[Telecentres] FW: Mueller on WGIG

[Michael Gurstein]

>From the invaluable ICANNwatch Blog and website
http://www.icannwatch.org/articles/04/09/21/1812238.shtml


WGIG will Reassess - or Reassert? - Governments' Role in Internet posted
by Mueller on Tuesday September 21 2004, @09:55AM 

The United Nations consultation exercise on the WGIG attracted a
surprisingly large number of governments. About 250 people attended the
event, including delegations from most of the world's governments. The
consultation was held in Geneva's Palais des Nations. Nitin Desai of
India, the Under-Secretary-General for economic and social affairs who
presided over the meeting, announced at the end that it "has been more
constructive than expected." 
South Africa either was absent or completely silent but Brazil, one of
the key critics of ICANN and a driver of the creation of the WGIG,
clarified the rationale underlying its push for a UN working group (see
story inside).
 
On Tuesday Brazilian diplomat J.M. Nogeuira Viana explained his
country's rationale for pushing for the WGIG: 
"Internet governance is more than identifiers. Data protection, spam,
multilingualism, interconnection costs, intellectual property
protection, digital divide all are internet governance issues. In most
of these areas the main responsibilities lie with govts. Yet they lack
the means to coordinate policy at the international level. Brazil
proposes the creation of an intergovernmental forum where governments
can discuss these issues. Its purpose is not to substitute for existing
agencies, but to provide a venue for govts to express their opinions and
coordinate with each other. There is a need for a multilateral forum to
allow for the representation of sovereign states on equal conditions." 

Brazil's more provocative Monday intervention assailed what it called
"five myths" of Internet governance: 

1. It is a myth that there really is such a thing as independent,
private sector management of the internet addressing system. In fact,
ICANN's MoU with the U.S. Department of Commerce reveals that it is
closer to a government. 2. It is a myth that governments have a say in
ICANN's activities via the GAC. GAC is advisory, the influence of
governments is comparable to the influence of nonshareholders in a
private company. 3. It is a myth that an intergovernmetnal approach will
jeopardize the free speech on the internet. Free speech is endangered
when one government controls the system, not when all do. 4. It is a
myth that any attempt to regulate management of the internet might stall
innovation. The premise is false - there is already regulation, what is
lacking is an approach to it grounded in the public sector 5. There is
no well organized "international conspiracy" to control management of
the Internet. Brazil favors a democratic, transparent and multilateral
system, including the private sector, civil society, and international
organizations. 


Brazil and several other governments are particularly unsatisfied with
the role of ICANN's Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC) in the
governance of Internet identifiers. The GAC itself, it is worth
recalling, was an after thought, an addition to ICANN's governance
structure made as a concession to the European Union. As originally
conceived, ICANN was to have no governmental involvement at all.
Privately, they criticize GAC for being ineffectual as well as poorly
organized. In terms of concrete proposals for change, expect ideas about
the role of GAC to circulate during the WGIG consultations. 

Brazil was far from alone. Speaking on behalf of an "Asian group of
states," Pakistan said that "Internet governance includes technical and
public policy issues. Policy authority is the sovereign right of
states." China, Algeria, Saudi Arabia either expressed similar
sentiments or explicitly endorsed Pakistan's statement. This group of
states also argued for making the WGIG "open-ended," which some
interpreted as a code word to mean that no specific group of people
should be charged with the drafting of the report, but that meetings
should be held in which any government could participate. 

The push of developing countries for a stronger role for governments is
difficult to reconcile with the growing movement among NGOs, policy
advocates, intellectuals, the scientific, academic and technical
communities, and developed world governments for more influence for
"civil society." Indeed, this contradiction seems strangely
characteristic of the entire World Summit on the Information Society. In
addition to giving voice to dissatisfied governments and an opportunity
to reassert governments' role in Internet governance, WSIS has also
strengthened the determination, organization and conviction of the civil
society advocates to play a larger role. Academics William Drake, Jovan
Kurbalija and Milton Mueller framed the debate in the early stages of
the meeting with analytical contributions about the definition of
Internet, Internet governance and the scope of the WGIG. The Association
for Progressive Communications' Karen Banks and Olivier Nana Nzepa of
Cameroon voiced concerns of civil society as well. Banks called for
turning the DoC's policy authority over the DNS root to the UN Secertary
General as an interim measure. Various governments praised the
contributions of the civil society commentators, noting, in the words of
the Canadian representative, that "they demonstrated the value of
broader consultation and the merits of civil society input." The WSIS-CS
Internet Governance Caucus's co-chair Jeanette Hoffman presented a well
thought out proposal regarding the composition and structure of the WGIG
which also impressed several governmental delegates, including EU and
Canada. The caucus called for equal representation on the WGIG for civil
society, governments and the private business sector, whereas most
governments were asking that half the WGIG be made up of governmental
representatives. The Internet Society also impressed many delegates with
its description of the open and "bottom up" nature of the IETF and the
history of this method in building up the Internet. 

The push by some in civil society to detach the working Group from the
WSIS process, in order to make it less intergovernmental in nature, was
soundly rebuffed by governments and the WGIG secretariat. In the words
of the Cuba delegate, "the [WGIG's] basic purpose is to facilitate a
decision in the (WSIS) summit." The Secretariat adopted a schedule for
the WGIG's group that made the WGIG process completely subordinate to
the WSIS Phase 2 schedule. The WGIG is expected to complete its report
by late June 2005, in order to be able to put it in front of governments
in time for the July 2005 Prepcom. 

There was widespread agreement that internet governance is more than
identifiers and ICANN. China, Brazil, and the Asian states all agreed
that issues such as cybercrime, spam, IPR. In summarizing the
proceeding, Nitin Desai made five points: "1. The contributions from
civil society, the internet community and few from corporate sector all
recognize the role of public policy. They just want us to also recognize
the role they have played in building the internet over the years. There
is remarkable convergence on some key ideas. There is a general belief
that internet governance should be treated from a broad perspective, to
include management of internet resources, spam, cybercrime,
multilingualism, etc. 

2. WGIG should be based on a multistakeholder approach. This should be
reflected in its composition and the way it works. Desai didn't "sense
any dissent from this point of view.

3. WGIG membership mst be balanced. This means regions, development,
political points of view, gender, etc.

4. There must be an open, transparent and inclusive process. WGIG will
not be a classical UN group of experts, which, once named, goes away for
10 months and submits a report. It must hold consultations regularly.
People must be able to influence things at an early stage. The
consulations cannot be limited to people who can physically attend, but
must use electronic methods. (Jim Fleming and Jeff Williams, fire up
your keyboards!)

5. finally, Desai noted the difference between those who advocated an
"open-ended group," and those who promoted a smaller drafting group.
This difference may be smaller than it sppears, because in any large
group someone must do the drafting, he said. 

In the end, Desai asked, whose report comes to you in july? Is it a
report of a core group, consulting widely, or a report of states to
themselves, which is then rubber-stamped in wsis? These differnces, he
concluded, are "relatively bridgable."