<html>
<body>
Note: I keep attached the previous exchange as it is a good summary of
the whole issue for external people.<br><br>
At 10:15 31/08/2013, michael gurstein wrote:<br>
<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite="">I think in the context of BB
(and thinking a bit about the agenda) we should probably look to agree
(if that is possible) that the issue of mechanisms for global Internet
governance (post-Snowden) recognize the need for some means to rein in
those who would, without external oversight or recourse, use the Internet
for surveillance globally.</blockquote><br>
Michael,<br>
Thinking is good, but it has to resolve in talks and/or in acts, what
eventually leads to gunboat diplomacy or in UN. To take images to the
economical or to the Syrian crisis.<br><br>
Civil Society activists have adopted three attitudes in front of this
reality:<br>
- pragmatic people react, like the Anonymous. <br>
- idealist people, like the afficionados of a Civil Society of Rights,
think and think about the way some legal structure could transform their
thinking in acts of speach.<br>
- realist people try to understand, comprehend reality, adopt an
aesthetic and follow its ethics through precautionary triggering
acts.<br><br>
<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite="">Therefore, the question is a
pragmatic one--what would be the most effective means for achieving
appropriate structures of governance and what mechanisms would be most
likely to be realizable in the current political context all of this
within a context directed to ensure maximum freedom of expression online
and the use of the Internet for economic and social
development.</blockquote><br>
Whatever you may devise, the world being perfectly imperfect, it will be
imprefect. Where will you get legitimacy from to impose it.<br>
The first step is to get real. This means to involve all the kinds of
stakeholders of the multiple stakholders categories. There is still a
long way to go in the Civil Society. This is not because you are in the
same position that you think the same.<br><br>
<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite="">If we can agree on this then the
question of the nature of the mechanism, whether inter-governmental,
multi-stakeholder, INGO based or whatever becomes a pragmatic matter
rather than a "principled" issue.</blockquote><br>
Unfortunately this THE question discussed for 2500 years
(Plato/Aristotle). Each generation has brought its own addition to it.
Our addition is important enough, but we have not yet fully understood
it: this is the reason of questionnaires. The additional problem is that
often these questionnaires use the words and concepts of the old
paradigm. It makes difficult to understand the new one.<br><br>
We need to listen to others, who also adapt to their own evolution. As
such, the most important document for a long is RFC 6852 which deeply
changes the very nature of the Internet, Data processing, the Web, their
access through the addressing plan and the way
non-Govs/Corporate/IntlOrganizations' needs will be considered through
consumer categories. The information society has therefore switched from
having to be "people centric" to be acknowleded as "market
centric". <br><br>
It is noteworthy that I am the only one to pay enough attention to it to
try to make sure that it may still permit "to ensure maximum freedom
of expression online and the use of the Internet for economic and social
development".<br><br>
Cheers.<br>
jfc<br><br>
<br><br>
<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite=""><b>From:</b>
bestbits-request@lists.bestbits.net
[<a href="mailto:bestbits-request@lists.bestbits.net" eudora="autourl">
mailto:bestbits-request@lists.bestbits.net</a>] <b>On Behalf Of
</b>Shahzad Ahmad<br>
<b>Sent:</b> Saturday, August 31, 2013 1:11 PM<br>
<b>To:</b> Anja Kovacs; Valeria Betancourt<br>
<b>Cc:</b> bestbits@lists.bestbits.net><br>
<b>Subject:</b> Re: [bestbits] Position by IT for Change and some other
NGOs on enhanced cooperation<br>
<br>
Dear Anja,<br>
<br>
Very very keen to read more about the third way. "Politics of
Justice" hmmmm… very interesting. <br>
<br>
Can't wait to discuss and hear more on this next week :)<br>
<br>
Best wishes and regards<br>
Shahzad<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<b>From: </b>Anja Kovacs
<<a href="mailto:anja@internetdemocracy.in">
anja@internetdemocracy.in</a>><br>
<b>Date: </b>Friday, August 30, 2013 11:23 PM<br>
<b>To: </b>Valeria Betancourt
<<a href="mailto:valeriab@apc.org">valeriab@apc.org</a>><br>
<b>Cc:
</b>"<a href="mailto:bestbits@lists.bestbits.net>">
bestbits@lists.bestbits.net></a>"
<<a href="mailto:bestbits@lists.bestbits.net">
bestbits@lists.bestbits.net</a>><br>
<b>Subject: </b>Re: [bestbits] Position by IT for Change and some other
NGOs on enhanced cooperation<br>
<br>
Dear all,<br>
While the Internet Democracy Project is not a member of APC, and though
we do have differences of opinion with APC (e.g. on how severe the threat
of backgtracking on the Tunis agenda is), we broadly agree with APC's
views on the IT for Change statement as outlined by Valeria. We will not
be able to sign the IT for Change statement. <br>
It is oftentimes made to seem as if there are only two options where
Internet governance arrangements are concerned: the status quo and a more
centralised form of governance, the latter often (though not always)
imagined as involving greater government control. We believe that there
is a third way, and one that has far greater potential for a politics of
justice, which is that of distributed governance. We will be submitting a
submission to the WGEC along these lines. <br>
<br>
Best regards,<br>
Anja<br>
<br>
On 30 August 2013 20:02, Valeria Betancourt
<<a href="mailto:valeriab@apc.org">valeriab@apc.org</a>>
wrote:<br>
Dear all, <br>
<br>
We are busy compiling an APC's network response and we will submit our
own statement. We will also endorse the Best Bits statement, to
which we contributed to. <br>
<br>
While we appreciate the effort that has gone into it and many of the
points raised, APC will not endorse the IT for Change statement.
