with
> Internet-related public policy issues. They concluded by saying that the
> meeting's purpose was to help the UNSG do his job starting the process, and
> so the meeting doesn’t need to reach consensus.
>
> And in the Chair's concluding remarks, that was the point he made rather
> strongly when talking about the way forward.  He said the point of the
> meeting was to act upon the resolution passed by member states at the WSIS.
> If anyone does not like it, he said they have to go back to WSIS or ECOSOC,
> and get the resolution overturned.  The UN Secretariat will act on the
> resolution that is current.  As to whether there would be a process on
> enhanced cooperation he said that's no longer for discussion.  On the other
> hand, Sha said all should agree "we" have existing institutions like ITU,
> ICANN, CSTD, ECOSOC, and they’ve all played their respective roles.  He said
> there’s no question the IGF role is recognized, and will be extended for 5
> years.  Those existing mechanisms should continue, including UN institutions
> like CSTD.  But he said noone has created new overarching groups; he
> admitted CSTD has established a working group, but said that’s not
> frightening because it is just a working group: let them work.  He noted
> that working group is to take into account the views of all stakeholders.
> CSTD is a governmental group, he said, and its working group is also
> governmental, but it can’t do its job without taking into account the views
> of others.  Then in an interesting aside, he mused that the world has
> changed.  When he was in government he said he used to shout at Civil
> Society that they are not accountable to anyone.  But he admitted he was
> wrong – they are the source of ideas, and  have experience in the field, so
> the UN should benefit from their experiences.  No one says don’t consult
> them, he continued; they should be consulted and make recommendations.
>
> And so it ended.  The conclusion is that there has now been a
> multistakeholder consultation, and there will not be more on this topic.
> The UN Secretariat (Sha) will go away and write a report for next
> June-July's ECOSOC meeting as requested, with recommendations that will take
> into account the views expressed at the December 14 meeting.  My bet, if I
> was to make one, is that the recommendation will be to create an
> intergovernmental working group on enhanced cooperation, possibly with
> occasional consultation meetings for other stakeholders.
>
> COMMENT:
> It seems to me that the some member states are successfully getting the UN
> system to back away from progress made toward multistakedholder engagement
> since the WSIS.  The have also increased the number and frequency of largely
> formalistic consultations with the non-governmental organizations of all
> types, which is having the effect of stretching our and other organizations'
> resources and ability to deal with them.  Whether that is a deliberate
> tactic, or just an accident arising from lack of coordination, is hard to
> say but I think we need to consider carefully where we will participate in
> the next year, focusing more strategically on meetings and mechanisms where
> we stand a chance of having a real impact.
>
> Bill
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