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<h2 class="posttitle"> UN Non-Takeover Of The Net: ITU’s Touré Calls
For Documents To Be Public </h2>
<small>Published on 20 June 2012 @ 10:36 pm</small>
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<p>By <a href="http://www.ip-watch.org/author/monika/" title="Posts
by Monika Ermert" rel="author">Monika Ermert</a> for
Intellectual Property Watch</p>
<p>UN International Telecommunication Union (ITU) Secretary General
Hamadoun Touré today in Geneva announced he would propose to the
ITU Council later this month to make the draft documents for the
much-debated International Telecommunication Regulations (ITR)
publicly accessible. <span id="more-21820"></span></p>
<p>According to participants at <a
href="http://www.itu.int/council/groups/cwg-wcit12/index.html">today’s
meeting</a>, Touré said he would also recommend a public
consultation on the draft ITR, to be held during the last
preparatory meeting for the December <a
href="http://www.itu.int/en/wcit-12/Pages/default.aspx">World
Conference on International Telecommunication (WCIT)</a> at
which the ITR will be updated. </p>
<p>With this initiative, Touré is answering ever louder calls for
access to ITR negotiations. He referred to an <a
href="https://www.cdt.org/letter-for-civil-society-involvement-in-WCIT">open
letter</a> from civil society sent to him about the issue in May
and said, member states, too, could hold consultations on the
controversial treaty. The Netherlands has already done so. </p>
<p>There was near-unanimous support for the opening up, with some
member states urging not to wait for the Council meeting. The US
delegation said that they had already made documents available. </p>
<p>Details on the upcoming Council meeting <a
href="http://www.itu.int/council/C2012/index.html">are here</a>.
</p>
<p>By opening up the documents, member state representatives also
hope to address concerns that the ITR would lead to more ITU
control over the net. </p>
<p>Touré strongly rejected the notion that the ITRs would impact the
free flow of information. Restrictions on communication have been
foreseen by governments in Article 34 of the ITU constitution, and
according to Touré, such restrictions are in place in most member
states to protect against copyright piracy, defamation, hate
speech and also certain forms of political speech. </p>
<p>Touré also defended plans to address interconnection and traffic
cost in the ITR, arguing that connectivity is still too expensive
in many developing counties and international mobile roaming
prices were seen as too high by many. </p>
<p>Yet the idea of a “sender pays” regime and potential limitations
to a completely agnostic and neutral data transport network have
resulted in stern warnings from the internet services and platform
providers.</p>
<p>In the push for more transparency, a <a
href="http://wcitleaks.org/">WCIT leaks website</a> was set up.
</p>
<p>A first background brief on the WCIT has been published by the
ITU secretariat <a
href="http://www.itu.int/en/wcit-12/Documents/WCIT-background-brief1.pdf">here</a>
[pdf]. </p>
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