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

[Veni Markovski]

More on this:

http://socialbarrel.com/google’s-vinton-cerf-disapproves-complete-government-control-of-the-internet/1705/

Google’s Vinton Cerf Disapproves Complete Government Control of the Internet

On 12/18/10, Veni Markovski <veni at veni.com> wrote:
> 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
>> _______________________________________________
>> Chapter-delegates mailing list
>> Chapter-delegates at elists.isoc.org
>> https://elists.isoc.org/mailman/listinfo/chapter-delegates
>>
>
> --
> Sent from my mobile device
>

-- 
Sent from my mobile device