APC members are independent so while some individual APC members might
endorse it, APC as an organisation won't. Some of the main reasons
why we have made that decision are explained at the end of this message.
We thought it is useful to share our thinking in these spacea as a
contribution to the debate. <br>
<br>
Best, <br>
<br>
Valeria <br>
------------------------<br>
<br>
* The basic case for "global governance of the Internet" is
simply not made. The evidence for the proposed new mechanisms is weak,
laden with polemic, and with a political bias that is not corrected by
balanced,<br>
judicious weighing of options nor informed by practical experience (this
in relation to ICANN and the technical community in particular).<br>
<br>
* The statement takes government and an internet-centric approach to
policy making and suggests that a global internet policy making framework
convention and new body is desirable. This overlooks and would<br>
undermine the many other approaches to policy making currently mandated
by international law including rights based, environmental, and
development among others. we have seen in the intellectual property
field, for example, what happens when UN bodies are set up with topic
specific mandates for global related policy issues.<br><br>
* To place the internet as the centre for public policy making is a grave
conceptual error in our view -rather a better conceptual approach is to
focus on internet related aspects of policy issues (such as health,
education, discrimination, access, telecommunciations policy and so on).
Even better, to put people at the centre of policy making. We must never
forget that the internet does not exist in a parallel dimension. Nor can
internet policy. Creating a new UN body to focus on internet policy and
identifying which issues it should deal with is not going to be
sustainable, or effective. The internet touches on so many issues that no
single policy space could ever effectively deal with them all.<br><br>
* The imposition of a new global internet policy framework determined and
agreed by governments - and therefore being a top down and central
mechanism - contradicts the bottom-up multi-stakeholder principles
of<br>
policy making and end to end principles of internet architecture: it's
just wrong. This is not to say that multi-stakeholder policy processes
are not flawed and still producing outcomes that reflect the interest of
those with power and resources. But creating new frameworks and bodies
will not address this automatically.<br><br>
* Most international agreements set MINIMUM standards because governments
generally can only agree on the lowest common denominator - apart from
generally resulting in inadequate policy, it also risks back- tracking on
the existing points of agreement in the Tunis Agenda.<br><br>
* The statement proposes a new framework convention similar to the
convention on climate change. Such conventions are inevitably negotiated
and agreed by governments and not multi-stakeholder. in addition,
the<br>
inequalities between States (a key source of friction in current
arrangements) will not be solved by the creation of new mechanisms which
the same States need to agree on - inevitably the politics simply
transfer, Rather than propose a new convention (most take between 5-10
years to negotiate, assuming agreement can be reached), it would be
better to empower and strengthen existing mechanisms - more ideas on<br>
that separately. APC proposed a framework convention of this nature
immediately after Tunis in 2005. But after our work on the 'code of good
practice' for internet governance during which we looked closely at
environmental and climate change policy processes, and our experience in
observing governments in the CSTD when they try to negotiate an annual
resolution on WSIS follow up we decided against this.<br><br>
* Finally, the focus on global internet public policy undermines the role
of national and regional IGFs and policy making processes many of which
have quite different politics and are still evolving to suit their
conditions. Not all these processes are inclusive, or even legitimate,
but they are not going to be fixed from above by new agreements
negotiated by governments.<br><br>
* On balance, then, we think more work is needed to develop options which
suit civil society and empower civil society as stakeholders in policy
making and that systematically try to consolidate current achievements
with regard to human rights on the internet in, for example, the Human
Rights Council.<br>
<br>
<br>
On 28/08/2013, at 11:51, parminder wrote:<br><br>
<br>
<i>Apologies for cross posting</i><br><br>
Dear All<br><br>
IT for Change and some other NGOs plan to forward the following position
to the UN Working Group on Enhanced Cooperation. Preceding the position
statement is a covering letter seeking support. You are <b><i>welcome to
support this position any time before 12 noon GMT on 31st Aug</i></b>. We
are happy to provide any additional information/ clarification etc. Also
happy to otherwise discuss this position, and its different elements. We
