[Chapter-delegates] Weekly European Regional Bureau Newsletter: EU Overview

[Richard Hill]

The Newletter says "Most of the participants in the high level NETmundial:
the Global Multi-stakeholder Meeting on the Future of Internet Governance
that took place in Sao Paolo, Brazil on 23-24 April agreed that Internet
management should remain a self-regulated space free of governmental
implication."

I don't see anything in the NETmundial outcome that justifies the statement
"self-regulated space free of governmental implication".

On the contrary, NETmundial reaffirmed that offline rights and laws apply
online. The NETmundial outcome contains numerous specific references to
human rights (international law) and to the law.  Laws are made by states
and enforced by governments, so references to law recognize the role of
governments.

And the NETmundial outcome document explicitly recognizes the role of
governments, because it states:

"Internet governance should be built on democratic, multistakeholder
processes, ensuring the meaningful and accountable participation of all
stakeholders, including governments, the private sector, civil society, the
technical community, the academic community and users. The respective roles
and responsibilities of stakeholders should be interpreted in a flexible
manner with reference to the issue under discussion."

Democracy in this context must be understood as the right for everyone to
take part in the conduct of public affairs, directly or through freely
chosen representatives (paraphrasing Article 21 of the Universal Declaration
of Human Rights and Article 25 of the International Covenant on Civil and
Political Rights).

The NETmundial outcome also states: "Governments have primary, legal and
political accountability for the protection of human rights."

And the objective of the NETmundial roadmap is "to outline possible steps
forward in the process of continuously improving the existing Internet
governance framework ensuring the full involvement of all stakeholders in
their respective roles and responsibilities."

The expression "respective roles and responsibilities" is clearly a
reference to paragraph 35 of the Tunis Agenda.

Perhaps the statement in the Weekly Newsletter was referring to management
of the Internet domain names and addresses, and not to Internet governance
in general.

Best,
Richard





> -----Original Message-----
> From: Chapter-delegates
> [mailto:chapter-delegates-bounces at elists.isoc.org]On Behalf Of Frédéric
> Donck
> Sent: lundi, 28. avril 2014 10:53
> To: Delegates Chapter
> Cc: European Chapters; Chris Harris
> Subject: [Chapter-delegates] Weekly European Regional Bureau Newsletter:
> EU Overview
>
>
> Dear All
>
> Please find attached your European Bureau Newsletter of the week.
> As usual, it will be quickly posted on :
http://www.internetsociety.org/what-we-do/where-we-work/europe.