[Chapter-delegates] Report - 7th Internet Governance Forum, 5-9 November 2012, Baku, Azerbaijan

[Constance Bommelaer]

Dear Members,

The 7th Internet Governance Forum (IGF) was held in Baku, Azerbaijan
from 5 to 9 November. It gathered over 1500 participants from 128
countries, including a significant number of Ministers and senior
officials. There was a heavy emphasis on human rights and the human
rights record of the host country. The reaction of local bloggers and
human rights activists validated the choice of the host country. They
made it clear that they welcomed holding the IGF meeting in Baku, as it
gave them a platform to make their voice heard.

The Internet Society's community was actively engaged and visible at the 
event. The complete list of ISOC activities and speaking roles in Baku 
is available here: 
http://www.internetsociety.org/igf/2012-internet-governance-forum/igf-2012-activities-list 



IGF: A unique platform for discussing critical Internet Policy issues
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In the pre-IGF consultation that ISOC conducted on Internet governance
ahead of the meeting, a majority of participants emphasized the utility
of the Forum to discuss all these Internet-related policy issues,
especially emerging ones, in an open, transparent and multi-stakeholder
dialogue.

Human Rights was one of the central and cross-cutting themes discussed
this year, with an impressive figure of more than 30 sessions making
reference to human rights related issues. The wealth of discussions and
the diversity of actors involved in the debates that took place in Baku
illustrated an important shift towards considering human rights and
their online dimension as a multi-stakeholder issue, requiring a strong
cooperation among all relevant actors, including the technical
community. Perhaps one of the most striking takeaways from this IGF was
to hear from local bloggers and human rights activists about the value
of the IGF as space empowering them with the ability to speak freely and 
share ideas and opinions in their own country, for example shedding
light on local freedom of speech issues. This provides an interesting
local perspective on the validity of the IGF model as a framework to
foster open discussions, even in countries where online and offline
freedoms are being challenged.

WCIT was also a key undercurrent in many of the IGF workshops and
sessions as WCIT will start on December 2nd with the potential outcomes
having an impact on the Internet and its open functionality. Questions
were raised in these sessions regarding the role of Internet Governance
and the Internet in a treaty that focuses on global telecommunications.
ISOC co-organized a workshop on the ITRs, WCIT and Internet Governance,
which generated an engaged debate among the panelists and participants
on the need to revisit the 1988 treaty text that some felt encouraged
the Internet’s innovation, the element's of a global telecommunications
network and the Internet that should be considered in the new treaty, as 
well as the role of transparency with governments, the private sector 
and civil society in support of multi-stakeholder involvement.  Key 
conclusions were that the ITRs should be high level, technology neutral 
principals based closely on the 1988 treaty text.

Intellectual Property and capacity building were other strong thematic
areas. The Internet Society was responsible for two workshops relating
to intellectual property - one on Intellectual Property Enforcement
mechanisms, co-organized with the Center of Democracy and Technology
(CDT) and the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF). Following the IGF's
mandate for true multi-stakeholder discussions, the panels touched upon
issues relating to intellectual property enforcement mechanisms
currently in place and their impact upon Internet technologies and
fundamental values. The idea of freedom - freedom of expression, freedom 
of information and freedom of speech - was key in all discussions about 
digital content as was the need for a more balanced intellectual 
property protection. Additionally, the dangers of using Internet 
platforms to enforce intellectual property rights was one of the issues 
that participants considered real with discussions focusing on the 
lessons the Internet community should learn from legislation such as 
SOPA, PIPA and ACTA. Finally, on the issue of capacity building, the 
idea that we should consider capacity building as referring to both the 
Internet technical infrastructure as well as its social dimension, was 
heavily promoted by the workshop participants.

Frameworks to discuss Internet Governance: What is the way forward?
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Throughout the IGF week, issues such as Internet principles and future
frameworks for the Internet and Internet Policy were also discussed.
Many organizations and individuals from governments, civil society, the
business, academic and technical communities shared their insights and
presented the work they had done to develop their ideas and principles.
Some called for the elaboration of a compendium of Internet principles
to identify common ground among all initiatives for discussion at the
WSIS+10 Review organized by UNESCO in February 2013.

Enhanced Cooperation was another central piece of the debate. A
pre-event co-organized by ISOC, ICC BASIS and APC enabled a frank and
constructive dialogue on enhanced cooperation in Internet Governance.
While ISOC and others favored the dialogue to go forward in the
framework of the IGF, others wanted to set up a dedicated working group
to discuss this issue. A complete report on this event will soon be made 
available.

Participants also discussed what is "the way forward” for the global
Internet community and for the IGF? We are also two years away from the
WSIS+10, the ten-year review of the World Summit on the Information
Society (WSIS), which of course will have implications for the future of 
the IGF.

“IGF 2012 in the Cloud”
------------------------------

As a new development, and to sharpen our overall analysis of the IGF and 
to more accurately reflect the totality of the discussions, we worked 
this year with the DiploFoundation to analyze the messages in the "IGF 
Cloud". The messages are a synthesis of what has been said online and in 
social media about the sessions and workshops. An interesting contrast 
in the messages and the tone appeared between the participants' virtual 
and real expression, especially when dealing with Internet and Human 
Rights. An aggregation of the messages of the IGF Cloud is available 
here: http://www.internetsociety.org/igf-2012/IGF-2012-cloud

ISOC’s Membership: a central piece of our engagement @IGF
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The Internet Society's Membership was a key component in our 
contribution to the IGF. In-depth engagement with members from many
nations, including Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Russia, Estonia, Georgia,
etc. all converging at the IGF, allowed ISOC to leverage its presence
and overall impact, and generated interest from new actors from Iraq and 
Zimbabwe about creating new chapters. A very constructive meeting with 
representatives from the CIS countries was also organized by ISOC
specifically to introduce them to each other and to ISOC, to discuss
issues of sub-regional importance, and to consider how they might work
together to enhance Internet access and policy in their region.

Finally, ISOC sponsored 17 IGF Ambassadors this year among its
membership. The participation of these young Internet professionals
across the Internet ecosystem, contributed to the Forum's overall
regional, cultural, gender and occupational diversity, while allowing
them to develop their diplomatic skills and deepen their technical
expertise by participating actively in the Forum. Read more about our
Ambassadors: 
http://www.internetsociety.org/what-we-do/education-and-leadership-programmes/next-generation-leaders/Current-Ambassadors. 


IGF 2013 in perspective
-----------------------

IGF 2013 will be held in Bali (21-25 October, date tbc) and we will
engage with you as soon as the preparatory process starts. In the
meantime, if you wish to review the Internet Society's participation in
IGF 2012, please visit our website at: 
http://www.internetsociety.org/igf-2012.


Best regards,

-- 
Constance Bommelaer
Director, Public Policy
The Internet Society
www.isoc.org