are motivated by the need to come up with precise and clear institutional
options at this stage. Politics of inertia and not doing anything just
serves the status quo. These may not be the best institutional options,
and we are ready to enter into discussion with other groups on what
instead would be the better options. But, again, not doing anything is,
in our opinion, would be detrimental to global public interest. <br><br>
The web link to this position is at
<a href="http://www.itforchange.net/civil_society_input_to_the_UN_Working_Group_for_global_governance_of_the_Internet">
http://www.itforchange.net/civil_society_input_to_the_UN_Working_Group_for_global_governance_of_the_Internet</a>
.<br><br>
parminder <br><br>
<br>
<b><i>Covering letter / Background<br>
</i></b><br>
In May 2012, more than 60 civil society organisations and several
individuals participated in a campaign for
'<a href="http://www.itforchange.net/civil_society_statement_on_democratic_internet">
democratising the global governance of the Internet</a>'. A joint letter
signed by the participants of this campaign <i>inter alia</i> asked for
setting up a UN Working Group towards this objective. Such a Working
Group was set up and has now asked for public inputs to formulate its
recommendations. <br><br>
In our joint letter, we had proposed some outlines for reforming the
current global governance architecture of the Internet. Time has come now
to make more clear and specific recommendations of the actual
institutional mechanism that we need. With most governments more worried
about their narrow geopolitical interests and relationships with
individual countries, it falls upon the civil society to be bold and
forward looking and put precise proposals on the table that can then be
taken forward by state actors. <br><br>
In a post-Snowden world, there is deep discomfort among almost all
countries, other than the US, with the manner in which the global
Internet is run and is evolving. The need for some global norms,
principles, rules, and necessary governance mechanisms for the global
Internet is being felt now as never before. The Internet can no longer
remain anchored to the political and business interests of one country,
or to serving global capital, as it is at present. As a global commons,
it is our collective democratic right and responsibility to participate
in the governance of the Internet, so that it can become a vehicle for
greater prosperity, equity and social justice for all.<br><br>
We seek your support to join us in proposing the enclosed document as an
input to the Working Group on Enhanced Cooperation. The Working Group has
sought public inputs through a questionnaire which can be seen at
<a href="http://unctad.org/en/Pages/CSTD.aspx">
http://unctad.org/en/Pages/CSTD.aspx</a> . The most important question is
at number 8, which seeks input with regard to precise mechanism(s) that
are required. Our response will mostly address this all-important
question. (You are also encouraged to, separately, give a fuller response
to the questionnaire on your behalf or on behalf of your organization.)
We will also like to give wide media publicity to this civil society
statement .<br><br>
We will be glad if you can send your response to us <b><i>before the 30th
of August</i></b>. We are of course happy to respond to any clarification
or additional information that you may want to seek in the above regard.
Please also circulate this to others who you think may want to
participate in this initiative. The global Internet governance space
seems to be dominated by those who push for neoliberal models of
governance. We must therefore have as many voices heard as
possible.<br><br>
(The statement is cut pasted below this email and may also be
<a href="http://www.itforchange.net/civil_society_input_to_the_UN_Working_Group_for_global_governance_of_the_Internet">
seen here</a> )<br><br>
With best regard,<br><br>
Parminder<br><br>
<br>
<b>Parminder Jeet Singh<br>
<hr>
<div align="center"></div>
IT for Change</b><br>
In special consultative status with the United Nations ECOSOC<br>
<a href="http://www.itforchange.net/">www.ITforChange.net</a> <br>
<i>T: 00-91-80-26654134 | T: 00-91-80-26536890 | Fax:
00-91-80-41461055<br>
</i><br>
<div align="center"><b><i><u>A civil society input to the UN Working
Group looking at <br>
</u></i></b></div>
<br>
<div align="center"><b><i><u>institutional mechanisms for global
governance of the Internet <br>
</u></i></b></div>
<br>
<div align="center"><i>(Please write to
<a href="mailto:manasa@itforchange.net">itfc</a>
<a href="mailto:manasa@itforchange.net">@itforchange.net</a> before 29th
Aug if you will like to endorse this statement)<b> <br>
</i></b></div>
<br>
<b><i><br>
Why global governance of the Internet?<br>
</i></b><br>
Internet governance is seen largely in terms of national sovereignty and
security or as pertaining to free speech and privacy. We are of the view
that there exist many other equally important issues for global Internet
governance that arise from the whole gamut of rights and aspirations of
people â€â€œ social, economic, cultural, political and developmental.
