[bestbits] Re: [governance] my views and short report -- UNWGEC
Carlos A. Afonso
ca at cafonso.ca
Mon Nov 11 10:16:44 EST 2013
Grande Snehashish, the transcripts for the three days are attached as
plain text files. Have fun! I also copy to the Best Bits list.
fraternal regards
--c.a.
On 11/11/2013 12:36 PM, Snehashish Ghosh wrote:
> Dear All,
>
> Are the transcripts from the 2nd Meeting of WGEC archived online?
> A link would be really helpful.
>
> Thank you.
>
> Regards,
> Snehashish
>
>
> On Mon, Nov 11, 2013 at 7:12 PM, Carlos A. Afonso <ca at cafonso.ca
> <mailto:ca at cafonso.ca>> wrote:
>
> Dear people,
>
> Here are my *personal* views and a short report as a participant in the
> Working Group on Enhanced Cooperation (UNWGEC) -- its second meeting
> just happened in Geneva (6-8 of November). It just follows the latest
> edition of the UN Internet Governance Forum (IGF) held last October in
> Denpasar, Bali, Indonesia.
>
> In the discussion of enhanced cooperation among nations for the
> advancement of the information society and knowledge (and with this
> phrase I try to synthesize my view of the subject), the IGF is always
> taken into account, both to highlight its (relative) relevance and to
> suggest the way forward for international governance of the Internet.
>
> Several governments also insist that the 2005 Tunis Agenda (attached in
> PDF), a non-binding commitment among governments, should not be changed
> -- some even hail the Agenda as a "bible" to be followed, even if it has
> not been followed by some of the very governments which view it as such,
> and even if the dynamics of rapid worldwide development of the Internet
> requires periodic revisions.
>
> The Tunis Agenda contains a lengthy specification of the mandate the IGF
> should follow, as described in its paragraph 72:
>
> ------
> 72. We ask the UN Secretary-General, in an open and inclusive
> process,
> to convene, by the second quarter of 2006, a meeting of the new forum
> for multi-stakeholder policy dialogue—called the Internet Governance
> Forum (IGF). The mandate of the Forum is to:
>
> a) Discuss public policy issues related to key elements of Internet
> governance in order to foster the sustainability, robustness, security,
> stability and development of the Internet.
>
> b) Facilitate discourse between bodies dealing with different
> cross-cutting international public policies regarding the Internet and
> discuss issues that do not fall within the scope of any existing body.
>
> c) Interface with appropriate intergovernmental organizations and other
> institutions on matters under their purview.
>
> d) Facilitate the exchange of information and best practices, and in
> this regard make full use of the expertise of the academic, scientific
> and technical communities.
>
> e) Advise all stakeholders in proposing ways and means to accelerate the
> availability and affordability of the Internet in the developing world.
>
> f) Strengthen and enhance the engagement of stakeholders in existing
> and/or future Internet governance mechanisms, particularly those from
> developing countries.
>
> g) Identify emerging issues, bring them to the attention of the relevant
> bodies and the general public, and, where appropriate, make
> recommendations.
>
> h) Contribute to capacity building for Internet governance in developing
> countries, drawing fully on local sources of knowledge and expertise.
>
> i) Promote and assess, on an ongoing basis, the embodiment of WSIS
> principles in Internet governance processes.
>
> j) Discuss, inter alia, issues relating to critical Internet resources.
>
> k) Help to find solutions to the issues arising from the use and misuse
> of the Internet, of particular concern to everyday users.
>
> l) Publish its proceedings.
> ------
>
> It is clear that this broad mandate is not being fulfilled by the IGF.
> First of all, these items show that the IGF should be a process-oriented
> forum, not merely a sequence of events.
>
> Secondly, there are clear references to recommendations that should be
> generated by the IGF -- for example items e, g , h , and i --, which
> have been basically ignored by the UN.
>
> The fact is that the IGF is leaving aside significant components of its
> mandate, and even governments which swear fidelity to the Tunis Agenda
> have not given importance to these shortcomings. Further, the MAG (which
> is dedicated only to organize each yearly event ) is composed basically
> on UN-filtered sectorial representation but not the necessarily on the
> expertises needed to carry out this challenge .
>
> It is therefore necessary to rethink the IGF if it is deemed to be (or
> might become) a central instance of enhanced cooperation. Otherwise it
> might be replaced in favor of other ways to advance this process.
>
> As for WGEC , whose goal is to deliver recommendations on enhanced
> cooperation to the Commission on Science and Technology for Development
> (UN UNCSTD) in the first half of 2014, which will be brought to the UN
> General Assembly in September of the same year, the work so far has
> revealed some worrying weaknesses .
>
> The central result of the first meeting of WGEC, in June 2013, was the
> production of a questionnaire that was answered by all sectors. There
> were 69 responses , thus distributed: 29 from governments, 23 from civil
> society, 11 from the "technical-academic" sector, and eight from the
> business sector. More than half of the responses came from developing
> countries.
>
> It produced a consolidation of the results with some flaws (including
> the mistakenly taking responses from the Best Bits group of NGOs for the
> APC responses), but even so the consolidation gave a reasonable idea of
> the various views of the working group in relation to themes of
> cooperation and improved governance of the Internet. [summary is
> attached in PDF]
>
> The summary and procedures in the second meeting (6-8 November) reveal
> the risk of retracing the path already followed for building the Tunis
> Agenda, as well as the efforts of the Working Group on Internet
> Governance (WGIG , which met November 2004 to June 2005). Effectively,
> significant time was consumed in preparing a list of over 300 topics
> possibly related to Internet governance and enhanced cooperation. Group
> difficulties in dealing with such a number of issues in order to try to
> group them into key issues was such that we constituted a specific group
> ("correspondence group") to come up with a short list of topics. The
> perception of "déjà-vu" for the old-timers who participated in the WGIG
> and the WSIS process is inevitable .
>
> One of the problems of a working group like this is that participants
> are defined in terms of their sectoral representations and not
> necessarily because of their expertise on the issues (something similar
> to what occurs with MAG). This creates an additional difficulty for both
> the consolidation of the issues and the drafting of a qualified report.
>
> Faced with the lack of time and the uncertainties generated by this
> process, some sectors have presented concrete proposals, which I relate
> below.
>
> A group of civil society organizations and individuals presented an
> interesting list of possible recommendations to be evaluated and
> possibly adopted in the final report WGEC (I added the numbering for
> easy future reference). I have reservations about the effectiveness of
> the role of IGF so far, but overall I agree with the approach and
> consider a contribution to guiding the future WGEC report. Their
> suggestions:
>
> ------
> Draft recommendations bullets prepared by a group of WGEC Members and
> Observers
>
> 1- Acknowledges that the Tunis Agenda, if it is to continue as a
> reference point for all stakeholders, should be considered as a living
> document which needs to be updated to reflect the roles and
> responsibilities of all participants;
>
> 2- Encourages the rethinking of the stakeholder roles that were defined
> by governments unilaterally in the Tunis Agenda, noting that these roles
> were originally defined by governments in December 2003, Geneva
> Declaration of Principles;
>
> 3- Affirms that the internet belongs to everyone: everyone can use it
> and everyone can improve it: this also applies to its governance;
>
> 4- Acknowledges that Enhanced Cooperation is well underway as intended
> in Tunis Agenda paragraphs 67 through 75;
>
> 5- Concludes that no new multilateral arrangements, are required for
> Enhanced Cooperation;
>
> 6- Acknowledges that new mechanisms spring into existence organically
> as they are needed and that there is no need to create new mechanisms
> in a top down manner;
>
> 7- Acknowledges the efforts of various existing mechanisms to understand
> internet governance and to make public policy in light of, and taking
> into account, its multi-stakeholder nature;
>
> 8- Congratulates the IGF for its work in meeting its Tunis Agenda
> defined role in fostering Enhanced Cooperation;
>
> 9- Encourages the IGF to cover all issues of Internet governance that
> are of concern to stakeholders and to form ongoing Issue Discussion
> Groups within the IGF to make recommendations on these issues to the
> larger IGF community;
>
> 10- Encourages the IGF to follow the recommendations of the CSTD WG on
> IGF Improvements including its mandate to give advice to the functional
> Internet governance and management organizations;
>
> 11- Encourages those making public policy to engage more fully in the
> IGF and to bring to the IGF their questions on internet related matters
> within their mandates;
>
> 12- Encourages all governments to commit to the IGF, and to use the IGF
> process as an opportunity not just to engage with all other
> stakeholders, but as an opportunity to work with each other on an equal
> footing;
>
> 13- Invites all Internet governance and management organizations to
> participate in the IGF.
>
> 14- Reinforces the multistakeholder approach and encourages all
> stakeholders to engage more in and work with existing organisations and
> to explore ways in which stakeholder engagement can be enhanced.
> ------
>
> In summary , the path is to focus , focus , focus on a small but
> essential set of topics and try to build proposals for enhanced
> cooperation among nations (rather than just among governments) around
> these themes (and this points to the requirement of pluriparticipative
> processes all along). Otherwise, the WGEC will end up replaying the
> generalities of much of the Tunis Agenda and will barely advance.
>
> On the side of governments, suggested guidelines came from the
> governments of Brazil, Mexico, the UK and Sweden:
>
> ------
> - Members [of the UN] should explore ways to strenghten participation of
> all stakeholders from developing countries in existing global internet
> governance fora including through funding mechanisms and alternative
> working methods such as remote participation.
>
> - Members should increase efforts to empower stakeholders to particpate
> through capactity building, including but not limited to, training
> programs, awarness raising, best practice sharing.
>
> - Members should work with developing countries to create a fair and
> consistent domestic framework that stimulates competition and creates
> affordable access for all stakeholders.
>
> - The role of governments should include, but not be limited to, to
> empower internet users, ensure a fair and consistent legal framework
> that is transparent accountable and equitable and protect human rights
> online, to foster a robust global internet infrastructure and support
> mulitstakeholder processes and partnerships.
> ------
>
> At this point , I believe the proper junction of the two proposals can
> help speed up the process towards the final report of the WGEC.
>
> fraternal regards
>
> --c.a.
>
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-------------- next part --------------
6 November, 2013
Working Group on Enhanced Cooperation
10:00 a.m.
Geneva, Switzerland
(Gavel).
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Ladies and gentlemen.
(Gavel).
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Good morning. Can you please take your seats.
I would like to start in one minute. Thank you.
Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the second meeting of the Working Group on Enhanced Cooperation in the Commission on Science and Technology for Development. I hope we are going to have a fruitful meeting during the three days, as proof was we had the last time, which was much shorter but very efficient.
I would like to greet the remote participants. I hope they are with us. And I would like to (indiscernible) to be members of the group. I would like to greet the observers who are with us.
As I told you, this is the second meeting of the working group. And as usual, meetings start with the mandate. Probably you know it by heart -- (beeping) -- but it is always useful to reiterate what the mandate of the group.
The mandate from the United Nations General Assembly resolution, resolution 67/195/2012, which invites the Chair of the CSTD to establish a working group on enhanced cooperation -- (beeping) -- to examine the mandate of the WSIS regarding enhanced cooperation through seeking, compiling, and reviewing inputs from all member states and all other stakeholders and to make recommendations on how to fully implement this mandate.
The second part is issue a report to the CSTD in 2014. Looking at the mandate, I think we are in a relatively good position. We have already fulfilled the first part that we were seeking and compiling the input. And we had a summary which was sent out to the members of the group and which has been posted on the Web site.
Next one, please.
Just a day before yesterday, I attended a presentation on a presentation where the owner and the CEO of the software explained to us that PowerPoint is always full of bullet points and full of text, and I think he was right. Unfortunately, my presentation had already been written at that time so I managed to get one picture in it which shows the process we are going through.
So we have talked about the United Nations General Assembly's resolution. The working group has been established. We seek the inputs from the stakeholders. And right now, we have to review the inputs. And, finally, we have to give some recommendations to the CSTD next year with the view that there would be a resolution passed to the ECOSOC. And, finally, it goes back to the United Nations General Assembly.
What I expect from this meeting, I expect that we will respect the mandate, and I will make my best that it is going to be like that. I would like to call your attention that we are a group constituted of all stakeholders; that is, a multistakeholder approach. And last time I think we have managed to establish the mutual trust, and it was very useful. That was the reason the meeting was really successful.
The meeting -- last time we decided to have allow observers to the meeting, and we also decided that ECOSOC rules apply. In this meeting, we have observers. We have remote participation. We have audio streaming, if I'm not wrong. And, hopefully, we have scribes who are going to give us transcripts of the meeting. So all the promises were kept we have made last time, and I hope this will contribute to the success of this meeting.
Naturally, we have to keep in mind that we have some constraints. We have time constraints. We have resources, which are very scarce. And we have the -- I was really afraid that we have constraints as far as the venue's concerned, but right now I'm happy to see there are still some seats which are available. And, hopefully, the members of the group will arrive. I have already received some minutes from some members about late arrival, so I hope they will make it to Geneva. And I think they will contribute also to the success of our meeting.
Next one.
We had the first physical meeting last May, on the 30th of May and the 31st of May. We decided to have further meetings, three days each. This is the second meeting we have. And based on the results we achieve today, we may have one or two more meetings. It is up to you.
In case we have two meetings, I would suggest to have it in January and February. But we are going to discuss it later.
However, I have to make my report by the end of February, beginning of March and submit the recommendations hopefully to the CSTD in May. So I'm very optimistic, as usual. I count on you for the cooperation, and I hope that we're going to achieve good results in a very particular period we are in now.
But at the same time, I have to tell you that I think we are in a privileged position. We are in a position where we can contribute to something which is very important, and I would like to call your attention to this fact that we should take this meeting in this spirit. We are privileged to be in this group and to be in this discussion.
You may recall that during the first meeting, we had a very long discussion about the agenda, the procedural issues. And we had breakout groups led by Brazil and India. In the breakout groups, we identified categories and the suggested questions. I think this approach was very useful. This was really very useful. It allowed us to have very open discussions, and then we got back to the plenary. We managed to finalize the questions in a very short while and the result of it was the questionnaire which you know by heart, I think. So I have to emphasize again, that the first meeting, we had excellent collaboration, and I hope that we are going to continue this way.
As I mentioned, we agreed at the meeting to have all the facilities, that is, all the streaming, the transcript, and we agreed with the remote participation. And the real result was the questionnaire which has been posted and sent out to the members of the group.
Next. What are the resources for our second meeting? Basically I think -- (feedback in the audio).
Okay. So this is not the resource oddly.
Well, first of all, the first resource is the questionnaire itself, which is more important for the contributions from the respondents. You may note that the responses were grouped by questions at one time and then they were grouped by respondents as well.
We found that we had about 1,000-page contributions, which you can't handle in a meeting like that. The idea came that eventually we should have a summary of the responses and the summary has been prepared and has been sent out to you and also has been posted on the Web site.
I give the link to the Web site on the slide. And probably in case you have difficulties, which I think you may have difficulties finding still things on the CSTD Web site, so here's the link. And probably if you still have difficulties, you can come to the secretariat and they will help you.
Next slide.
So the questionnaire was made up 18 questions. One was about the stakeholder itself. One question was a quite open question in case we missed something. And, basically, it reflected the consensus of the working group on topics relevant to the enhanced cooperation.
We had an extended deadline, which was the 17th of September. I have extended it, I think, twice or three times and -- next one. In the end, we have 69 responses. The 69 responses, you can see the distribution of these responses. We had 29 governments, 23 civil society, 11 technical community and academia and eight businesses. It's -- I leave it to you to judge whether this is enough or it's few. That's what we have. I think the responses gave us a very, very rich input for future work.
