[Lac] [Fwd: [governance] Minutes from Geneva WGIG meeting Part 1 - morning Sept 20]

Wed Sep 22 17:22:30 BST 2004

-----Mensaje reenviado-----
From: Bertrand de LA CHAPELLE <lachapelle at openwsis.org>
To: governance at lists.cpsr.org
Subject: [governance] Minutes from Geneva WGIG meeting Part 1 - morning Sept 20
Date: Wed, 22 Sep 2004 17:05:17 +0200

Dear all,

You will find below (formatted word text attached) my non-
official minutes of the interventions made during the four 
sessions of the WGIG consultations in Geneva. 

I made all efforts to report faithfully the oral comments 
presented, focussing on the most salient elements, but no 
exhaustivity can be guaranteed and some presentations were 
not reported due to my absence from the room. This in 
particular unfortunately applies to Wolfgang's presentation, 
Olivier Nana Nzepa and Izumi's first presentation. 

Dense panel presentations already posted or likely to be 
posted on the WGIG web site have not been minuted to keep 
this light and focus on oral comments that will not be 
available otherwise. This is valid in particular for Bill, 
Milton's and Jovan's presentations. I will post these 
presentations on a revamped wsis-online Internet governance 
section soon. 

These minutes will be posted on the wsis-online web 
site for easy access.  

Any major misrepresentation should be signalled to : 
lachapelle at openwsis.org . Participants notes related to 
missing parts are welcome. 

Bertrand

MINUTES 

DR. Tarek Kamel, Minister of Communications and Information 
Technology of the Arab Republic of Egypt. 

The Internet Governance is the major policy issue in the 
WSIS process.

Internet Governance can be understood as diverse layers, 
among which  :
•	Management of unique and scarce Internet ressources,
•	Spam, illegal harmful content, multilingualism, Enum,
•	Harmonization of global policies, public access 
points, e-ommmerce, data protection
•	Sharing the costs of internet infrastructure

Two different viewpoints :
•	IG matters are rpimarily technical : no need for 
governments; private sector approach, “if it ain’t broken, 
don’t fix it”
•	IG goes beyond technical management, there are other 
policy matters in the province of national sovereignty.

These should not be confrontational viewpoints; both views 
should be articulated one with the other.

Interaction between political and technical aspects : 
technical issues have political dimensions, and vice versa

These issues cannot be addressed without the participation 
of all stakeholders, including civil society and the private 
sector. 

All stakeholders need to be represented in the WGIG.

Role of the WGIG
•	facilitation of cooperation and communication 
between actors
•	gather information from all stakeholders
•	drafting documents

There is a need for regional consultations and Egypt will 
host an arab regional meeting in May 2005.

We need a mechanism to allow all individuals around the 
world to participate. 

Prof. Feriel Beji, Agence Tunisienne d’Internet

Some fundamental features of the Internet should be kept in 
mind :
•	The routing is independent of territorial structures.
•	Most of the intelligence is located on the edges of 
the network
•	The Internet is based on open standards 

We may not agree on a common definition of Internet 
Governance, but we may agree on a common set of issues, 
among which : Management of IP ressources, technology 
standards (IETF), IPR, fraud, offensive content, spam, laws 
on electronic commerce.

The debate should involve all stakeholders,  including 
private sector, civil society and international 
organizations. It should be interesting to try to involve 
all actors worldwide in a mechanisms similar to what the 
ICANN AtLarge has tried to do. 

Prof. Hu Qiheng, Advisor to the Science and Technology 
Commission of the Ministry of Information of China, Beijing

Internet Governance is a topic of global importance, be it 
only because the Internet has penatrated all aspects of 
life. 

Internet Governance should be regarded as managing a public 
infrastructure. 

The Internet has brought many benefits but also dangers like 
cybercrime and security issues.

Governments should cooperate with private sector and civil 
society.

The Internet has gone through many stages. At first self-
governed and bottom-up. But this cannot be the case any 
more. The managment of the domestic internet rests with the 
national governments and no entity can be more 
representative of the public interest than governments. 

We are looking for a mechanism that allows government 
leadership. This does not mean control by governments. What 
we need is to set up a new pattern based on government 
leadership whith full participation of all stakeholders. 

China maintains a broad approach to the definition of 
Internet Governance :

•	Management of IP addresses and domain names
•	Safety : spam, child ornography, system disturbance, 
illegal access, fraudulent use, privacy violation, and 
cybercrime in general
•	Safe functionnning of the DNS system, Intellectual 
property and sharing of knowledge
•	E-Commerce
•	Convergence of Internet and Telecommunications

These issues should be addressed within the framework of the 
UN. There is a lack of an entity in charge of the Internet. 
It should be formed within the UN.  

Bill Drake, International Centre for Trade and Sustainable 
Development

Three main points :

-	start from a holistic understanding of internet 
governance
-	set priorities by selecting a small and manageable 
set of key substantive issues
-	focus on the state of procedural democracy accross 
internet governance mechanisms (tranparency, acountability, 
inclusion and fairness).

(Full presentation available online)

Jovan Kurbalija, Diplo, Malta / Geneva. 

(Full presentation available online)

Milton Mueller, Syracuse University / Internet Governance 
Project

(Full presentation available online)

Ayesha Hassan, International Chamber of Commerce

The ICC has set up an internal working group on Internet 
Governance. 

The ICC  insists a clear definition of IG should be 
established before the wide number of issues are addressed. 

The ICC recommends the establishment of a matrix correlating 
the issues and the bodies addressing them, building on the 
draft matrix it has submitted.

The WGIG should establish rules for active participation of 
all categories of stakeholders. It should promote 
cooperation between appropriate bodies to prevent overlap.

Priorities :
-	focus on forward-looking challenges, rather than 
reopening past debates
-	focus on issues that require global level 
intervention
-	governments should produce enabling environments to 
address problems where there is market failure
-	the WGIG should be working as a steering committee 
and not as a prescribing one
-	focus on identifying gaps

Karen Banks, Association for Progressive Communications

Governance is different from government. In many languages, 
they are sometimes the same word. The two notions should be 
distinguished to prevent confusion. . 

The Internet is bringing transboundary issues. 

The Internet is a global commons. It is a platform for a 
social interaction that cannot be governed by only one 
organization. 

Governance through distributed collective action. There is a 
complex web of institutions presently involved in the 
govenance of the Internet. 

Three recommendations :
•	Responsibility of the DoC/ICANN MoU sould be 
transferrred to the UN SG for a transitory period
•	ICANN should undertake a wide-ranging reform 
•	Creation of an independent multistakeholder body 
that could replace ICANN; with transitional arrangements

(Full contribution available online)

Olivier Nana Nzépa, African Civil Society Caucus, Yaoundé

(comments not recorded) 

Hans Falk Hoffmann, CERN

We are moving towards seeing the Internet become a Global 
Information Utility, like there are water or electricity 
utilities. 

The first Grid experiment has been conducted with more than 
40 interconnected computers. 

OpenAccess and OpenArchives projects are providing emerging 
standards. 

A quote from Vinton Cerf : “the Internet is the mirror of 
society. If we do not like what we like in the mirror, we 
should not change the mirror but change society.” 

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