The relationship of the global Internet to cultural diversity is one
example. The Internet increasingly determines not only the global flows
of information but also of cultures, and their commodification. No social
process is exempt from the influence of the Internet â€â€œ from
education to health and governance. Social systems at national and local
levels are being transformed under the influence of the global
Internet.<br><br>
Instead of decentralizing power, the current structure of the global
Internet tends to centralize control in the hands of a small number of
companies. Some of these companies have near-monopoly power over key
areas of economic and social significance. Therefore, regulation of
global Internet business through pertinent competition law, consumer law,
open interoperability standards, etc, is becoming a pressing need.
Increasing statist controls need to be similarly resisted. With the
emergent paradigm of cloud computing presenting the looming prospect of
remote management of our digital lives from different 'power centres'
across the world, it is inconceivable that we can do without appropriate
democratic governance of the global Internet. Post-Snowden, as many
countries have begun to contemplate and even embark upon measures for
'digital sovereignty', the only way to preserve a <i>global<b>
</i></b>Internet is through formulating appropriate <i>global</i> norms,
principles and rules that will underpin its governance. <br><br>
<b><i>Background of this civil society input<br>
</i></b><br>
A group of over 60 civil society organizations and several individuals,
made a statement on
<i>
'<a href="http://www.itforchange.net/civil_society_statement_on_democratic_internet">
Democratizing the global governance of the Internet</a>'</i> to the open
consultations on 'enhanced
cooperation'<a name="140cfa3cf5655122_sdfootnote1anc"></a><sup>1</sup>
called by the Chair of the UN Commission on Science and Technology for
Development (CSTD) on May 18th, 2012, in Geneva. The statement <i>inter
alia</i> sought the setting up of a CSTD Working Group to address this
issue. We are happy to note that such a Working Group has been set up and
has now called for public inputs to make its recommendations. This
document is an input to the Working Group on Enhanced Cooperation (WGEC)
on the behalf of the undersigned . <br><br>
In the aforementioned
<a href="http://www.itforchange.net/civil_society_statement_on_democratic_internet">
statement</a> of May 2012, the civil society signatories had called for
the following institutional developments to take place in the global
Internet governance architecture:<br><br>
<i>Our demands with respect to 'global' Internet Governance espouse a
simple and obvious democratic logic. On the technical governance side,
the oversight of the Internet's critical technical and logical
infrastructure, at present with the US government, should be transferred
to an appropriate, democratic and participative, multi-lateral body,
without disturbing the existing distributed architecture of technical
governance of the Internet in any significant way. (However, improvements
in the technical governance systems are certainly needed.) On the side of
larger Internet related public policy-making on global social, economic,
cultural and political issues, the OECD-based model of global policy
making, as well as the default application of US laws, should be replaced
by a new UN-based democratic mechanism. Any such new arrangement should
be based on the principle of subsidiarity, and be innovative in terms of
its mandate, structure, and functions, to be adequate to the unique
requirements of global Internet governance. It must be fully
participative of all stakeholders, promoting the democratic and
innovative potential of the</i> <i>Internet. <br>
</i><br>
As the WGEC deliberates on concrete ways to move forward, the time is
ripe to propose clear and specific institutional mechanisms for
democratizing the global governance of the Internet. We have, therefore,
expanded the above demands into specific mechanisms that should be set in
place for this purpose. <br><br>
<b><i>New global governance mechanisms are needed<br>
</i></b><br>
We are of the view that it would be useful to have two distinct
mechanisms â€â€œ one that looks at the global Internet-related public
policy issues in various social, economic, cultural and political
domains, and another that should undertake oversight of the technical and
operational functions related to the Internet (basically, replacing the
current unilateral oversight of the
ICANN<a name="140cfa3cf5655122_sdfootnote2anc"></a><sup>2</sup> by the US
government). This will require setting up appropriate new global
governance bodies as well as a framework of international law to
facilitate their work, as follows.<br><br>
<b><i>A new UN body for Internet-related public policy issues: </i></b>An
anchor global institution for taking up and addressing various public
policy issues pertaining to the Internet in an ongoing manner is urgently
required. It can be a committee attached to the UN General Assembly or a
more elaborate and relatively autonomous set up linked loosely to the UN
(as a specialized UN body). It should have a very strong and
institutionalized public consultative mechanism, in the form of