After analysis of the responses, I suggested to group the responses. That is, in five groups to facilitate all future work. In group A, they are the replies related to the implementation of the Tunis Agenda and these are questions 2 and 3. Group B replies related to public policy issues and possible mechanisms, questions 4, 8 and 9. In group C, we have replies to stakeholders, questions, 5, 6, 7, 14 and 17. In group D, we have replies to developing countries which are questions 10 and 15. And, finally, in group E, we have replies to barriers for participation in enhanced cooperation which are questions 11, 12, 13 and 16.
What are we going to do in the second meeting? Well, first of all, we have to agree on the agenda and the procedural questions. After having agreed on that, probably we should identify and agree on topics and categories; that is, the grouping I've suggested to you. And we have to discuss responses to the questionnaire.
During the meeting, we are going to create a rolling document which will reflect the discussions we are having now. And to my best hope, on the third day, we may start drafting recommendations. I know this is very ambitious, but we have to do it. And, of course, there are some other issues to be discussed as we decide on the date of the next meeting.
What I suggested is for the time management, we have all meetings starting in the morning at 10:00 and we have the meeting in the morning up until 1:00 in the afternoon. In between, I would suggest you have a segment for observers, a 15-minute segment for observers that they may take the floor and give any observations they have and then we will have a coffee break, also 15 minutes. So probably it will be kind of flexible, but that's what I suggest.
We will have a lunch break from 1:00 to 3:00. And in the afternoon, we will have a kind of similar arrangement. That is, we will have our discussions and we will have an observer segment from 4:15 to 4:30 followed by again a coffee break, and we shall work until 6:00 in the evening.
Frankly speaking, I don't intend to go beyond 6:00. Naturally, if it's needed, of course, we can do it. But I have been reminded that the room is available up until 7:00, 7:30. But I don't believe that we will use this time. It's my best hope that we're not going to do that.
So, basically, these were the introductory remarks. As for the observers, we have to respect the rules of the ECOSOC. That is, member states who are not members of the working group can take the floor first and other observers can follow. But I would like to remind you that this is a working group. We came here to work. We came here not to make statements but to make recommendations.
And in this spirit -- and I think you share this approach, I sincerely hope you do -- so I would like to encourage you to contribute in this sense.
So after that, I would suggest that we go directly to the agenda. And probably you have it. Can you share it with us?
Thank you. So, basically, the agenda reflects what I said in my introductory remarks, including the time management. It's more general than what I think we should be doing. It doesn't talk about the grouping, but I really encourage you that we should work in this way; that is, take the groups of questions and discuss them in groups by topics.
So I ask you if the agenda is acceptable. Yes, Marilyn. Before you take the floor, I would like to ask you to identify yourself always shortly.
>>MARILYN CADE: Thank you, Chair. My name is Marilyn Cade. I'm one of the participants from the business community. And greetings, all colleagues.
It is a pleasure to be back together. My only comment -- And I want to thank you for the preparation both that you have put together and the time you've dedicated, Chair, but also to the secretariat. My only comment -- actually it is twofold. One is perhaps as we get into the discussion, we may find the need to flexibly adjust the agenda.
Some of the questions, responses may take more detailed discussion than others. And so I'd like to ask for that.
And then, secondly, if we could ask the secretariat to make your presentation -- to send it out to the full list. It is a bit challenging to find the information on the Web site, and it would be great to have your presentation and any other documents e-mailed out to the full list so that we could keep in touch on documents that are presented in the room. Thank you, Chair.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you, Marilyn. Naturally, the agenda will be flexible. We will follow whatever is the natural way of discussion.
As for my presentation, I have made the last update this morning. Probably it was about 9:30. So -- but you will have the presentation, and I think it's already on the Web site. And to find things on the CSTD Web site, I would go with it is not a challenge but a kind of test of ability of how you manage to get around. It's really to test your capabilities.
So having said that, any other comment on the agenda? Do we agree that we go by the way I suggested; that is, grouping the questions as they were? Okay, in that case the agenda is accepted.
(Gavel).
One thing I want to add, I mentioned that in the first meeting, we worked in a mixed way. By that I mean we worked in one part of the meeting in plenary mode and then we had the breakout groups. I would suggest that we should do the same way depending how our discussion is going to proceed to discuss questions in breakout groups, then come to the plenary, and have the whole plenary involved in the further discussions. We shall see how it goes, but I think this was a very efficient way of doing things. The breakout groups won't discuss different issues. They will discuss the same issues. And they will probably come to some kind of conclusion, and these conclusions can be merged. And that is the idea. But given the time and especially the amount of work we have to do, I think we should find always the best way to proceed so that is the way I suggest.
So I really suggest to go straight to group Number 1 and attack the questions which are in group Number 1. That is Questions 2 and 3.
I would give you some two minutes to go through Questions Number 2 and 3 and look through the analysis of these questions and eventually, if you wish, you can go to the responses as well. This allows us to solve some kind of technical problem we have with the audio streaming. Please take your time and look into the Questions 2 and 3 and we shall resume in two minutes.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: So I can see that you are ready to discuss questions 2 and 3. So just to remind you, Question Number 2, "What do you think is the significance, purpose, and scope of enhanced cooperation as per the Tunis Agenda?" And Question Number 3, "To what extent has or hasn't enhanced cooperation been implemented?" So the floor is yours.
So based on the input we have, and based on the analysis which has been provided to you, I would like to ask you to do your contributions but try and restrict yourself to what I said in my initial remarks, to the mandate we have, to the agreed text we had, and try to discuss in this way. Yes, Brazil.
>>BRAZIL: Thank you, Mr. Chair, and good morning to all colleagues. First of all, I want to congratulate you personally for the amount of work invested and for the document which is provided to us. As you have indicated, you had the challenge to deal with so many contributions and the document, the analyses of the responses I think is a very good basis for our work. Of course, there are some notions, some nuances that are not captured into this document and I -- I understand there will be plenty of opportunity to come back to some things that are missing there from the perspective of participants would be important. However, I think it really captures most of the essence of what we should be discussing today and in our next meetings.
The point I want to make is that I think that maybe we should, on the basis of the compilation we have before us, try to identify what are the core issues that require discussion among us. Even taken into account there are different approaches to the way the questions are framed, I feel there is a large degree of consensus around some issues, the recognition of progress made, on the recognition of the value of working a multistakeholder environment. Depending on the participants, the emphasis is put on -- more on the aspect of having a half glass that is full or half glass that is empty. But I think there is some large degree of consensus that we have moved forward, to a large extent, since 2005. But I can also feel that even for those who agree that enhanced cooperation, to some extent, is already taking place and that maybe do not have -- do not need new mechanisms but need to -- even for these little things that we need to improve (typing) I think there is one notion we should maybe discuss, what we need to improve on existing mechanisms and on the other hand, as I go through the responses, on the other hand we have a group of participants that say that something else should be there. So I think maybe decided to -- maybe basic notion should be worked around in order to implement the mandate we have to provide advice on how to fully implement -- fully implement from the part of the conclusion what we have and if needed to come up with something else that would add to this. I think we should -- as you, Chair, have indicated, not lose time around issues that are consensus among us. The recognition of the multistakeholder model, the value of what we have achieved so far. That we have tried to focus on things that have emerged as differences and try to elaborate, if possible, to come to some consensus on these. Otherwise, to explicitly spell out what are the differences so we can come up with some meaningful document for the report. Thank you.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you, Ambassador. I understand what you're saying. How I would like to lead this group is first come to questions where we do have common understanding because in my mind we have to give them some kind of mutual trust and mutual understanding and then we can discover the differences. So if we agree that on some issues -- and I hope there are really many issues that we agree on -- then we can discuss those ones which we do not agree on and we can come to some kind of common understanding and try to understand each other, what we don't think is right, what we don't think is -- hasn't -- which hasn't been implemented. So I really encourage you first to come to this way of building this mutual trust and further building the mutual trust. But at the end of the day, I think we do agree that we have to come up with recommendations in the spirit you mentioned, how to fully implement the mandate of enhanced cooperation. I do agree with that. Probably I have a kind of slightly different approach. I would like to build on the consensual issues first, and it would give us some -- let's face it, good feeling and then we can build on that.
India, please.
>>INDIA: Thank you very much, Chair, and to a very good morning to all colleagues in the room. And it's good to see so many familiar faces. We've sat through a fairly good amount of time last time in the last meeting. I think at the outset allow me, Mr. Chair, to formally congratulate you on behalf of my delegation for your commitment and your -- I would use the word "leadership" in guiding the process.
The effort that has gone into so far in preparing a kind of questionnaire followed by responses received and thereafter a report has been prepared, a summary, I think you have been very careful in using the word "summary" rather than saying -- attributing any particular notion to (indiscernible) or otherwise it is responses that have been received. I think it is good.
Firstly, the approach that you recommended, we fully support this. And also I'd like to acknowledge one colleague's recommendation that to keep the agenda a little flexible so that we place it according to the rhythm and so the progress we would be making as we go along. So these are the two, I think, pillars on which we can proceed.
Thirdly, just a quick comment on India's responses and certain changes that we have reflected towards the last (indiscernible). Just to inform colleagues in the room that with regards to questions 6 and 8, we of course submitted after the due date, just a recognition to be -- to be made in this room that India has data it supplied on Question Number 6 and 8, which we have forwarded to the Secretariat and we hope that we will bring to the discussion forum as we go along. That's the first point I would like to make.
Coming to the replies that have been received as far as the report that has been submitted, I think it's important at the outset to make certain recognition of the fact that it is a fairly small sample of responses that we have received, which is known by the numbers, the very fact that there are so many responses only. But the -- the beauty of the responses as we see it is that they cover a large and entire diversity of opinions that we -- we have been hearing and we have been -- we have heard in the earlier discussions. So we have the advantage of reflecting on those opinions as we go along. At the same time, I think -- actually a particular direction which responses have given I think we need to be slightly cautious on that. So we will be making the distinction as we go along, because in the agenda you have designed that we move towards, based on the responses that we have received, we would make steps forward, next steps forward. I guess that is the right way to do things, but again, with this little caution, that we would like -- at least my delegation would like to bear in mind which we thought it's good to let it be known.
As regard to the response 2 and 3, which is to the five categories that you have proposed, I think if we could respond to these five categories of questions, I think we would have covered the entire spectrum to which we have recommended -- the desire which we have started we will achieve. We fully endorse this five categories approach and thereby now you focus on Question 2 and 3. Again, from our perspective, we have categorically said not much progress has been made, but when we said this it is specific to paragraph 68 and 69 of the Tunis Agenda. But there is recognition certainly that the very fact that we have been able to look at things starting in 2005 till now, it is -- there's no denying of this fact that there is an enhanced cooperation already taking place. Again, at what levels? There are many stakeholders in this process and as a representative of the government in this working group, we find that it is lacking, to a large extent. And there is recognition to this fact, and again, going through this process of looking at Tunis Agenda as a basis. So with that in mind, I think we -- we would like to see a kind of -- a kind of a determination at this point in time. Because if you say that we made progress and we achieved everything, then the rest of the questions have no relevance in this room. I mean, let's face it. I think we need to be realistic and we need to be practical in our own approach. So I do agree with our distinguished ambassador from Brazil who said that it's a half glass -- half full or half empty, but at the same time, yes, there is a recognition that there's a gap and we need to see what gap's are there and what, perhaps, would be the most appropriate recommendation that we can make. Thank you, Chair.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you, India. I'm really grateful for your remarks. One point I want to emphasize that we have taken the sample input, and some inputs have arrived late, but it doesn't prevent us to work, taking into consideration the replies we received. And naturally at the end of the day, as I always said, we have to do the work, the bulk of the work. And you can contribute naturally the way you would like to. And you can always express your views in the way you like to. So this is only a basis, the input, but the real work is going to be done here.
And as for the Questions 2 and 3, whether the glass is full half or full empty, I'm always optimistic and I say it's full half. So let's fill the other half. Let's work in this way. I can see United States and then Parminder.
>>UNITED STATES: Thank you very much, Chairman. This is, as you say, the United States. On behalf of my delegation I would be want to congratulate you for taking the -- for taking the daunting task of looking at a record of something like 1,000 pages and summarizing it to 25 pages. This is -- we were -- as I say, we offer our thanks.
We had some of the same concerns and -- or perhaps observations is the way to put it, as the ambassador from Brazil and the last speaker from India. And by that, I would just summarize it in this way, that we recognize that there are challenges before us in terms of the work of this group. We recognize at the same time we have a very useful and helpful summary that identifies topics of real concern. We agree with the Brazilian ambassador, if we've understood it correctly, that not everything is captured in the -- in the 25-page summary, and that it's even fair to say that some things are missing. And I would just join hands with colleagues in wanting to make sure that we have a record, if you will, a summary, if you will, that represents, I think as Brazil put it, the core interests. I think in our words, the priority interest of countries and regions so that as we move to develop recommendations we are well-informed as to what countries and entities are thinking, what they think is good and what they need.
So Chairman, just to offer our support in whatever way we can support putting that information together so that we are -- that we are -- that we have a strong foundation for reliable recommendations. We do have some ideas, but I'll stop right there and just offer our thanks to you and to join with other colleagues and recognize that this is a very helpful first step. Thank you.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you. You may remember that when I sent out the analysis of the questions, in my e-mail I mentioned that this is definitely a document which is not meant to replace the original contributions in the first -- it is not meant to be the only input. It is just to help with the further work. And I think it might be quite useful to streamline. I saw Parminder and Sweden. Sweden was first? Okay, Sweden.
>>SWEDEN: Thank you. Thank you, Chairman, and thanks to the Secretariat for all the hard work. It has really been a mixed pleasure to go through all those pages. Those first that have not only waited for the summary but also that have read all the responses, but I think mostly it has been a pleasure because of the very well-thought answers and the wide range of opinions that are reflected in those answers. So we're very encouraged by that. We also obviously recognize, as stated by others, that this does not maybe reflect everyone's opinion. There is a limited number of answers, but we also would like to echo what was said by India, that it does at least give a very wide range of answers and we think that that is very good as a basis to start our work here today.
Also, I would like to echo what was said by the Brazilian ambassador, that we think when we have read through these answers that it's quite encouraging to see that there are a lot of areas that we have consensus on, and we agree with the Chairman's approach that we should try to focus maybe first on those areas and then as a second step we should of course also try to see if we can find a convergence in the areas where there are outstanding issues. And I think also, it's important that we keep in mind when we discuss these issues, particularly maybe Question 2 and 3, that we have different interpretations of the concept of enhanced cooperation, and it's important that we respect the fact that we have different interpretations. I think that's the best basis we can have to move the work forward. But again, thank you for all your hard work and looking forward to working with everyone here. Thank you.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you, Sweden. Parminder.
>>PARMINDER JEET SINGH: Thank you, Chair. I'm Parminder Jeet Singh from India, IT for change. And good morning to everybody. And thank you, Chair and Secretariat, for putting together this excellent summary. And I heard observations that it does not capture everything which was always never possible, but I think what we have here is a basis to work on, a certain amount of categorizations which can then be filled, and then I think agreement categories initially is more possible and easier to work on and as we progress I would suggest that we do try to make categories of things and agree on categories first. And once you -- because categories are easier to agree on rather than specific viewpoints. And I also agree with India that these five categories which you have bunched the questions under look like a good way for us to work on rather than the questions one by one. As we agree on categories and then move categories to certain recommendations. And now I come to the questions under consideration which is 2 and 3. I think on 2, whether it has been fully implemented or not, I think people have exhausted their responses and there are all kinds and I would take a message of values view that. Let's focus on the fact that there is an agreement that's not fully implemented and talk about what are the gaps and that is kind of a consensus, that there is something which needs to be done rather than going back and forth. And agree whether it's fully implemented or not. And the gap part of it, what needs to be -- what needs to be done to fully implement what we do here and then remove other things out and that is something for us to work on. The fact that we all agree. And the response, there are public participations which need to be addressed which are not being addressed and that fact remains, and that is the focus of our work here today.
