[bestbits] c.a.'s speech at 16th CSTD opening ceremony

[michael gurstein]

Very well said c.a.!

M

-----Original Message-----
From: bestbits-request at lists.bestbits.net
[mailto:bestbits-request at lists.bestbits.net] On Behalf Of Carlos A. Afonso
Sent: Wednesday, June 05, 2013 9:29 PM
To: bestbits at lists.bestbits.net
Subject: [bestbits] c.a.'s speech at 16th CSTD opening ceremony

Hi people,

I was invited by CSTD to participate in the opening ceremony of its 16th
Session on June 03. Below is what I said.

fraternal regards

--c.a.

====================

Commision on Science and Technology for Development, Sixteenth session,
Geneva, 3-7 June 2013 Opening Session

Speech by Carlos Afonso, Executive Director, Nupef Institute, Brazil

=======================================

Ambassador Miguel Palomino de la Gala, Chair of the CSTD; Dr. Supachai
Panitchpakdi, Secretary-General of UNCTAD; Dr. Hamadoun Touré,
Secretary-General of the ITU, in the name of whom I wish to salute all
present authorities; ladies and gentlemen:

I have been assigned the honorable task of speaking in the opening ceremony
of this Sixteenth Session of the UN CSTD as a member of a small civil
society organization, committed to proactively contribute to the advance of
ICTs for human development in my country.

I am also one of the founding members of a relevant pluralist initiative in
Internet governance in Brazil, created in 1995, when this concept was not
yet in our minds, the Brazilian Internet Steering Committee -- a joint
initiative of government, academia, industry and NGOs. More than just a
names and numbers assignment organization for Brazil's ".br" top domain
name, the Steering Committee has the mission to oversee or advise on a broad
range of issues related to the development and deployment of the Internet in
our country.

Since 2003, when a multistakeholder model of coordination was consolidated,
a majority of its 21 members is elected every three years by civil society,
the private sector, and the technical community. Our Steering Committee has
been a reference for several countries in organizing multistakeholder
processes of Internet governance.

In 2009 the Steering Committee managed to reach consensus around its 10
Principles for the Governance and Use of the Internet in Brazil. Its
publication has since been used as a reference in many foruns around the
world, and was the starting point of a challenging proposal: a new bill of
law setting a Framework of Civil Rights for the Internet in Brazil, known in
Portuguese as the "Marco Civil da Internet". Marco Civil was elaborated
during a long, 3-year process of open, highly participatory consultations
with all sectors, until a final version of the bill of law was submitted to
Congress last year.

We are now struggling to preserve the essential tenets of Marco Civil as it
is processed through Congress, against the heavy lobby of the
telecommunications industry (which strongly opposes net neutrality) and the
main media companies (which insist on facilities for takedown of content
without due process of law, as well as imposing undue accountability on
intermediaries).

In short, these are more or less the same disputes we see in most countries,
including the largest developed democracies. A strong indication of these
and other challenges to a free and open Internet was the recent appeal, four
days ago, of Neelie Kroes, the Vice-President of the European Commission
responsible for the Digital Agenda, which, along with the defense of an
European single market for telecommunications, stresses the fundamental
importance of guaranteeing net neutrality, among other fundamental rights.

As the ITU-Unesco broadband commission stated in its 2012 report, "to date,
the rapid, substantial growth in broadband has not translated into
significant increases in Internet access in least developed countries
(LDCs), where only 6 per cent of inhabitants had access as of 2011. This
[percentage] is expected to more than double by 2015, but by then, the
absolute gap with higher income countries is likely to grow even larger."
And Susan Crawford makes a very strong case for the universalization of
bidirectional high-speed broadband (for both upload and download) in every
home and office, in her recent book "Captive Audience."

True bidirectional high-speed, this is true broadband, with the guarantee of
net neutrality and protection of other basic human rights for the end user.

As I said in the opening ceremony at the IGF in Baku, the absence of
gatekeepers and the open, global communication enabled by the Internet is
crucial to carry out the promise of Article 19 of the UN Universal
Declaration of Human Rights.

To impose restrictions to the free flow of information is and has always
been contrary to the individual human right to freedom of expression. We
ought to preserve and enhance fundamental communication rights as
synthesized in the Final Statement of the First WSIS+10 Review event held
last February at Unesco Headquarters in Paris.

As the Brazilian experience in pluralist governance exemplifies, any
upcoming institutional arrangement for the governance of the Internet should
never be restricted to just multilateral structures -- we may need new
governance mechanisms, but these must emphasize full participation of all
sectors from policy conception to decision-making. 
Let us hope that the current CSTD Working Group on Enhanced Cooperation
sheds a brilliant light on the path to the proper ways of effective
international collaboration.

Let the Internet continue to flourish freely to the benefit of those who
live at its edges, which are all of us. Thank you.

_______________________________________________
Kabob mailing list
Kabob at ipjustice.org
http://mailman.ipjustice.org/listinfo/kabob