stakeholder advisory groups that are selected through formal processes by
different stakeholder constituencies, ensuring adequate
representativeness. (OECD's
<a href="http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/18/39/37328586.pdf"><i>Committee on
Computer, Information and Communication Policy</a></i> and India's recent
proposal for a
<a href="http://itforchange.net/Techgovernance/IndiaCIRP"><i>UN</a></i>
<a href="http://itforchange.net/Techgovernance/IndiaCIRP">
</a><a href="http://itforchange.net/Techgovernance/IndiaCIRP"><i>
Committee on Internet-related
Policies</a></i><a href="http://itforchange.net/Techgovernance/IndiaCIRP">
</a>are two useful, and somewhat similar, models that can be looked
at.)<br><br>
This 'new body' will stay abreast of global Internet-related issues;
where necessary, develop international level public policies in the
concerned areas; seek appropriate harmonization of national level
policies, and; facilitate required treaties, conventions and agreements.
It will also have the necessary means to undertake studies and present
analyses in different policy areas. <br><br>
Most Internet-related public policy issues are of a cross-cutting nature,
and involve overlaps with mandates of other existing global governance
bodies, like WIPO, UNESCO, WTO, UNDP, UNCTAD, ITU and so on. Due to this
reason, the proposed new 'body' will establish appropriate relationships
with all these other existing bodies, including directing relevant public
policy issues to them, receiving their inputs and comments, and itself
contributing specific Internet-related perspectives to issues under the
purview of these other bodies. <br>
<br><br>
<b><i>A new 'Internet Technical Oversight and Advisory Board':</i></b>
This board will replace the US government's current oversight role over
the technical and operational functions performed by ICANN. The
membership of this oversight board can be of a techno-political nature,
<i>i.e.</i> consisting of people with specialized expertise but who also
have appropriate political backing, ascertained through a democratic
process. For instance, the board can be made of 10/15 members, with 2/3
members each from five geographic regions (as understood in the UN
system). These members can perhaps be selected through an appropriate
process by the relevant technical standards bodies and/or country domain
name bodies of all the countries of the respective region. (Other
mechanisms for constituting the techno-political membership of this board
can also be considered.)<br><br>
The Internet technical oversight and advisory board will seek to ensure
that the various technical and operational functions related to the
global Internet are undertaken by the relevant organizations as per
international law and public policy principles developed by the concerned
international bodies. With regard to ICANN, the role of this board will
more or less be exactly the same as exercised by the US government in its
oversight over ICANN. As for the decentralized Internet standards
development mechanisms, like the Internet Engineering Task Force, these
self organizing systems based on voluntary adoption of standards will
continue to work as at present. The new board will have a very light
touch and non-binding role with regard to them. It will bring in
imperatives from, and advise these technical standards bodies on,
international public policies, international law and norms being
developed by various relevant bodies. <br><br>
For this board to be able to fulfill its oversight mandate, ICANN must
become an international organization, without changing its existing
multistakeholder character in any substantial manner. It would enter into
a host country agreement with the US government (if ICANN has to continue
to be headquartered in the US). It would have full immunity from US law
and executive authority, and be guided solely by international law, and
be incorporated under it. Supervision of the authoritative root zone
server must also be transferred to this oversight broad. The board will
exercise this role with the help of an internationalized ICANN. <br><br>
This board will also advise the afore-mentioned new public policy body on
technical matters pertaining to the Internet policy making, as well as
take public policy inputs from it. <br><br>
<b><i>Framework Convention on the Internet: </i></b>An appropriate
international legal framework will be required sooner than later for the
above bodies to function properly. Accordingly, one of the early tasks of
the proposed 'new body' dealing with Internet-related public policy
issues, discussed above, will be to help negotiate a 'Framework
Convention on the Internet' (somewhat like the
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Framework_Convention_on_Climate_Change">
<i>Framework Convention on Climate Change</a>)</i>. Governance of the
Internet concerns different kinds of issues that are ever-evolving. It
is, therefore, preferable to formulate an enabling legal structure as a
'framework convention' rather than as a specific treaty or convention
that addresses only a bounded set of issues. It may also be easier to
initially agree to a series of principles, protocols and processes that
can then frame further agreements, treaties etc on more specific issues.