And on the second question which is about the scope and the purposes, again, being tactical and going to the Tunis Agenda, I can see that again, categories is important and Tunis Agenda gives two or three categories. It says that the general public policy issues, there are public policy issues connected to critical Internet resources and there's a third basket which enhanced cooperation doesn't cover which is the day-to-day operations and these three baskets are there. And once you know there are three baskets, three areas, then this is something which Tunis Agenda has and I don't think is very controversial. And these categories are made without specifically committing to any view on -- under each you could possibly make progress. Thank you, Chair.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you, Parminder. I can hear agreement, or partial agreement, on the categories we have, the groupings we have. I could also hear that probably, you know, we should sometime fall back to the Tunis Agenda, which naturally we do. However, we should also respect the mandate and we should discuss what is in the mandate, and I don't really think we should go beyond, unless we have some modification from the General Assembly end of this year.
Having said that, are there any other contributions on these issues? I would remind you that we are discussing first matter issues go by the groups I suggested and second, in case we do, then which I think we had some kind of consensus but it's -- it may be a good way to discuss these issues, by groups, and if it is accepted, then we go by group 1, and we have Question Number 2 and 3. So I would like to hear your opinion on these two issues. Grouping is acceptable to all of us? Saudi Arabia.
>>SAUDI ARABIA: Thank you, Mr. Chair. Good morning, colleagues. First, thank the secretariat for the work that has been done and to facilitate our hard work. And we support the way forward to the meeting.
I mean, with regard to question 2 and 3, I mean, the responses shows there's -- it is implemented, (inaudible), it is not implemented very well. We look forward to the output of this meeting, I mean, to come up with a recommendation to fully implement the mandate of the Tunis Agenda (indiscernible).
One more comment, that the Saudi's response is the government's response by CITC. So I mean, if we can update it that it is the Saudi government. Thank you.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you, Saudi Arabia. It is going to be done.
Yes, Virat.
>> VIRAT BHATIA: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Again, on my behalf and on behalf of the business, a big thanks to the secretariat and to yourself for arranging the text in the manner that you have done. It is quite spectacular to see a thousand pages down into 27, 26, depending how printouts have been taken or copies have been seen at.
I just want to make one point about a general comment which is just as the delegate from India suggested we should leave it to discuss at a later stage on where we are going in terms of progress, et cetera, even though there are some basic agreements that are emerging right now, it would be helpful to also keep our mind open to while agreeing on categories that you have recommended in general, that some questions at some stage might need to move or partially move across categories. And if we can keep that flexibility as a principle in mind just as we would keep ourselves flexible towards the movement of -- in attempt to draft recommendations towards the end of this meeting. I think that would be helpful just so that we don't have it cast in concrete in the first one hour. Thank you.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you. I think this was a very useful remark. And, naturally, I don't think everything is cast in concrete. So during the discussions, naturally, we will find that some issues may belong to more than one group, and we shall bring back these issues. Of course, we are going to be quite flexible as we did in the previous working group, and that's what we're going to do right now with your agreement.
Any other contributions regarding groups, grouping, the approach we are taking and more concretely Group Number 1, Questions Number 2 and 3?
It may be still too early. There's a remote participant. Yes, we are waiting for your intervention.
>>JOY LIDDICOAT: Thank you, Joy Liddicoat here.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Hello, Joy.
>>JOY LIDDICOAT: Hello. Thank you, Mr. Chair. And thank you, colleagues, for the introductory remarks. I also wanted to thank the secretariat for organizing this meeting and also to (indiscernible) in relation to the agenda announce that there are a number of remote participants, and we would ask on behalf of them, that those in the room do speak clearly and slowly so that the transcription and audio can catch their wide words. And also that if the group determines some group discussion is appropriate that we have some way to facilitate -- think about how to facilitate and ensure remote participation of the working group members.
And I thank you, Chair, for your indulgence with the technicalities on that.
Secondly, in relation to the summary and the submissions, I wanted to just acknowledge all of the submissions that have been received, and especially those from civil society, and to note that the summary, while it intends to catch both (indiscernible) and categories, I think it is clear that the summary is not -- it has been talked about a thousand pages of submissions. And there are some (indiscernible) for submissions. so I would ask that we refer to the submissions themselves and all of the work that's gone into those submissions by focusing on those and resisting the temptation to refer to the summary itself.
Particularly, I notice that there are some submissions which have not been cited in the summary, for example. Thank you. Those are my initial remarks.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you, Joy. Well, you reminded me of one of the obligations, that is, I didn't thank all those who have contributed to the work by answering the questionnaire. So I acknowledge all the work which has been done.
So the breakout groups, I'm having also some concerns about the participation -- the remote participations, so I have to make some kind of decisions as far as the efficiency of our work versus the extent of participations. Probably the issue wouldn't come up until tomorrow afternoon or Friday morning. So we shall sort it out amongst ourselves. But we don't have to forget that the main task ahead of us is to give recommendations. And that is the -- what is in the mandate. So, eventually, we may have some restrictions -- technical restrictions from participations remotely. But I promise you that in the plenary, everything goes back to normal.
As for the late submissions, naturally, we had to set limits and we had to deal with submissions which came within the extended target dates. So I fully agree that all submissions are extremely valuable, but we had to set some kind of time limit to consider submissions in the summary itself. It doesn't exclude them, however, to be discussed here but to be considered by this group.
Any other contributions? Yes, ISOC.
>> ISOC: Thank you, Chair. Allow me to start by commending the work of the secretariat. It is a remarkable work and extremely useful. I think the report is comprehensive and certainly offers a very good basis for our discussion.
I would note that as expected the document mirrors a various positions on enhanced cooperation and multistakeholderism and this is not a surprise. However, there seems to be consensus on the fact that enhanced cooperation is already underway in some forms or another. There is room for improvement, of course, but progress was made since 2005 both in terms of enhancing cooperation between intergovernmental organizations and governments but also in terms of developing working relationships, trusted working relationships, among all stakeholder groups including civil society, business and the technical community.
And I think this is very positive and encouraging. It is a very positive trend on which we can work.
Another important consensus is remarkable around the value of the existing decentralized Internet ecosystem. And that came clearly through the reports that you shared and that the IGF, including national and regional IGFs, have a key role to play in furthering enhanced cooperation in the future.
Overall, I think in terms of terminology, in terms of methodology, it is important for our group to build on areas where we can identify common ground and consensus such as the consensus I just described. And I'll just conclude by saying that the technical community is looking forward to working with all its colleagues towards a positive outcome. Thank you.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you. I can see no one asking for the floor. So can I conclude that we agreed on the way -- the approach I suggested?
Yes, Marilyn.
>>MARILYN CADE: Sorry, Chair. Marilyn Cade. But would you now turn to the observers then for their comments before we conclude on this topic? Is that how we're going to proceed so we hear from observers before we move to new topics?
>>CHAIR MAJOR: We are not going to conclude on the topic. We are going to conclude on the approach we are going to work. I will ask the observers after we agreed on the approach. So can I conclude that we agree on the approach? Okay.
And having said that, we have already discussed point Number 1 or Group Number 1 with Questions 2 and 3. But I don't think we have concluded on that. So now I turn to observers, if they have any comments. Please be brief in case you take the floor and identify yourself when you take the floor.
Anyone from the observers who would like to comment? Yes.
>> MATTHEW SHEARS: Thank you. Thank you, Chair. It is a pleasure to be here. I just thought it would be useful for everybody if, perhaps, also, in my case, I introduce myself so you're aware of who are the observers are.
My name is Matthew Shears. I am the director for Global Internet Policy and Human Rights with the Center of Democracy and Technology. Thank you.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you. Yes?
>> Thank you, Chair. I would just like to follow what Matthew said. I'm here on behalf of Global Partners, an Internet policy organization based in the United Kingdom. Thank you.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you.
>> SAMANTHA DICKINSON: I'll just follow the pattern. I'm Sam Dickinson. I was a member on the last CSTD working group on IGF improvements, and I'm a freelance Internet governance consultant.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you. In case we don't have any other intervention, I suggest to have the coffee break now. It's well-deserved. And probably after coffee break, we come back at quarter to 12:00. So this time I'm going to be to be very generous. We are going to have half-an-hour coffee break. But, please, make sure that during the coffee break, you work. You have the important conversations and discuss the issues. Thank you. So we come back at quarter to 12:00.
[ Break ]
(Gavel).
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for being on time. Please take your seat.
So good morning again. I have one small announcement. We have a box here, and I would like you to put your business card. I'm told by the secretariat that unfortunately there's no prize at the end of the meeting and there's no drawing and you are not going to win anything. But you are kindly requested to put your business card for the record.
Frankly, I would have liked to have some prize, but anyway...
So I hope you had a very pleasant coffee break and during the coffee break you had opportunity to discuss the issues we have had before the break. And I would like to resume the meeting by saying that we have agreed on the approach, that we are going to discuss the issues by groups. Naturally, the groups aren't rigid, so the questions in the groups may be reclassified or some parts of them may be reclassified to other groups, but it is really up to us.
I have also made clear that the bulk of the work is going to be done here, meaning that in case you think you have made some contributions and you think to change or modify or to update it, probably you can do it by eventually distributing a room paper. I don't think that this is the time to do it on the Web site.
But I would like to emphasize again that we shall take all the considerations into account and it will be done during the meeting. So this is -- I think it is quite important. It's our task to give the recommendations.
So having said that, let's go back to our work. We have started the review of the first group and the two questions in the first group. I concluded that there was a kind of general feeling about the glass being half empty or half full.
As I told you, I tend to be of the opinion to be on the positive side, and let's say it's half full and let's discuss how to make it completely full.
Any observations on questions 2 and 3 or any other observation on what we have discussed up till now? Good. We are going at a very good pace.
So I suggest, in that case, that we go to group 2 and I leave you some time to go through the questions we have in group 2. I believe probably an additional five minutes will be enough for you to go through and to have your ideas and your contributions prepared for the group.
So I give you five minutes and we start discussing group 2 and the questions in group 2.
(Silence).
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you. I believe you have had time to review what we are going to talk about, question 4, 8 and 9. And I have been informed that Joy Liddicoat wants to take the floor.
Joy, the floor is yours, remote participant.
>>JOY LIDDICOAT: Thank you, Peter. I just want to make a point about the submission summary which we have been reading. I just want to note and put on the record that there is an error in the summary, particularly the first one on page 4 which purports to cite the Association for Progressive Communication's submission. It is actually citing the Best Bits submission. And, in fact, all of the APC references in the document appear to be to that Best Bits' submission. And I'm just very concerned about that because their submissions are actually different and make different points.
I also note that in reference to a (indiscernible) submission here which does not appear in the list of submissions but it appears to be a government submission. So I'm just a little bit concerned about the focus of our discussions being reliant on this document. And I'm wondering how we might deal with that. One option is to deal with it as a document in the room, not as a matter of record. But I think some guidance from the other working group members on this point.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you, Joy. It is very useful. Probably this is not the only error we have in it. And thank you for pointing out these errors. I'm sure this will be corrected in a very short while.
As I said at the outset, this is a kind of attempt to streamline and downsize the contributions to help us to work, taking into account there may be some errors in it.
And I made it also clear that this is not -- it doesn't replace the contributions that we received. Our discussions will be based on the contributions and, more importantly, on the work we are going to do here or remotely you may contribute.
But I promise you errors pointed out will be corrected.
ITU.
>>ITU: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. So I just wanted to highlight a paragraph on page 4, A special remark from a civil society organization on ideals, activities and its collaboration regarding plenipotentiary resolution 101, 102 -- there was a mistake there -- 102 and 133.
We would just like to highlight ITU was working with the organizations listed and many of the organizations active in the area in the spirit of the plenipotentiary resolution. And we do report annually to our governing body's council and also other bodies on this cooperation. We would be happy to provide more information on this.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you, (saying name). In this room, we are aware of the great work the ITU is doing, at least myself I am aware
Any other comments? Yes, Parminder?
>>PARMINDER JEET SINGH: Thank you, Chair. Parminder.
And I think we would acknowledge that with this second set, we are into the meatiest part of our work. We are talking about public policy issues and gaps and the mechanisms that may be needed. And I wonder whether we should approach it -- I mean, otherwise, it is just too open-ended and we approach it through making certain categories. I mean, that would kind of, you know, make it a little more understandable, the kind of things we are talking about.
For example, I heard in the morning the statement being made that everybody welcomes the decentralized architecture of Internet governance. The technical community representative said that. And even in the summary, we see that with regard to Internet governance, the majority of the respondents value the existing decentralized Internet governance ecosystem, which includes -- and it goes on. But a substantial group of respondents is also open to consider the launch of new mechanisms.
Now, these actually are two different things. The ones who agree on the decentralized system which exists, I understand is already the technical and logical infrastructure system. A lot of people agree actually, including me, on that.
The "but" part about people wanting a new mechanism largely refers to a very defense side of the enhanced cooperation landscape. And if we keep on talking across these areas, we would not make progress because people would say we agree to the existing decentralized systems. They are saying we need a new mechanism.
And if we are talking about, for example, the public policy making, I'm talking about real public policy making, not about technical policies, I do not know what kind of decentralized system exists. And I'm ready for anybody to explain to me whether there is any decentralized system regarding public policy issues which are listed by many participants which could be net neutrality, which could be taxation issues, which could be education and health-related Internet things. There is a huge list.
What kind of decentralized system exists regarding that? Because it doesn't for me.
Therefore, we are talking about two different sets. As I said in the morning, if we talk about the technical policy making separately and other public policy making separately, we wouldn't be making this kind of cross-dialogue which has happened a lot in enhanced-cooperation discussions and may keep on happening.
So I suggest we discuss the technical policy side and other public policies as two separate groups, and then we would know what are different people saying within that particular area rather than cross-talking.
And just a last point about the public policy issues also, I think also the groupings can be made in this manner. Instead of going by each public policy issue -- because we are not here to give responses to those public policy problems but just to understand the landscape so we can give suggestions about institutional requirements.
So in that sense, I understand there are three groups, once which one are being dealt adequately right now somewhere by someone. There are another set of public policies which are partly being dealt by some people but requires an Internet-related aspect to be dealt which is not being dealt. And the third group which is completely -- has no existing kind of reference at all. This also is mentioned (audio interference) which acknowledges that there are public policy issues which are not being addressed.
So if we go by the fact there are three categories, then we could make progress with the corresponding requirements of institutional systems for each. Thank you.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you, Parminder. That's very interesting remarks. Probably we shall think about your remarks.
Now, the floor is Mr. Piazza.
>>ANDRES PIAZZA: Yes, thank you. This is Andres Piazza, member of the technical community group. Three remarks in the same direction or at least with some consensus with the previous speaker.
First of all, there's apparently -- I guess, we can understand that the value of the current model of the Internet organizations or, let's say -- (audio feedback) -- the decentralized ICT, the value of that system is not in question. I think this is one of the points.
The second point regarding the role of the IGF could be also considered one of the key roles in the future.
And this third point that could be highlighted regarding the other issues, the other policy issues that are not currently being addressed in any different forum, what (indiscernible), and I guess we should agree also in this. We can probably agree. There's no need to duplicate different forums. But if there is the need to create a specific forum, this forum should have multistakeholder representation and not only as observers but also in the decision-making as equal footing. This is the third point that should be highlighted. Thank you very much.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you, Andres.
Marilyn, please.
>>MARILYN CADE: Thank you, Chair. I'm going to build on, I think, a directional comment that Parminder just made by suggesting that, in fact, we are really into the meat of an area that needs substantial discussion. And this was what I was -- when I referenced the point earlier that I'd like to think we could be flexible about what responses fit into the categories, I'd like to propose we consider separating question 4 from question 8 and 9 and consider adding the question that comes later, which is about issues that are important to developing countries and think about looking at the list of submissions in question 4 -- and I'm probably blanking on the number -- I think that's question 15 and looking at those in a sort of side-by-side approach to understand -- because, for instance, we have where one respondent listed ten issues, another may have listed 46. But there are similarities and congruencies across the different lists that have been submitted.
And that would be, to me -- because identifying -- what we're here to do is to try to understand the issues that need to be addressed under the framework of enhanced cooperation. And to Parminder's point, we're not answering the issues but we are trying to sort of put them into categories.
The second comment I would make -- And perhaps Parminder would be welcome -- would welcome a friendly amendment or we could talk about this more. I think actually it's four groups, but it's somewhere between three and four. There are the topics that are underway today but can't -- the focus on them can be enhanced or strengthened. So that recognizes that public policy issues continue to evolve. And even if an issue is being addressed, there may still need to be strengthening or enhancing of the -- particularly in participation from developing countries, et cetera.
Then there is the category of their partly being dealt with.
The category that I think Parminder suggested, they are new. There is no existing reference place but we recognize them.
And then I think there's a fourth category that is more about trends which may lead us to understand that we can't predict or close out the fact that there will be more public policy issues that will emerge as technology and the number of users and the role of the Internet and its uses continue to evolve.
And that last one would -- you know, I might think that the right place to discuss those is the IGF, but I think it's worth having a conversation to make sure that we as the working group are thoroughly understanding this. Thank you, Chair.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you, Marilyn, very useful. Virat, please.
>>VIRAT BHATIA: Chairman, this is on the two comments made with regards to dividing up this group in Question 4 and the other two questions. I suppose that the issue of mechanisms is derived from the issues that we have or hope to face in the future. Because that's -- the mechanism is sort of built to deal with those issues, some that we have on the table, some that we can foresee, and others we might not be able to foresee right now. And I'm very thankful to the list that has been provided by various inputs that have come in, especially the one that you have listed in the summary which is the Brazilian government which is a reasonably large and quite extensive setup. And I'm sure there's some missing in this, but it's a good reference to begin with. And I suppose looking at Question 4 and the issue at hand which are under II listed in the mechanism section of the summary, it gives us a good idea to take this discussion forward as to which of these issues can be tackled in platforms which require multistakeholder approach and which you believe will require a different set of mechanisms. And just to -- that's what it's going to boil down to finally. What are we going to recommend in terms of how the mechanisms come into place that deal with the issues at hand. And I think the (indiscernible) is that if you would look at these issues, I think that discussion, even though we're not here to respond as Parminder said to these issues, but I suppose that gives us a very good idea on whether these issues can be dealt with only in a multistakeholder process or if there's anything else that exists out there which in turn will influence the mechanisms and also where that should be located. And including whether the current ones are good enough or they need to be extended or improved or more work needs to be done. But a focus on Question 4 and the issue is -- actually could be the debate of the entire dialogue for the next two days because that's where the issues are. Thank you.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you for that. Brazil, please.
>>BRAZIL: Thank you, Mr. Chair, and listening to what has been said before, I fully agree with those that express the need that we should focus and identify different categories of issues we want to tackle. In that sense, my view is that Questions 4 and 8 are closely linked because as we identify what our public policy Internet-related issues that we should work on from the point of view of enhanced cooperation, we should look at what are the current arrangements for that end and I think in the -- in the spirit of what has been said before in the (indiscernible) group that we should have a clear mapping of what we have. So if we can link important issues to existing mechanism arrangements and differentiate between things that are -- have been said before that have already been dealt with by, you know, a decentralized system and that might not require any particular work in that regard. In my opinion, even in that case, we should look -- from the point of enhanced cooperation -- how the work being done in this decentralized system could be better understood and better incorporated by other stakeholder. I think that could be better indeed an angle through which we could see the work being done in this decentralized format but then we should focus on questions, on issues that although have been tackled also by different institutions might require, might be benefited from some added platform or some added layer of interaction. And then there are other issues that do not have a clear focus, a clear home and maybe that should be the one that we should focus with more emphasis in our work. I can relate to many notions that were expressed and not captured in the compilation document you have provided to us, Mr. Chair. For example, when the Democratic Republic of Congo states that too many mechanisms kill the mechanism. You should just have to define the mission of the existing mechanisms. That then we might have a very clear understanding of what are those existing mechanisms and what could be done in order to provide for better interaction with other stakeholders. And then it feels comments that emerging and often issues that have no other global home could justify a new mechanism. So again, we must, I think, by looking at the issues, what are the existing -- the current mechanisms institutions are dealing with this and how we can improve on that and for those that are not there, what should we recommend to satisfy. And on -- superceding all these and on top of all of these, I would just refer to a notion that is dear to my delegation, to others, that irrespective of issues being dealt with by different institutions or not, there is something that in our point of view is required, is a platform that would allow for a holistic and integrated view of all issues and from the point of view of enabling government to have a better understanding and better tools to address Internet-related public policy issues. This is something that, in my opinion, needs -- would, let's say, provide not from the point of view of impacting or interfering with what is being done, for example by the decentralized system, but to allow governments to be best equipped. This is something that emanates from the vision we have and the focus we tried to have in the enhanced cooperation exercise that we are focusing on some keywords in regard to the definition of enhanced cooperation. We do know that this is not -- there's no consensus, but we are focusing on the needs to enable governments to -- and I think this is maybe at the core of the enhanced cooperation from the perspective of my delegation -- to enable governments to work around Internet-related public policy issues. Of course we are talking of multistakeholder environment. This is not something to be done exclusively by government, but from our perspective enhanced cooperation have a very clear focus-oriented approach. And we would like to propose this. But again, I think maybe the preliminary thing and I agree with (saying name) and others that said that maybe this is the crucial -- at the heart of the exercise, is to have different categories of issues that should be dealt with separately. Otherwise, we see a lot of confusion and people refer to Internet Governance and enhanced cooperation, sometimes mixed issues that are by nature substantially different. Thank you.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you, Ambassador. I think it's very, very useful and it seems to me we are getting clear what we are here to do. It's a very good guidance for me as well. Sweden, please.
>>SWEDEN: Thank you, Chairman. While we're looking at the answers, some of the answers, it's -- it is easy to see that trying to list all relevant public policy issues is a very difficult task. We all have our favorites. Certainly for us, some of the most pressing and important ones are the protection of human rights online, the protection of rule of law online, and the protection of free and open Internet that enables trade and commerce to flow freely. However, we think by looking -- when looking at the answers, some of the answers, that they're -- I think it was the Indian response and maybe also the response of Finland that there are -- there has been work done in this area before, looking at the Internet -- the working group on Internet Governance, for example, and the report coming out from that working group. You can see that there was an attempt to identify a group of categories rather than listing -- categories of topics rather than listing an extensive amount of topics itself. And I think it's about the issues relating to the infrastructure and management of Internet resources. It's the issues relating to the use of Internet. It's the issues that are relevant to the Internet but have an impact that is much wider, and issues relating to development aspects of Internet Governance. Maybe we should try to, to some extent, also base our work on what has already been done. And then on the question of new mechanism, we totally agree also with what -- the response that what is highlighted earlier from Congo, for instance, that too many new mechanisms or too many mechanisms doesn't necessarily do the work. We think that we should focus on how we can better utilize the existing foras and existing frameworks for Internet Governance, how that can be strengthened, how enhanced cooperation can be strengthened in the existing foras. But let's continue our discussion on that. Thank you.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you, Sweden. India.
>>INDIA: Thank you, Chair. Just to quickly go through some of the proposals that are on -- that are under this group. Firstly, with regard to the Question 4, I think it is perhaps good instruction to please recollect and give some recognition to the work that has been done by the working group which was hit up earlier on Working Group on Internet Governance. That certain public policy issues have already been dealt with, have been at least identified and the five different groups. In fact, given the Tunis Agenda we have made sort of a recognition that that working group has helped us to identify a number of public policy issues that are related to Internet Governance. So I think we are not starting from a clean slate. It's not a new kind of area that we are talking for the first time. So to that extent, I think it would be useful to see if we can -- how best we can actually recognize. They've all been categorized into five separate groups. Again, taking from there, whether we need to work forward in terms of mapping as we've been discussing, whether any of the issues which -- which mechanisms are currently being handling and if, in our perspective, in our opinion is it sufficient. If it is not sufficient, work further needs to be done. I think such an approach would help us move forward quickly. And if anyone -- any delegation has an additional item to be added, a policy issue to be added, I think we all could be open in terms of how best -- in which category it is to be reflected. That is the first intervention as far as Question 4 is concerned.
With regard to Question 8, in the morning we made a brief announcement that, you know, we have a data (indiscernible) response. I think it's time to perhaps to read it out and later on we will circulate in the room in the afternoon as a document. With regard to this question, the basic change would be towards the last paragraph. I would just read the addition of it and then say why we are saying this. And the addition goes that -- the last paragraph -- that after giving certain references to the various paragraphs in the Tunis Agenda we have a concluding paragraph states, thus it is a clear mandate for defining the mechanism for effective global Internet Governance. We have said that in our earlier reply. And thereafter we said what mechanism we have in mind, we will come back to you in the group. I read quote, unquote, I read, the U.N. General Assembly could embark on a creation of a multi-lateral body for formulation of international Internet public policies. The proposed wording should include all stakeholders and relevant intergovernmental and international organizations in advisory capacity within their respective roles as identified in the Tunis Agenda and the WGIG report which is also part and parcel of this discussion. To continue further, such a body should also develop globally-applicable principles and public policy issues associated with the coordination and management of critical Internet resources. Unquote. So this is the addition we have formally proposed, and the reason for this is very clearly as articulated in the Tunis Agenda itself in paragraph 29, 31 to 35 and paragraph 60. I don't need to go into the detail. I think we're quite familiar with these paragraphs. It is our understanding and (indiscernible) that while is a recognition for the governments to act on an equal footing with each other, as has also been pointed out by our distinguished ambassador from Brazil and a few colleagues, that there is not that forum for the government to see this from a holistic manner, in a manner that where there is a responsibility for the government. Again, we are saying it is not an exclusivity, certainly not. It is -- it is what we call working together kind of an approach.
With regard to Question Number -- relating to IGF and enhanced cooperation, I think it's important to recognize the contribution that the IGF has been making in enhancing the dialogue among the various stakeholders. I don't think there are absolutely any doubts about also work -- also worked on improving their working methods through various processes, and I think its contribution will remain very important to the whole process. The multistakeholder dialogue that we intend to embark upon. However, there is a subtlety which I think has been brought up in the Tunis Agenda and which has been reflected through the U.N. General Assembly resolution which was adopted last year which was 67/195 and also for the ECOSOC resolution which was adopted in the General Assembly relating to a recommendation from the CSTD has been adopted by ECOSOC where they have made a distinction between the two processes, that these two are very distinct processes and they compliment each other. That means there is kind of a constant and there's going to be a working togetherness as we go along. And they're not going to be at anyone's cost. This is two independent processes, and I think if you could make this recognition and work in that direction, perhaps our contribution in this working group would be very, very productive and also it will further strengthen the IGF processes that we have set in motion. Thank you, Chair.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you, India. Just a quick reflection. Some of us have participated in the IGF in Bali which was an exceptional opportunity.
>> (indiscernible)
>>CHAIR MAJOR: We already have some oversight.
( Laughter )
So coming back to the IGF, it was an excellent opportunity and even though I know, because I was behind some of the resolutions which you mentioned, the two processes are independent. I would modify, with your permission, it's interdependent. And we are complimenting each other, I believe. The IGF and enhanced cooperation. And there are very clear signs of that, just referring to the bilateral meetings we had during the IGF which were informal but still very helpful referring to bringing up policy issues during the main sessions which were extremely useful and I believe the process itself -- both processes itself are extremely helpful for each other.
Now, I can hear different voices, different opinions which are not very far from each other. I have heard that some said that there need to be -- need to have a mapping of the existing processes. Some said that we have enough fora to discuss issues, that we have to be more precise about responsibilities and the scope of these fora. Probably this is a good way to start our discussions.
I fully agree that Question Number 4 is one of the crucial if not the crucial question when we discuss the heart of the matter, and all other issues are defending what we think, which are important for the group.
So having said that, I would like to note someone would like to take the floor? On this you want to take the floor? There's another flag up? Yeah.
>>CONSTANCE BOMMELAER: Thank you. Thank you very much, Chair. I just want to follow on the intervention from the distinguished delegate from India and emphasize that what I -- what I understood from the findings of the consultation of the questionnaire that was distributed is that there is very clearly a verity of understandings of what enhanced cooperation means. And from my perspective we should not be rushing to conclusions. We should also take this opportunity that we have during these three days to identify what works on the basis of existing mechanisms. Again, within the findings we saw, for instance, that since its creation the IGF has acted as a catalyst for enhanced cooperations. I think if we are able to identify areas of consensus, then it would certainly be a very productive path leading to useful and agreed possible recommendations for the future. I think again it's very important to work on the basis of the verity of understandings of what enhanced cooperation means and the acknowledgment that for a large majority of stakeholders it is not necessarily solely about intergovernmental cooperation. It should include all stakeholder categories, including civil society, business, and the technical and academic community. Thank you.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you, Constance. I've been listening very carefully what has been said, and I had the impression that most of the contributions mentioned that enhanced cooperation should be made, taking into account the multistakeholder approach. There was, however, I think some differences about the implementation, whether it should be a multistakeholder approach or should it be a kind of multi-lateral, that's what I heard, with advisers from other stakeholder groups. So it's up to us to give recommendations in this area.
It is my impression that the majority expressed views, those who took the floor, for the multistakeholder approach, and this is one of the critical issues of our discussions, whether we recommend either way. So any reflection on that? Marilyn.
>>MARILYN CADE: Thank you, Chair. My reflection is first of all to -- I intended to follow on the comment that's been raised a couple of times that I want to be sure that we address and that is recalling for all of us that we have previously, when this group was set up, discussed the need for a form of a mapping exercise. We've also seen a call for that from some of the comments. And I want to go back to, I think we need to look at the submissions, particularly in Question 4, and have some kind of general agreement on what's in the list of topics before we start finding homes for them, with all recognition of the comments that have been offered about different models that might offer new mechanisms. We also -- I believe I've heard colleagues call for looking at how we strengthen and enhance existing mechanisms. And so I'd like to suggest we focus a bit more on mapping first and then coming back to the question of what are the range of approaches that could be looked at for strengthening and improving existing mechanisms or for looking at what new mechanisms, if any, are then to be discussed within this group.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you, Marilyn. I have a question to you. When you are mentioning mapping exercise do you have something in mind which we should be doing right here, right now, or should it be left to the Secretariat, or what is your complete suggestion?
>>MARILYN CADE: Well, particularly on Question 4, and then the other question I referenced, which I think is Question 15 about public policy issues which are of most interest to developing countries, I think, in fact, that's actually a quick process that can be done by looking at the submission of topics that have been contributed by the various submitters. There -- there's congruency for some of them. Some of them are more granular than others but do have a certain amount of, I think, the ability -- for instance, I would say that security and trust in the online world could include topics like child online protection or capacity building in dealing -- you know, I think it would be possible to begin to aggregate topics into categories.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: An additional question, how do you see it to be done? Shall we create some kind of small working group within the working group itself and which would come back to us, though I can't see it being done during the plenary. Would it be useful to have an offline group and then come back to the plenary with the results?
>>MARILYN CADE: Well, it might be interesting to understand if there's support in the room and colleagues who would like to work in that direction.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you. I'll let you think about the proposal, Marilyn. In the meantime, Jimson, you wanted to take the floor.
>> JIMSON OLUFUYE: Thank you, distinguished chair, your excellencies, colleagues, ladies and gentleman. My name is Jimson Olufuye. The chair of Africa ICT Alliance. It's a private sector led ICT group for Africa. So I'm really very pleased to be one of the five business entities in this working group.