<br><br>
Such a Framework Convention will thus enable appropriate and ongoing
global policy responses to various opportunities and challenges that the
fast-evolving phenomenon of the Internet throws up. It will also
formalize the basic architecture of the global governance of the
Internet; <i>inter alia</i> recognizing and legitimizing the existing
role and functions of the various bodies currently involved with managing
the technical and logical infrastructure of the Internet, including the
ICANN, Regional Internet Registries, Internet technical standards bodies
and so on. <br><br>
Appropriate mechanisms for crisis response and dispute resolution in
relation to the global Internet, and the social activity dependent on it,
will also be required to be set up.<br><br>
<b><i>Relationship with the IGF<br>
</i></b><br>
The UN Internet Governance Forum (IGF) was established as a
multistakeholder 'policy dialogue forum' by the World Summit on the
Information Society. The proposed global Internet policy mechanism,
especially the new UN based body, will maintain a close relationship with
the IGF. IGF affords a very new kind of participative mechanism for
policy making, whereby the participation realm is institutionalized, and
relatively independent of the policy making structures. The IGF should
preferably pre-discuss issues that are taken up by this new policy body
and present diverse perspectives for its consideration. A good part of
the agenda for this new body can emerge from the IGF. Whenever possible,
draft proposals to be adopted by this new body should be shared with the
IGF. <br><br>
To perform such a participation enhancing role, the IGF must be
adequately strengthened and reformed, especially to address the dominance
of Northern corporatist interests in its current working. It must be
supported with public funds, and insulated from any funding system that
can bring in perverse influences on its agenda and outcomes. Other
required processes must also be put in place to ensure that the IGF
indeed brings in constituencies that are typically under-represented,
rather than provide further political clout to the already dominant.
<br><br>
A participative body is only as good as the policy making mechanisms that
feed off it. To that extent, the meaningfulness and effectiveness of the
IGF itself requires a strong policy development mechanism, as suggested
in this document, to be linked to it. Investing in the IGF is useful only
if its outputs and contributions lead to something concrete. <br><br>
<b><i>Funding<br>
</i></b><br>
An innovative way to fund the proposed new global Internet policy
mechanisms, and also the IGF, is to tap into the collections made by the
relevant bodies from allocation of names and numbers resources pertaining
to the global Internet (like the fee that ICANN collects annually from
each domain name owner). These accruals now run into millions of dollars
every year and could be adequate to fund a large part of the needed
mechanisms for democratic governance of the global Internet. <br><br>
In the end, we may add that there is nothing really very novel in the
above proposal for setting up new mechanisms for global governance of the
Internet. Similar models, for instance, were proposed in the report of
the Working Group on Internet Governance that was set up during the World
Summit on the Information Society, back in 2004. <br><br>
We hope that the Working Group on Enhanced Cooperation will fulfill its
high mandate to lead the world towards the path of democratic governance
of the global commons of the Internet.<br><br>
<a name="140cfa3cf5655122_sdfootnote1sym"></a>1The outcome documents of
the World Summit on the Information Society, held in 2005, employed this
as a placeholder term giving the mandate for further exploration of the
necessary mechanisms for global governance of the Internet. <br><br>
<a name="140cfa3cf5655122_sdfootnote2sym"></a>2Internet Corporation for
Assigned Names and Numbers, the US based non-profit that manages much of
technical and logical infrastructural functions related to the Internet.
<br>
<br>
-------------<br>
Valeria Betancourt<br>
Directora / Manager<br>
Programa de PolÃticas de Information y Comunicación / Communication and
Information Policy Programme<br>
Asociación para el Progreso de las Comunicaciones / Association for<br>
Progressive Communications, APC<br>
<a href="http://www.apc.org">http://www.apc.org</a><br>
<br>
<br>
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<br><br>
-- <br>
Dr. Anja Kovacs<br>
The Internet Democracy Project<br><br>
+91 9899028053 | @anjakovacs<br>
<a href="http://www.internetdemocracy.in/">www.internetdemocracy.in</a>
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