Since this is the first time I'm speaking today, I want to really appreciate the Chair, the Secretariat, for the great job they've done. And I have no doubt we're going to continue in the exact same momentum.
Well, the issues that pertain to Internet policy, with regard to developing country is also very closely related to what is of concern to developed countries. So I think just to align my thought with the view as expressed by Marilyn that it would be a good idea to outline all the subject matters or the areas of concerns and then map it really and then see where they are already functioning, where they are already actively being treated. I'm very much familiar with the core ideas which EU, African Union, and (indiscernible), that is my area. These are issues they are already discussing vigorously at that level. So if we're able to outline all those points, you can see where we have gaps. So if we have gaps, then surely let us take them on. We also know there will be many issues, many issues. It would be a good idea to see where (indiscernible) will fit in because the enhanced cooperation topic on the Internet is very dynamic and quite fluid. But as my colleague has already underscored, whatever will be done going forward has to be truly multistakeholder model. It's a great privilege that the private sector which I represent is also -- is also being considered seriously, and I think this as our issue shall continue in the interest of our citizens -- global citizens and citizens in the developing nation in particular. Thank you.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you. Thank you, Jimson. I can identify Parminder and then Brazil.
>>PARMINDER JEET SINGH: Thank you, Chair. I first raised the flag to follow up on the Chair's observation about there being a kind of talk about whether we should follow a multistakeholder approach or a multilateral approach with stakeholder participation and consultations. This actually goes to the topic, cluster 3, which is the role of stakeholders. But I think the role of stakeholders is very much tied with both kind of issues and the mechanisms. And in that sense, it fits here. And that's pretty fine.
However, I still think in case we need to go by categories -- and if that works, the mapping is fine with me because it is the nature of issues, not the specific issue, let's not get bogged down whether access is more important or network neutrality or trade issues or global taxation, that list is endless. And if we start doing that, I mean, that wouldn't be the most productive use of our time.
We are talking about kinds of issues which require different kind of institutional responses which includes very prominently different roles of stakeholders. And that is a thing we're trying to kind of sort out today.
And in that sense, again, when I hear multistakholder approach, I'm very comfortable when technical policy is being made. Corporate sectors who have a lot of expertise would come in perhaps on an equal basis and give their expertise because they are make standards. This is completely different from substantive public policy issues like when I read the Brazilian list and the issues are there and many other issues on the list: Cultural diversity, harmonization of national policies, trade and e-commerce, consumer rights, data protection and privacy rights. They are typical public policy issues.
And if we are talking about actual public policy issues, I think we are touching the Holy Grail of democracy whether when corporate can be equal in decision-making along with a government. I don't know if that's the precise question you're talking about or even if a civil society actor can actually have a veto or actual role in decision-making. These are different sets of issues. The technical policy making is one set, oversight is a small other set, and other public policy issues which are substantive public policies and which Tunis Agenda says is the responsibility of governments is a different set of issues.
And then I get confused when people say, Okay, we are agreeing about the multistakeholder approach. Then I'm fine when it is the technical side.
Are we talking about the public policy issues side? Are we talking about global taxation on Internet issues? And what does that mean when we say every stakeholder has an equal right to be a part of the decision-making process?
I think unless we separate things in categories, depending on different kind of mechanisms and different stakeholder roles, we would still be talking across areas and which would not be very conducive to our progress. And in that sense, if mapping is the way to go, mapping is fine. But mapping by the needs of institutional areas rather than whether developing countries need it or whether it is access or whether it is net neutrality. But mapping it according to the kind of issues which need different institutional responses and also perhaps different roles of stakeholders, which is an open question. But the categories, I understand, would be this. Thank you.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you, Parminder.
Brazil, please.
>>BRAZIL: Thank you, Mr. Chair. In my opinion, the way we deal with this set of questions will give the sense of the success or not of this group. I see a lot of confusion even among people who are actors, who operate in the Internet, a lot of confusion on those issues. And I -- in my opinion, it's not have one single formulation that encompasses all situations. There's no one solution, one side, that fits all for all the issues on the table. And this has been spelled out by Marilyn Cade, Parminder and others.
So unless we have very clear differentiation between different contexts, any statement, for example, that some parties prefer the multistakeholder approach and opposition -- this would be artificial because we would be talking about different things.
Even from the part of parties that favor a more multilateral approach, you get to some issues, for example, to my understanding, they do not challenge, for example,the kind of work that is being done with regard to engineering of the Internet. So there is no point, for example, for the ISTARs to be concerned about this when -- it's not addressing what they're doing.
So I think we must differentiate. I think the idea of categories of issues is important. And the mapping exercise is important. I think it is, indeed, maybe a prerequisite for us to work, to have a clear understanding of categories and the mapping associated to it.
You have asked whether we should do it now or -- it is a rather complicated question because on one hand, I think it is, indeed, the prerequisite for an efficient work. But if we start doing it now, it will not be efficient for us to do it. So I'll leave it in your hands, Mr. Chair and colleagues, about how we can maybe move forward in that but without affecting negatively our work and the time we have aside for us.
Again, I think one very concrete contribution coming from this group would be to give clarity on this which is -- as we read pieces of paper statements, it is confusing. And sometimes we clearly see that people are talking about different things.
We see at the OECD, those have building blocks that are not necessarily in opposition if we deal differently with different kinds of situations. This is not contradictory if we are supporting fully multistakeholder approach, even without any kind of governmental participation. On the other hand, we discuss issues we want some more -- it is required some more, let's say, governmental policy-making authorities. So the mapping exercise is completely relevant.
What I would like to ask -- this is the kind of approach to take -- to have an open mind in regard to what we have on the table. We would not -- we do not want to be impeded to proceed in some direction by our own perspective. But we want to take fully into account other stakeholders' perspectives because, for example, the point of view from government for some particular set of issues is very important. And maybe when we focus on this, then we have a discourse that entails some concern. But we also want to acknowledge that for other parties, other aspects are important.
So I think as we look to the whole picture, it is important to make clear that we are -- we have to differentiate and we have to work around this idea of categories of mapping. And, again, I do not have an understanding how it would be more efficient for us to work around this. But I think it's a prerequisite for us for our work. Thank you.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you, Ambassador. So I can hear a relatively clear support for the mapping as a prerequisite for work. And at the same time, I'm happy that you share my concerns about the proceeding of our work. So that's why I suggested that eventually we can have a task for -- whatever you may call it, a subgroup, which could come up with the beginning of this exercise to give us some food for thought.
And I wonder if apart from the persons who suggested to have the -- this exercise, who would be interested to work during lunchtime, during coffee breaks, during the evenings but outside the meeting and come back, say, in some point of time, to provide us with further inputs? First Marilyn and then (saying name).
>>MARILYN CADE: Chair, let me ask a question. It seems to me that a first starting point would be a simple Excel spreadsheet which has on the left-hand side the name of the submitter and across the top -- sorry, I'm trying to organize this in my mind as I'm looking at it. So the name of the submitter and then the issues that they submitted under question 4, I would say question 15 as well, but question 4. That sounds to me like it is a cut and paste -- the first step is a cut and paste so that then we can start looking at it.
Is that -- and trying to boil the longer list into more generalized categories. And then taking into account -- I think the next step, taking into account the idea then of how you look at the discussion in the room coming from: So do we think this particular topic is falling into one of the four or three groupings that Parminder and I had been discussing?
But the first step sounds to me like, I would hope, a secretariat function of cut and paste to try and to get the submissions into a document. Is your suggestion that we need to find participants to do that first?
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Marilyn, I have been told by the secretariat that the path of the exercise has already been done. It's on the Web site, if I'm not mistaken. But can I ask you to make some clarification to that?
>> On the Web site, we have two kinds of PDF documents. One set of PDF documents are the individual submissions. Another set of PDF documents are compilation by question. So you can download all the responses to question 4, for instance, 15 or 2 or 5, whatever.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Is it an answer to your question or to the proposal or you want to go beyond?
>>MARILYN CADE: Chair, I'm very familiar with it. I'm carrying it around with me. I sleep with it under my pillow.
>> CHAIR MAJOR: No doubt about it.
[ Laughter ]
>> MARILYN CADE: I was thinking about transcribing it on to the pillow case. But it's going to be difficult to work with it in this particular form unless people have a paper copy in front of them. If you haven't seen it, you know basically we would be flipping back page by page.
So that was my question about -- but is the secretariat's suggestion that we volunteer task force members could spend our lunchtime filling in Excel spreadsheet? Which is possible, of course.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Just a slight correction, it is not the secretariat, it is mine.
[ Laughter ]
So let me be clear about it. I made the suggestion, and I'm happy that you accepted it. And I would like to see more and more volunteers to sacrifice their lunchtime, which is very much approaching.
Before we break, I think India has asked for the floor. And then I propose to break for lunch and ask you as well to find a way to get together and to start this exercise which has been proposed.
Basically, I think that we are talking about the mapping exercise, talking about some kind of spreadsheet approach, if I'm not mistaken, which will take the issues and the proposals.
Marilyn, can you be clearer on that? What is your proposal exactly?
>>MARILYN CADE: Well, I don't think it's just my issue. I think if there's interest in doing a mapping exercise, we should hear from others who are interested in it.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Okay. Brazil?
>>BRAZIL: I'm sorry, but it's more a point of clarification because when we are proposing these mapping exercises, we are looking to something that is not exactly to map what the different responses were and to identify the issues but to link this, the issues to the current arrangement and mechanism.
So this is something that in our view should maybe be done -- I could not volunteer. I do not have expertise to link some issue to some current arrangement. But I think this is something that would assist us in moving forward.
This was the understanding I had of the mapping, is that it is required for us to move forward. And I think this is something that will not emerge only from compilation which has already been done by the secretariat, by the way.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: I understand your concerns, and I share them. I'm sure that not all of us have the expertise here to be part of this group. I think it can be only regarded as a start for this exercise. And probably it will be helpful maybe for all meetings right now. I think it will be useful for the future meetings, if I'm not mistaken.
India, you wanted to take the floor?
>>INDIA: Thank you, Chair. I'm glad this clarification has already been given. I think mapping exercises not with the proposers of those proposals but rather with the issues, public policy issues versus the mechanisms, existing. So that would lead us to the next questions. Thank you.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Okay. So it seems to me that we are on -- yes, Virat, I suggest you are the last and we break for lunch.
>> VIRAT BHATIA: We have two sort of options here. One is the WGIG document that was mentioned, which has under Section III "identifying public policy issues that are relevant to Internet governance and addressing the advocacy of existing governance arrangements mentioning A, B, C, D," four issues. And then we have the Brazilian government's list which is about five issues mentioned, but they are not necessarily corresponding to each other.
So I suppose if the mapping exercise has to happen, then we'll have to mention those under the WGIG documents classified, those 48 or 45 issues and then start linking them to mechanisms as well as the roles of the various stakeholders. I think that would be two exercises.
And if it's -- I think that will lead us to deciding what the mechanisms should be. And whether an existing mechanism has a home or we need to find a new home.
I think these two documents will have to be merged for us to get -- because the submissions to question 4 has five different inputs ranging from 13 to 49, issues identified by various stakeholders. The set we are going with in terms of WGIG is four. So we can possibly pick the biggest set -- let's say the Brazilian set, for example -- and try to match it there and work from there. We are happy to provide and Excel sheet without promising no mistakes.
[ Laughter ]
And then the team can change it around in case some have to shift and link it to a mechanism, if that is helpful. I'm just offering that help.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Well, thank you for the support of this proposal. I think the secretariat can give you further support in that. So probably if you request them to be part of the exercise, they will be happy to help you.
As for the time frame for the exercise, I'm not really sure that we can come back after lunch, but I hope we can, and we can continue all discussions still on group 2, taking into account your input or your results. And I think that would be quite helpful.
Having said that, I think we can break now. I want to see you back by 3:00. And I encourage you to spend your lunchtime the most efficient way you think.
[ Lunch break ]
[ Gavel ]
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Can I ask you to take your seats, please.
Thank you. Welcome back. I hope you had a very good lunch, good discussions. I want to start with an announcement. India had made an update to the contributions. And you have the update in paper form on the table, I think, at the entrance of the room. So feel free to pick up your copy.
It is my understanding that the voluntary task group undertaking a kind of mapping exercise has made significant progress. We are talking about the grouping of -- we have the Questions Number 4, 8 and 9. It is my understanding that the mapping exercise has been started and taken into account the contributions to reply to Question Number 4.
So we are going to discuss this afternoon the questions in Group 4. I would like to ask any representative of this voluntary task group if they feel like reporting on the results. We are very keen to know where we are.
Yes, Marilyn, please.
>>MARILYN CADE: Thank you, Chair. I'll open my comments by saying that the voluntary task group is going to be seeking further collaboration and participation, so if you didn't -- if you didn't spend your lunch hour with us, don't think you're off the hook.
But let me give you a quick update. What we did -- and two members of the voluntary group are still trying to finalize a working document. Virat Bhatia has also engaged some of his team to also help. What we're doing is taking -- sort of envision Column 1 as being a consolidated list of all of the bulleted items that were submitted on Question 4 from any submitter, starting with the Brazilian list and then consolidating all of the bullets.
So if a submitter wrote a paragraph we've not been able to figure out, those will not have been reworded. But the first column will be all of the bullets. There will be a lot of duplication or phrases which may mean roughly the same thing but they're worded differently.
The second column we're proposing -- this will, of course, be up to the participants to decide, but we're proposing then to try to come to a grouping that is more consolidated. So envision Column 1 as possibly having well over a hundred bullets in it with duplication in it. Maybe 80 but it will be a long list of bullets.
And then the second column would be consolidated headings where we would try to come up with categories that everybody felt comfortable with that that long list of bullets could be consolidated into.
The third column we are proposing drawing from the submissions would be the list of activities. We are using a very general heading, the list of activities that are underway. So if someone submitted an example that the ITU is doing work on child online protection or the ITU submitted that, that would be go in there. MOG (phonetic) was mentioned by another group, so that would go in that.
And then we'll have two blank columns.
The fourth column would probably, in order to make this a useful tool, need to be sort of a general assessment of satisfaction with progress on enhanced cooperation. And I'm really using that as a very general term, taking Parminder's suggestion of three categories, and mine of four. And then there is a column that just says "comments."
So by tomorrow morning, we would expect to have -- and actually have it to send to everyone by later today this Excel spreadsheet. And then we would want to try to figure out what the consolidated headings are for Column 2. So this would be a mapping exercise for one question but a question that, I think, everyone has agreed is a very significant question and where there was a significant amount of input.
Thank you, Chair.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you, Marilyn. And thank you for all who have participated in this work and who are going to participate. And I really encourage all of you to participate and to contribute.
I think the result of this exercise may be a very valuable document. I think as well that due to the complexity of the issue, probably many of us would think that we have to take the document back home and consult with relevant partners. So having said that, I'm looking forward to have this document eventually by tomorrow. And I'm sure the secretariat will give all the help which is needed to finalize in a way that we can use it for our future discussions.
So we are back to Group Number 2, Questions 4, 8 and 9. And before lunch break, we discussed many issues. I'm turning to you if you have any other comments or observation on these questions.
My intention, that eventually we will go through in a relatively quick way all the groups and all the questions and we shall revisit them naturally in more depth. And probably we will take two groups of questions in the coming days with a view of eventually arriving to some kind of draft recommendation.
So any comment on Question Numbers 4, 8 and 9?
Well, I can see no one asking for the floor.
Yes, Marilyn.
>>MARILYN CADE: Sorry, Chair. I actually think for myself I got very diverted on to Question 4, and I don't feel like we have talked through 8 and 9. And I would ask other colleagues. But I think there's a merit to talking about 8 and 9 as a pair right now. Or if people don't feel prepared to talk about it, then I would like to park it and come back to it because they are two questions that I otherwise sort of feel like we're stranding.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: I fully agree with you. That's why I asked the group to comment on that. I can see the United States asking for the floor. Please.
>>UNITED STATES: Thank you, Chairman. Perhaps not to comment on that particular point but to take your earlier point, I guess, when you were just asking generally for comments related to various questions. So in the arena of Question 4, I would just make a note that for my administration, from the United States, we see no hard distinction between public policy issues and technical issues in terms of broadly governance. Both, whether we are in a technical arena or in a public policy arena, for us we think that it's important to take in the views of all stakeholders, not just simply government, not just simply the private sector. And that's the way we can best progress. Thank you.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you, U.S., for this comment.
Parminder.
>>PARMINDER JEET SINGH: If as Marilyn says that 8 and 9 has to be treated together and 8 is about mechanisms and 9 about the role of IGF and also taking from the United States' intervention that if -- I mean, I have been trying to insist since morning that categories of technical and public policy be separated because the nature of stakeholder roles are different.
And, now, if -- now, we have to then connect to the point where they are different or non-different. I think that point, even between the mechanisms and the IGF, is the decision-making procedures which the Chair has very appropriately put as a subheading in the summary itself.
I think the core issue is this. People do agree that, yes, whether it is technical or public policy, everybody's views have to be taken. They could be heavily layered and intensive processes of view taking and reporting back why the views were considered and not, et cetera. And all of this are fine.
And I think the real point is the decision-making procedure regarding different kinds of issues. And that's where the difference lies. In technical policies, the decision-making could still be shared in some manners. But there is some kind of public policy issues, e-commerce and consumer rights and taxation, a whole host of them here. In international jurisdictions, we are also very clear that the decision-making is done in a particular manner.
So I think if we discuss the decision-making procedures part of your summary, then we would be going to the meat of this particular question.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you, Parminder.
India, please.
>>INDIA: Thank you, Chair. I just want to have a quick clarification from Marilyn. I think she made a point about Question 4 being closely looked at with Question 10. Is that assumption correct?
>>MARILYN CADE: Sorry. I think it's Question 15. It is the one that identifies public policy issues of most importance to the developing countries. 15, isn't it?
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Any other comment? Yes, Virat.
>> VIRAT BHATIA: I think the point that's been brought up by Parminder is an important one. And I think there are two views emerging which we need to sort of take cognizance of and then work away to try to close the gap as much as possible, which is are there areas where the decision-making has to be such that the other stakeholders have a lesser or a different role?
And I think we have not reached that conclusion based on the submissions yet. So I think that should be open to an evolving dialogue during this discussion.
And I don't want to go into the specifics that have been mentioned, but I think business believes that -- and I speak for my colleagues. I think we -- we believe that stakeholders need to be on that table on an equal footing to make those decisions as much as they have to be on an equal footing in the policy dialogue that occurs in places such as the IGF.
Part of this is because if not all, vast majority of the infrastructure that currently provides access to nearly 7 billion mobile subscriptions in the world, citizens who are online, which is 40% of the world and 40% of the households across the world, that infrastructure is provided by the private sector.
So even if access was an issue -- and we can go on to any number of issues there -- I think any policy that will impact the investment possibilities across the world and given the fact that there is free flow of investment now across the world, just citing one of the many, would require stakeholders to be in this decision-making process at an equal footing and more importantly have a mechanism which allows for everybody to be on an equal footing, not just to be consulted but, in fact, the views should be considered and discussed. And if there is a result that we reach after the discussion, it could well be that one of the stakeholders was wrong and the other stakeholder was right. That decision can only be made if the mechanism and the platform provides for all the stakeholders to be on an equal footing.
If the status of the stakeholders is decided before the discussion occurs, then the decision-making will shift to a certain different stakeholder. Thank you.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you for these remarks. Definitely no one really thinks right now that we are at the state of conclusions. We are just starting our discussions. And we are here to express the different approaches we have and we try to find some common understanding, which approach is advantageous to one issue and which approach is advantageous to another one. So probably at the end of the day, we may have a better understanding. I don't think we are going to arrive to some conclusion -- well, at least not today. I hope we are going to arrive to some conclusion on Friday evening. If not, I think we will have other meetings.
We know the issues are complex. We know that. And the issues are new. Even though the decision which was taken during the WSIS dates about almost nine years now. But still the evolution of the Internet itself and all the issues which we are facing every day are new. So I think we are in a learning curve, and we have to take this also into account.
So any other comments on Question 4, 8 and 9? There was a request or a call from Marilyn that eventually we'd like to discuss 8 and 9 which haven't been touched upon.
Yes, India.
>>INDIA: Thank you, Chair. I'd just like to reflect on some of the comments which have been made just now by colleagues in the room. I think -- I think to be drawn into the initial comments you made at the beginning of this meeting, I think they're very critical and important. The mandate of the group here is very well-specified through the General Assembly resolution. I think we need to be extremely mindful, which you have reminded us quite very early in the discussion, that the challenge that we face is -- there are obviously evolving subjects, evolving issues.
And having said that, I think it would be important to bear in mind that we are not here to rewrite the Tunis Agenda. We are not here to redefine the roles with respect to stakeholders.
I think if you go down that path, we may have difficulties in arriving at conclusions or the way decisions are to be made. I think these are larger issues that we should leave for some other mandated body to look at it.
At this point in time, the route we embarked upon which is to define those issues which we decide as public policy issues and technical issues and then going down the path of looking at what mechanisms that are existing and if we need to further strengthen them. I think perhaps that could be the right way to do, in our opinion. So I think it's important that we continuously be reminding ourselves of the importance of this particular dimension of our work.
Thank you, Chair.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you for this remark. And you maybe show that I will do my best to stick to the mandate we have. However, we should also take into consideration that we are part of a process and this process is the WSIS +10 process. We should provide some input to the final evaluation of the WSIS +10. And we cannot exclude some elements which may be beneficial for the revision of this process, for the review of the process.
Before I give the floor to Avri, Carlos asked for the floor. Carlos.
>>CARLOS AFONSO: Yes. I would just like to compliment what you just said, Peter. I think that the document from LACNIC, the response from the questionnaire, it says an interesting thing that the Tunis Agenda, the results of Tunis, we don't have to take as a Bible in every paragraph, sentence, or word because there is a dynamic. There is a process in which the Internet is evolving. The technologies are evolving. The relationships between states and other stakeholders are evolving as well.
And this is the reason why we are here, exactly too precise or to attempt to focus more on these issues of cooperation amongst stakeholders. So let's not be fixed on the idea of "in their respective roles," and let's be much more open about it. Thank you.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you, Carlos.
Avri, remote participant, and then I see Phil and I see Sweden as well.
>>AVRI DORIA: Good day to you all. Sorry I couldn't be here. Saying good day from lovely Vancouver where the IETF meeting is being held this week.
I wanted to come in behind what Carlos has said and comment on the role of stakeholders and the notion that that is something that is somewhat sacrosanct and cannot be modified.
I rather say that it is something that must be modified. It was a government proscription for the roles of all stakeholders, the roles and responsibilities. It does not reflect accurately all the roles and responsibilities of all stakeholders in the Internet governance environment.
And unless we can adjust that to reflect reality, to reflect real capabilities, we are condemning ourselves to sort of wander around in circles where some people assert that roles and responsibilities that others have and must take cannot be the case. So I really do beg us to take the redefinition of those in a multistakeholder model as opposed to trying to constrain the discussions in such a way that only one stakeholder defines the roles and responsibilities of another. Thank you.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you, Avri. Very interesting remarks. And we are aware of the enormous task ahead of us. And we should also understand the delicacy of the issues. So probably we have to be very cautious in using words such as "must." We shall, of course, consider things. But I would caution you to follow a kind of process which is very cautious.
Phil and then Sweden.
>>PHIL RUSHTON: Thank you, Chair. And good afternoon. I listen with interest to this discussion and my mind goes back to the very interesting and varied interpretations that have been put into the responses that we have received as part of the process. And I think the points that have been made by yourself and others are ones that we should take into account.
WSIS was nine years ago, and the world has moved on since then. To some it has perhaps not moved as much and as fast or, indeed, covered a number of the points that would have been liked. But the journey, as many refer to enhanced cooperation within the responses, has started. And I think it's important certainly bearing in mind the point made by Virat and by others that it is -- it is a start. And stakeholders, as part of the debate, now need to be included as a general inclusion in discussions and decisions going forward. I don't think we should try and lose sight of that. Thank you.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you, Phil.
Sweden.
>>SWEDEN: Thank you, Chairman. First of all, I agree what was said by India. We are not here to rewrite the Tunis Agenda. That's not within our mandate obviously.
However, what I think we all have to do, given that the Tunis Agenda is, say, a high-level document -- high-level principles are enclosed in the Tunis Agenda -- is that we have to interpret the Tunis Agenda. And that's, I think, something that we all do here. So there is a clear distinction there, I think.
Just also to comment on the issue that was discussed before about separating technical issues from public policy issues, I think we are also of the view that we do not see a clear benefit of making such a distinction given that we think that it's very important to deal with public policy issues also in a multistakeholder environment. So we are not sure that that would add any benefit to the work here to do such a clear distinction, separation.
If I also may very briefly comment on Question 8 and 9, since you asked for that, although we can come back with more details later. But for us, enhanced cooperation is a process. And I think that's -- that's very important to keep in mind. And, therefore, it's not something that is implemented through one mechanism or in one specific fora but a process that is taking place in many different foras.
And we definitely see IGF as one of those foras where enhanced cooperation is taking place, not the only one, though, but one of them. So that's how we -- that's our take on Question 8 and 9, I think. Thank you.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you. Again, the remote participant, Joy Liddicoat. Joy, you have the floor.
>>JOY LIDDICOAT: Thank you, Peter.
I wanted to just make a couple of comments with respect to comments made so far. This is in relation to Question 8 and coming from mechanisms.
(Background noise).
(indiscernible). I think that's critical to underscore. I think there has been a (indiscernible) of mechanisms on which enhanced cooperation has been quite constant. Tunis Agenda was agreed and that includes both new and existing mechanisms. For example, there are some mechanisms considering (indiscernible) issues including the United Nations (indiscernible) which have not previously been considered before in some respects which cover an actual cooperation's mechanism of stakeholders. And that I think with regard to whatever form the mechanism takes, it's going to be more successful in enhanced cooperation that people participating can do so with confidence.
And I think that, therefore, (indiscernible) to which people have a stake with an existing governmental system, there are many opportunities for governments who participate, some obviously more than others. And the challenge, I think, is to give developing countries more voice but also to just civil society and other stakeholders with some existing mechanisms.
(indiscernible). I would agree that this decision of public policy and technical issues (indiscernible) because if we are going to define substance from the former works we discussed, then I think we are at risk for (indiscernible) public policy.
And I would remind (indiscernible) members to think about (indiscernible) enhanced cooperation. Cooperation is a positive tool. It's a tool that is designed to catch (background noise) (indiscernible) that some participants are working on over the months. But it would be an useful one for us to go back to and consider this afternoon. Thank you.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you, Joy. You sounded a bit distant from us. She's talking from New Zealand.
We are -- I think all of us are aware of the importance of the process we are in. And enhanced cooperation means something very positive to all of us, I believe, well to me at least. And I would like to encourage you to take this positive approach as well.
So having said that, anyone on Question 4, 8, 9? Especially 8 and 9.
Yes, an observer.
>>MATTHEW SHEARS: Thank you, Chair. Matthew Shears with CDT. I think just a couple comments on what's been said so far. There is an incredibly diverse -- great diversity of views on enhanced cooperation, and that is reflected very well in the summary. But I would like to take a couple of particular points, especially when it comes to mechanisms. People have mentioned how the world has changed, how the Internet has changed since the WSIS. And I'd like to say that when we contemplate moving forward in this particular working group and we talk about multilateral models that have other stakeholders in some consultative role, this doesn't seem to me to be a step forward in any interpretation of the word "cooperation."
I think to come back to the things that were said earlier on today, it is important that we be open to the views of all of the parties. It is important that we reflect on how the Internet space has evolved and how there has been cooperation and enhanced cooperation and that we take that view forward.
And I would like to say that for all those who have suggested that we need to look at the issues, this is exactly the way to go forward. Let's look at those issues. Let's understand how they are being addressed. Let's then understand in what ways they are being addressed and how those ways can be improved upon, and let's take that as the basis of our discussions. Thank you.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you. Well, it seems to me that for the time being, there are no more contributions concerning the Group 2; that is 4, 8 and 9. We have the promise of the voluntary task group to come up with a document tomorrow morning so probably we shall discuss this issue tomorrow as well.
Now, I suggest that eventually we move to the next group. This is Group 3. I will let you look into the questions pertaining to Group 3. Probably five minutes would be enough to refresh our memories and then we shall start the discussions after the coffee break which I think will be around 20 past 4:00. So please have a look at the questions under Group 3.
[ Reviewing document. ]
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Well, it seems to me that five minutes goes really fast and you seem to be very much absorbed in your exercise, which I'm very happy about, but I believe we have to get to the point now. So it's Group 3, and I would like to hear some comments from you.
So far, if I'm not mistaken, we are talking about Questions 5, 6, 7, 17 -- 14, and 17, which is quite substantial. And they're all of the stakeholders we have already touched upon, but our (indiscernible) this is the nature of the thing, but we come back to the same issues from a different angle. But right now we have to concentrate on this particular issue, which is the role of the stakeholders. So who would like to contribute, and I would like to have -- of course, with all my respect to you, Brazil, I'm all ears for the comments. I will give you the floor shortly, but let me ask those ones who seem to have some kind of jet lag or some kind of fatigue because of the -- we're at the end of the year and we have many meetings, I understand. But I would like to encourage you, those of you who haven't done it yet, to contribute to the meeting, to collect more views and to make this meeting really fruitful. Brazil, please.
>>BRAZIL: Thank you, Mr. Chair. Well, I also joined a group of people that are jet-lagged. But anyway, maybe I can just make a few comments. First of all, in the light of the discussions we had before, if we agreed that we want to examine the issue of enhanced cooperation through the angle of differentiation among issues, then Question Number 5 should also take this into account when we ask, "What are the roles and responsibilities of the different stakeholders, including governments, in implementation of the various aspects of enhanced cooperation," so various aspects relates to different kinds of circumstance that should be dealt with differently. So, in a way it is linked to the discussion we had before, and in a way to have meaningful discussion with this we would need the work that is being -- that they can -- I understand by Marilyn Cade and others, that can provide us with some more tools for that regard. However, I would also -- from the point of view of governments, I would recall that in another section in the context of the Council Working Group, the U.K. has come up with a proposal that is very interesting from the point of the view of the role of governments in Internet Governance as a whole that provides very useful elements for examining this issue from the perspective of governments. And the way it indicates areas in which governments can -- and certainly from the perspective of public policy -- can provide very specific contribution for the environment, the legal environment, legal framework, regulatory framework, and also as a catalyst for the multistakeholder ambiance as a whole. So I think even if it is not in the context of how it will work, it will be useful to relate to this document.
Question Number 6, of course, is -- in our view is also very clearly -- 6 and 7 to the discussion also we had before in the sense that the -- also if we identify -- oh, I'm sorry. Yes, because then we are maybe focusing on mechanisms, and I think this is something that might be useful to use in conjunction with Question Number 8. All of these questions relate to each other. It's not easy to -- it's not so clear how to tackle them separately.
In regard to Question Number 7, I would also again refer you to this U.K. paper, refer that enhanced cooperation, from the point of view of governments, from the point of view of the enabling environment, it certainly will also be a tool for participation of multistakeholders and in itself with assist them also to carry out their roles and responsibilities.
One comment in regard to Question Number 14 is that I think this is, of course, a very useful issue to be examined and I understand for a few participants a very important issue and for my own delegation a very important issue, the local language contents. However, in this case, I -- my feelings are that maybe it should not be the main focus of our work. I think we should -- I think this is one of the issues that should be dealt with in the context of enhanced cooperation. That's -- the focus of our work should be the structure and the kind of framework we want, more than the issues themselves. So my feeling is that although very important aspects, that should not maybe be the focus of our work here.
And finally with regards to 17, yeah, again I would just refer to the reply we gave on the policy development institutional multistakeholder framework, and I want to make reference to the model we had in Brazil in the steering committee which is one of the possibilities in which that would be translated to a concrete achievement. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you, Brazil. Sweden, please.
>>SWEDEN: Thank you. Just a couple of comments. I think one thing that is important to keep in mind when we are discussing about the roles of different stakeholders is that we are dealing with a very rapidly changing environment. So rules of stakeholders might also change over time. Also, we think that it's quite important to not have too much of a top-down approach on this. Roles of stakeholders will be defined by stakeholders to a large extent. And not by -- by people outside of, let's say, the Internet Governance Eco-System.
Just to also comment briefly on how we see the role of the government, we definitely think that upholding the rule of law online in the same manner as we do offline is one of the main roles of the government as well as them upholding human rights online in the same manner that we uphold human rights offline, as well as facilitating multistakeholder dialogue on these issues. I think a lot of that has also been captured in the U.K. proposal that was mentioned by Brazil, and we very much appreciate that contribution and looking forward to sort of a dialogue on that. Thank you.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you, Sweden. So anyone -- yes, Marilyn.
>>MARILYN CADE: Thank you, Chair. I would just like to build on a reference that Brazil made about the submission of the U.K. into the international public policy working group because I think it is an excellent resource. It is only available to governments or to parties that are on government delegations, so it might be possible maybe to contact the U.K. and ask them if they would provide an information document which could be shared. I will note -- I'm sorry, I don't know -- the pages aren't numbered on the submission, but the U.K., the summary for the U.K. submission on Question 5 has a very high level reference that identifies some of those topics, and I would call that to everyone's attention because I think it is a useful discussion about the -- first of all, it recognizes the mutual recognition of the respective roles, but it does go on to identify some of the activities that were mentioned in the -- in the U.K. submission to the ITU working group.
I wanted to make a couple of comments about, I wonder if perhaps on Question 14 -- and I think there may be a couple of other questions like that which are specific to particular areas that need to be -- need to evolve very rapidly in order to ensure that all citizens of the world can use the Internet and the World Wide Web. Maybe we might take those questions and put them in a category to come back to and -- because it may be that we will not, in this working group, be able to be very specific but we might be able to summarize that the interest of those who responded to the questionnaire showed strong support for continued work being done on these particular issues. And this one is the development of local language content. I wouldn't want to lose the submissions, but I -- I agree with Brazil that it may be too granular an area for us to spend a lot of time on. And we didn't ask questions about every other issue.
And then finally, I think Question 7, I guess I'm really quite surprised that there's not a lot of flags up to talk about Question 7. So I will say that I think it is a question that we need to talk about a lot more. And if we don't talk about it now, then maybe we could talk about it tomorrow whenever we get the Question 4 documents and come back and talk about this question in more detail.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you, Marilyn. Before I give the floor to Parminder, I turn to the U.K. and ask, for she has already the answer, and my question is, there was reference to the ITU working group public policy issues and the contributions came from the U.K. Do you think there's a possibility of making this available to the group here? Thank you.
>>UNITED KINGDOM: Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I'd like to thank everyone here for such positive feedback on that paper which was put together in a multistakeholder group in the U.K. I'm sure it would be perfectly fine for us to share it with the group here. I'm just double-checking with London, but I can't foresee any problem. I'll get a copy sent to the Secretariat so they can make sure that everybody has access to it. Thank you.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Yes, Brazil.
>>BRAZIL: Sorry, Mr. Chair. Not -- just not to lose not only that, I made the reference also because Mr. Ed Vaizey made a presentation on this at the IGF meeting so that might also be a source, the speech he delivered captured the main points. Thank you.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you. So probably if Mr. Vaizey's speech is available, it would be also useful -- his speech during the IGF, it would be useful. But I think there's a transcript, so -- which is available on the web, on the IGF website, which can be consulted as well. And it's open.
Okay. So having said that, Parminder.
>>PARMINDER JEET SINGH: Thank you, Chair. One of my points was undisputed by Ambassador (saying name). I do not have access to the U.K. document submitted to the ITU, but I remember sitting through the first session in the IGF and the minister detailed four levels of governmental role as they saw in Internet Governance and I nearly agreed with the whole framework there. And having heard that framework and agreeing to that, I'm a little unclear about certain conclusions of the discussion and I think this particular discussion is important also to figure out what mechanisms are necessary. Because after my early intervention which said that the main point here is the participation and decision-making, the rest -- everything is fine, number of consultations, back and forth, you know, drafts, et cetera. But decision-making is in terms of public policymaking in democracies and after my intervention I had a lot of people saying no, they really want other stakeholders to have an equal role in decision-making in public policy processes. Now that really kind of freezes my mind about what are we talking about here. Because public policy and the role of (indiscernible) in public policy is not an issue of Internet Governance. It's an issue of global democracy and it's an issue of national democracies, and the proposition that corporations and even citizen society groups would fit and we equally participate, have equal role in public policymaking, it's something completely beyond my democratic understanding. And I think there's something which I'm missing here because I don't think that could be what people are saying because it's purely post-democratic narrative for people to say that no -- yes, we're talking public policies and we are talking that non-governmental stakeholders will have an equal role in decision-making.
So I think whoever make that proposal, I would like to hear more about what really they mean. Because at one point we were ready to separate the technical part of it, the standard setting, logical infrastructure that's different, people can have an equal role, so can we separate, call public policymaking. And people say no, we still need equal role in decision-making in public policymaking. That's beyond my understanding. For me that's the Holy Grail of democracy is what I already said. And if that point is resolved, then my mind could get out of this stalemate of what really is the difference of view between different people here.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you, Parminder, for that thought-provoking contribution and probably those who propose the multistakeholder approach can give you examples how it is working in practice. I can see a lot of flags. Saudi Arabia are welcome to.
>>SAUDI ARABIA: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and good afternoon to everyone. In regards to the list of three of the questions, about the roles and responsibilities of all of the stakeholders, my intervention was much covered by from Parminder in regards to the decision-making process. And this is what I would like to hear more about because when I heard the discussion, it seems that like if the roles of the government has been actually implemented since 2005 and now we are examining the role of the governments in regards to the Internet Governance, but in the reality the role of the governments in regards to the Internet Governance has not been implemented. I know that there's been an advisory group, but it does not reach to have a decision-making -- I mean, a decision-making mechanism in regards to Internet matters.
What we're talking about here is the international public policy that is -- relates to the sovereignty of the states and relates to the cooperation between states to another state. I was in Korea and the cyberspace conference just recently, and I see some faces who attended that conference. I mean, there was a big number of foreign ministers and most of them talked about that we need cooperation in regards to issues that has to be decided by governments. We cannot have a good faith in regards to the whole private sector and the technical community in regards to aspects. We have to have a decision made by governments in regards to the child, for example, pornography, child online protection. If there was no decision made by states in this regards, we cannot prevent or have something in that matter. For example, there was a big discussion about the privacy, the recent talks about the privacy and that privacy and freedom does not conflict each other. But there has to be a very high guidelines. I heard, too, the Swedish foreign minister, he declared seven principles, global principles to be adopted in regards to the surveillance. That's the things that we -- we -- I'm talking about being a government, that needs to be very high level in terms of international public policy. We're not intervening in the day-to-day operational -- I mean, operation, because we don't want to drift from the role of the governments. Governments does not have interest to go very low in technicality and how things functioning and the standards and all these things. We need to set principles that we negotiate, we have a mechanism that governments can negotiate to each other, governments can solve problems based on agreed international public policies.
I will stop at this, but in regards to the roles of the -- of the stakeholders, we still believe that -- I mean, Tunis Agenda, even if it's been nine years, still, I mean, the roles is very reasonable in regards to, for example, paragraph 35. Wherever there's matters relates to the sovereignty of the states, it's the right of the states to tackle these matters. When we talk about the technical policies, that is the international organizations, the technicality and so on. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you, Saudi Arabia. I would like to ask you, all of us, in fact, that once again, the way I started that we have a mandate and probably we should stick to the mandate and the mandate was established by the United Nations General Assembly. So I really recommend you to discuss the issues we have agreed upon in the first meeting, to concentrate on the questions we agreed on in the first meeting and to follow up on.
I can see Sweden, India, and -- I can see Japan. And finally I have Joy, remote participation, and Jimson. After Jimson we shall break for -- we shall break. And I promise, Brazil, you will be the first speaker after the coffee break. So Sweden, India, Japan, Joy, Jimson.
>>SWEDEN: Thank you. Well, just to say that to us enhanced cooperation is not only about decision-making, but about cooperation in a broader sense and about dialogue. But even if you're talking about development of policy, I think it's important to do that in an open, transparent multistakeholder model. If we're talking about decisions, legislation, for instance, obviously at the national level, that's what parliaments do. But when we're talking about enhanced cooperation, for us it's much broader than the decision-making part. Sometimes, obviously, states come to that as well. We have to make certain decisions, adopt certain treaties, adopt recommendations, so on. But when we're looking at enhanced cooperation, we see that in a much broader sense about cooperation, about dialogue, about policy dialogue, and Policy Development, because Policy Development is also much broader than just decision-making. So that's where we're coming from. Thank you.
>> (indiscernible)
>>CHAIR MAJOR: India.
>>INDIA: Thank you, Chair. We'd like to make two quick comments. First, I think some pertinent questions have been raised about the definition of multistakeholder approach. I think at some stage during our deliberations we clarify this. I think there are issues relating to -- dimensions have been brought up. One, as I said, at the policy-making level, consultation level to leading (indiscernible) and other sort of relative roles of the various stakeholders in the decision-making process. I think if you are planning to write this particular phrase, I think it's not a bad idea that we eventually lead up to defining what it means in this working group. That's one solution.
Secondly, coming to the specific group of questions that you have reflected, I think we have very -- very clearly said that enhanced cooperation is also a dynamic process. It is a dynamic process because the Internet -- the way it is evolving is dynamic. So we cannot have static solutions. The solutions also have to be dynamic. But this does not take away the responsibility of this group today to decide to sort of postpone decisions, to postpone that talk, we will not do it today but we will do it later. Because it's so dynamic we can't really perhaps sort of put our finger on a particular process or a particular mechanism. I think this is important.
Bearing that in mind, we have in our replies also defined a large number of areas, largely drawing upon the previous working group which just touched on this. What are the specific roles and responsibilities of various stakeholders. When we refer to Tunis paragraph number 55, I don't think we're trying to create a kind of silo. No, the idea is not to create a silo. The idea is to broadly define what is the relative roles and responsibilities. But this, I think, has been moved on. I think this is a question in which we have in our reply tried to elaborate a number of pages where there are relative responsibilities of various stakeholders. I think if you -- we could act on this list, and I'm sure there are ways to do it because as I said, we are -- we are encountering a new -- new developments in the use of Internet.
Going to Question 6 and 7, I think these are closely interlinked as some colleagues have pointed out a little while ago, I think to be very frank, I think governments are also trying to discover what is their role in the Internet. Today the challenge is that. It's not the other way around, that we are trying to define the role of other stakeholders. But I think governments also are very mindful, very cautious, about what are the mechanisms that we look at evolving. Does not in any way sort of lessen or make the dynamic nature of Internet to stifle. It should become a platform for innovation, platform for greater social economic development, because the tools that we are employing back home using this medium -- I mean, I'm sure we all do in our own country, but in India we are very proud of what we're doing. I don't think governments are interested in any way trying to stifle this process. I think that's to be very clear, and we are very committed to that particular process.
And this -- while saying that in the relative roles and responsibilities, when you talk of governments, since there is a question about how do we deal with this, since there would be some areas where there is a public policy space that the governments ought to make decisions because they answer to their own people. The medium is Internet here. We agree to that. But there are two -- but the way the convergence of technologies are taking place today, that everything -- any transaction that an individual in society will do will eventually touch upon the Internet space. So there is definitely a responsibility for the governments, both in the national space as well as in the international or the multi -- some colleagues may not like the word "multi-lateral" but in the larger international space, I think it is precisely there that we are coming in. It would only enhance the processes. As I said, it is not with the intention to stifle them. That being clearly said, it is -- on the reply to Question 7, we are looking at further enhancing the role of the stakeholders, other stakeholders, because the big question here 6 and 7, we're touching on governments in one question and other stakeholders. Again, it is not -- I don't think we should vote on the part of saying that there's a prioritization here. No, I don't think that is (indiscernible), but the way it is structured I think the replies are also provided in that manner. We're open to this idea as to how we need to define -- if it is -- if it is a proposition in the room that how do we define the roles of other stakeholders without -- again, the issue is not to undermine the existing roles. It is to see how further it can be enhanced and see that everything can go together. Thank you, Chair.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you, India. It's very thought-provoking and, thank you for the remarks. Japan.
>>JAPAN: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. In addition to the role and responsibilities of various stakeholders, I think it is very important to consider the cooperation among the various stakeholder to facilitate enhanced cooperation and to address the international public policy issues related to the Internet, how to incorporate each of it effectively. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you, Japan. I have Joy. Joy Liddicoat.
>>JOY LIDDICOAT: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. A couple of points to touch on (indiscernible) this discussion about roles and (indiscernible) I know we're focusing on the role of governments but I think it's very (indiscernible) that enhanced cooperation can't be tweaked to (indiscernible) stakeholder design. (indiscernible) I do think it's important we define (indiscernible).
Civil society participation is (indiscernible) to be strengthening. And I do think it is important that (indiscernible) part of the Tunis Agenda in relation to the roles of civil society and government is inadequate in linking civil society's role with (indiscernible) and not working well with government.
For example, civil society does have a key role (indiscernible). And it is particularly important in terms of the (indiscernible) to governments, specifically analyzing and supporting governments is positively challenging in purporting government action.
So I think in that respect, it is important to recognize that it is government's responsibility as well as role. And this is something we have touched on before in our working group discussions. We have responsibility, for example, (indiscernible). I think that is something that can be (indiscernible) debate that can be.
I would just like to support the comments from governments of India and Sweden in relation to the (indiscernible) in relation to the government relationships with each other and equalizing those relationships. (indiscernible) submissions from examples (indiscernible) is a third round in relation to (indiscernible). I would just -- support of some of the other participants to think it is helpful of the roles of governments (indiscernible). Thank you.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you, Joy. Unfortunately, we had some sound problems. Your message came through, however. In case you think you can just write down in short summary, what you said, it would be very useful for the record and for further considerations. There were a lot of points which did not come through.
The last speaker before the coffee break, Jimson.
>> JIMSON OLUFUYE: Thank you very much, Distinguished Chair. I would like to first thank my brother Parminder for his sincere desire to know why -- (indiscernible), for example, wants to be involved into decision-making. And also want to thank the distinguished representative of India for his own position and Sweden for the response.
Well, I'm coming from the private sector in Nigeria. And I witnessed the dynamics of Internet development in our country way back in 2000. By that time, there was serious problems. And the government listened to the cry of the private sector. We need to work together. And so a policy was developed together with the government. And we all agreed, we start together, agree on the framework of implementation. And today it is a success story.
Nigeria recalled the I.S. connection rate with mobile Internet in Africa today, what was unimaginable ten years ago.
And three days ago, when it comes to electrical infrastructure, the government implemented a position agreed together along with the private sector concern that the electricity needs to be privatized. And the government handed over everything about electricity to the private sector three days ago.
So there is a momentum going on. And I'm happy the representative of India said we don't want to be (indiscernible), we don't want to be hindered. We also want to really move forward and transform the socioeconomic life of global citizens and citizens from developing nations in particular.
And if that's our objective, why shouldn't we -- if you look at the Internet infrastructure, if we boil down as Virat said, the private sector implements a number of these decisions, then what is wrong if we all -- because we have the agenda of the global citizens in mind. Based on the fact that we're enhancing cooperation, why can't we all listen together and then enhance the framework for decision-making?
Yes, we've been discussing the IGF. Very productive. We now understand the processes. But to firm up a way forward, I think it just makes sense for private sector in particular -- and I believe civil society to play a very strong role -- to be involved. And together we will make one Internet forward for the global socioeconomic well-being of our people. That is my thinking, and that is my response to what I think the sincere request from my brother Parminder, why private sector should be part of it. Thank you.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you, Jimson. I think we had a very fruitful discussion this afternoon. We are going to continue it after the coffee break. I suggest we have a 20-minute coffee break. And after, when we come back, it will be Brazil who will take the floor, I promise.
[ Break ]
[ Gavel ]
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Ladies and gentlemen, can I ask you to take your seats, please. I would like to resume in one minute.
So welcome back to the meeting, ladies and gentlemen. Phil? Can you take your seats, please.
[ Gavel ]
So before the coffee break, I promised Brazil the floor. I have one announcement. During our discussions, there was a reference to the U.K. contributions to the upcoming Council Working Group in the ITU. You have hard copies of the contribution here, I'm not mistaken. So please take your copy. I think it's at the end of the table.
So having said that, I pass the floor to Brazil.
>>BRAZIL: Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Well, I'd like to make a few comments that might sound very obvious but I think that in light of the discussion we have had before break, I think it might be worthwhile making.
First of all, I think -- and the Chair has mentioned this a number of times -- that we are not supposed and we are not mandated and we should not redraft the Tunis Agenda. So the context, we have the mandate and we have the Tunis Agenda. If we go back to the Tunis Agenda, paragraph 35, which spells the roles of stakeholders -- and I take into account the sense that we should not look at these as something written in stone because particularly, for example, with regard to civil society, we must maybe have a more open mind in regard to the roles.
But as regards the role of government, it is very clearly spelled out that the policy authority for Internet-related public policy issues is the sovereign right of states. So I would like to echo what was mentioned by Parminder and others that may be one basic assumption we should -- that should guide our work is in cooperation with what's in the Tunis Agenda that's public policy for international-related lies within government.
But then as we look to the paragraph on enhanced cooperation, there is the differentiation, a clear differentiation, that must be made between those international public policy issues pertaining to the Internet and those technical and operational matters. And I think the differentiation is already there. It's not something that we should ourselves decide if we are making or not the differentiation between public policy -- it is already there. What I think the contribution that could come from our group, that would be a major contribution, would be to put some more meat and interpret and elaborate on this.
And this brings us back to the issue of separating the different issues having categories. If as a result of our group, we can lead to a better understanding of what are those technical and operational issues, how they are being dealt with now, how from our perspective of enhanced cooperation something could be done to improve this -- and from our perspectives very clearly there is a need for information, for governments, even if they are not involved with this technical and operational daily activities to be more informed and feeling themselves also as involved in a way what's being done there is being cooperated and acknowledged. I think this is something that is missing until now.
And, again, on the issue of public policies, to identify those -- to have different categories and in each one to specify whether this is being dealt with in some forum, how it is being done, what can be improved, and in cases there are no home, no -- I think as the APC has mentioned, are orphaned issues. What could we come about?
I'm saying this because I saw in previous interventions the kind of rhetorical discussion that I think we should not let ourselves engage. On one hand, some parties are defending the role of one stakeholder that we should not put in place multilateral institutions that do not take into account... I think this is fully acknowledged and understood. What we need is more clarity with regard to very specific issues, categories, what we should do about this to make the spirit what is contained in the Tunis Agenda a reality.
Again, we are not reformulating the Tunis Agenda. We are implementing and we are trying to come up with recommendations. But, again, the debates and the prerequisite is to have a clear understanding.
And I refer to the text of the Tunis Agenda because some of the things that were said before in a way might be interpreted as seeking to reinterpret what is in the Tunis Agenda. Public policy issue is something that lies with government because it's part of the government mandate to do this.
But what are those issues? What are those areas that should lie -- that should fall under this category and how that could be done? I think this is the kind of approach we need. And, again, we have to take a very open view in acknowledging everything that has been done, the decentralized system that should be fully taken into account and incorporated (indiscernible) but also take into account I think in some areas, also some particular mechanism should be -- this is our view. But we are open, of course, to the discussion and see how that can be addressed, even if within an existing mechanism.
But I think this is the kind of discussion we might have. Otherwise, we will be falling back into rhetorical discussions. And I think this would not -- especially in light of the time constraints, we have not led to very concrete outcomes.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you, Ambassador. I think we try to avoid rhetoric and rhetorical discussions. And as far as I'm concerned, I would also like to avoid going into definitions. I prefer to have some kind of common understanding. But we are not supposed to come up with definitions, which will take up all our time. I'm sure, if we can come clear to some kind of common understanding, probably it will be sufficient for future work.
I don't deny that definitions are extremely useful, and they give clarity. But probably if we want to have some result as a result of our work, then we have to avoid that.
United States.
>>UNITED STATES: Thank you, Chair. I just wanted to take the opportunity of this discussion on several questions to react to some of the comments that have been made in the room and evoke perhaps some of the pieces of our submission that might come into play.
First of all, I want to thank Saudi Arabia for their reference to the Seoul cyber conference and just add that, you know, it was part of a process of conferences beginning in London two years ago and then Budapest last year and will continue on into The Hague now next year.
And as that set of conferences has transpired, has become increasingly more multistakeholder in its participation and its input and, also, particularly on a set of issues dealing with international security, cybersecurity, combating cybercrime and capacity-building. And I think the discussions there mirror much what they do in other venues in that they address areas (dropped audio) behavior, for example, and also in areas where cooperation is a real key in collaboration across stakeholders. And global collaboration is the key. In that sense, I would really like to affiliate with the elegant comments made by Sweden on the fact that solving problems does not always need a public policy process or a decisional process.
That goes very much to the call for practicality and practical measures that we've heard from both colleagues from India and Brazil in addressing what is a very dynamic environment and decision-making processes are very difficult, have a great difficulty in addressing those in a timely manner in what is such a fast-moving environment.
Therefore, enabling factors are important. And that is something that we think may be evoked in the U.K. proposal that we have been discussing but also to some extent in our submission, that national frameworks can enable not only consultation and engagement with stakeholders in a national context for national public policy making but also for enabling international cooperation whether it be building transparency with counterparts in other countries, whether it be addressing confidence-building measures or to evoke the full conference, once again, affirming norms of behavior. But importantly for engagement and collaboration on what those practical measures can be don't need a decisional process necessarily to collaborate to find solutions.
And then, lastly, there was a comment made about the responsibility of governments in addition to the role of governments. And absolutely we are not saying that there is no responsibility for governments in this area, but it's not only the responsibility of the governments.
So I'd really like to leave sort of three notions that encapsulate our response to this set of questions which I hope provide some examples of how not only we undertake in a consultative and multistakeholder process in our public policy making at home but our efforts towards empowering, enabling, and engaging roles for each of the stakeholders in any given particular policy or functional aspect. Thank you.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you, United States.
I would like to remind you that for the scribes and the remote participants, it will be very advantageous if you can speak up loudly a bit slower.
>>UNITED STATES: Sorry. Thank you for the reminder.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: It is not only for you, for all of us. Don't take it personally. No, no, no, no.
[ Laughter ]
I perfectly got what you wanted to say so I have no problem with that.
Anyone want to take the floor concerning -- Virat?
>>VIRAT BHATIA: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Continuing from the comments made by distinguished delegate from Brazil and then United States, on the role of governments, typically as we discussed this issue -- and I think Parminder raised the point just sort of directly and eminently -- that this is typically a role for the governments, to represent the interests of all stakeholders at international fora.
There are many U.N. bodies that see that process. However, the Tunis Agenda which was a result of perhaps the world's largest multistakeholder meeting, approximately 9,500 or so -- not quite sure what the numbers are -- which included very large participation from the government, recognized the role for other stakeholders on an equal footing along with the government thereby also recognizing the fact that where Internet governance was concerned, other stakeholders had to be brought on board. And this was, in some ways, innovative and a deviation.
So we should remember that -- and remind ourselves as we discuss this because we all agreed we don't want to redefine the Tunis Agenda. It is the Tunis Agenda that brings in stakeholders in a way that many other international documents don't in many, many other areas of work.
On the issue of public policy at a high level and not doing day-to-day which is the other piece that was made out with regards to government, I think it is important to note that what might be high-level public policy for one is day-to-day for the other. For example, there are organizations that handle CIRs every day and for them it is day-to-day. But for governments, it might be a global dialogue in a public policy discussion.
So there is this distinction that we hope to make. This fine distinction is not that easy to make. I'm just taking one case, but we can go with child pornography. We can talk about something as basic as "Internet for all" which would certainly be a sovereign declaration by most governments. And I might add that not a single government in the world, at least today, would be able to do that with the involvement of the technical communities and the private sector. So even high-level principles.
Case in point, at the time the Tunis Agenda was written, there were 2 billion mobile connections in the world. There are 7 billion today. 90% of those have been provided by the private sector, not something that the Tunis Agenda could have envisaged.
There were 52 million connections in India. There are 900 million connections today, almost all provided by the private sector with a lot of innovation and help from academy and other stakeholders.
Internet users, the same. 950 million around the world at the time Tunis Agenda was written. 2.7 billion today. Vast majority of those are on private sector networks.
In India, 38 million at the end of 2005. Today, 170 million.
So I think as this process evolves -- (echo) -- that role is fairly defined and, as I said, something that's very high level, access for all.
Everybody hearing an echo? Should I go again? Okay. I think it's better now.
But let me just directly and quickly go to the sections of the Tunis Agenda that are often invoked in discussing the roles of the government.
Section 29, it actually states in no uncertain terms "with the full involvement of the governments." Now, it need not have said that. In fact, says "with the full involvement of governments, the private sector, the civil society, and the international organizations" which recognizes the fact that they use the word "full involvement" and immediately after that it states "all the stakeholders." By the way, it leaves out technical community and academia, which is a section by itself here, which shows how much the world has developed. There are five principles here that were not mentioned in the Tunis Agenda as we discussed Section 29.
Section 31, "based on full participation of all stakeholders," it uses the word "full participation of all stakeholders."
Section 60, that is also referred to, which talks about that "the current mechanisms require attention are not adequately" -- "which are not adequately addressed by the current mechanisms."
Now, this doesn't mean that they cannot be currently addressed. It says they are not currently being addressed. And there are a lot of suggestions in response to the questionnaire which we have seen which says we can expand, improve, enhance the role of IGF and any of the other mechanisms that currently exist. It does not say it cannot. It says "may not currently."
Again, 68: Governments in an equal role. And it talks about development of public policy. It does not say "decision-making" in public policy. It does not use the word "decision-making."
So if you were to -- 69, same, uses the word "government on an equal footing." There would be those who could interpret that an equal footing with the other stakeholders. It is also a matter of interpretation.
But if you were to focus our entire attention on the Tunis Agenda, then there is sort of sufficient language here which can be interpreted as one that lends itself to an equal participation for all the stakeholders, including some that were no envisaged at the time the Tunis Agenda was written.
The last piece that I would like to submit, Mr. Chairman, is that the products, the services, the offerings that are coming out and the innovation that is coming out can become a casualty to any public policy decisions that are not taking into consideration at an equal footing all the stakeholders in the room. And that would be a bit of a tragedy. And, therefore, I think we should be careful as we interpret the Tunis Agenda one way or the other. Thank you.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you, Virat. I think it was a very useful reminder about the different paragraphs of the Tunis Agenda. Virat relates that we look at the Tunis Agenda with a fresh eye.
Sweden, please.
>>SWEDEN: Thank you. Well, just very briefly because I think most have already been said by the last intervention we heard. But I think it's very important that we read the Tunis Agenda as a whole and not cherry pick too much specific articles there.
And I wanted also to highlight Article 69, for example. But I think that is very important to keep in mind.
I would also like to take the opportunity because our colleague from Saudi Arabia mentioned the Seoul conference on cybersecurity, and that was also mentioned by our U.S. colleague and how it has been -- how that is an evolving process that is to a larger extent also including all stakeholders.
But since our minister made certain remarks there about proposals on potential principles on surveillance, I think it's very important to keep in mind in that context that that was a product that he presented, a product of extensive multistakeholder work and multistakeholder dialogue. And I think that's also -- I just wanted to make that remark given that it was explicitly brought up here. Thank you.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you, Sweden.
Just a thought. We are here as a Working Group on Enhanced Cooperation to fulfill a mandate. We are here to evaluate, to review the inputs which have been submitted by stakeholders. I understand it doesn't exclude that we revisit the Tunis Agenda. It doesn't exclude to refer to other events which have taken place. I would like you to concentrate on our main task.
Parminder.
>>PARMINDER JEET SINGH: Thank you, Chair. The main point I wish to make was just a correction to what my colleague Virat spoke about. There is no mention in Tunis Agenda of an equal footing among stakeholders. It is only mentioned in 69 in a specific relevance of governments in terms of "equal footing of all stakeholders." I'm not presenting my views on this issue, just a correction of the fact.
I also heard with a lot of interest Sweden's and U.S.' interventions on the decision-making procedures and relevance of the role of different stakeholders. And I did hear them say that not every issue requires a decision-making process or a public policy response in which I completely agree that, yes, a lot of stuff doesn't require that kind of response. And that also is a part of Internet governance systems.
However, as long as we are talking about actual public policy decisions, that still remains that decision-making process has to be done by representative bodies.
And just a last part, because this issue has come in two or three interventions, that why private sector should have a role in decision-making is because it lays the infrastructure. And that's a rather new kind of argument because private sector organizes productive systems of the society in all sectors. Medical practices are based on medicines which are exclusively made by the private sector. Surgical instruments are made by private sector. It does not, therefore, mean that pharma companies have a veto on health policies in any country.
So I think the fact that somebody has the productive resources is not a good logic to say that they have a role in public policy making. So since that came -- that logic came as explaining why there should be a role here, I thought I should make a comment on that as well. Thank you.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you, Parminder. Majed.
Saudi Arabia, sir.
>>SAUDI ARABIA: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My intervention is about when I heard our colleagues try to explain the Tunis Agenda, I mean, item by item. I would like our interventionists to concentrate on the mandate of our work.
However, I would rather if the paragraphs that has been read in full not just to single out some of the words there just to give the real meaning for that paragraph, for example, 68 and 79, because when it talks about the equal footing, it was following the sentence to enable governments in an equal footing. So that means the governments in an equal footing.
However, Mr. Chairman, this is not the place to discuss this. And I would like not to see that we are just arguing about Tunis Agenda and trying to interpret it, as, I mean, everyone differently.
But in regards to the multistakeholder model, I noticed that even in the many conferences, they bring this issue that some governments speaks as a government, some governments with the multistakeholder model and the others is against the multistakeholder model. And this is not true. Saudi Arabia supports the multistakeholder model. However, the reality or the fact that people trying to not talk about the roles of the multistakeholder in that model, that's the -- I mean, what's the matter for us. We agree on the multistakeholder model, but we need to implement the roles for each stakeholder. And it is becoming annoying for me just to see in many fora that people just stress the multistakeholder model.
And if Tunis Agenda actually recognizes the multistakeholder model, it identified the roles of the multistakeholder model. And what we want as a government, speaking from Saudi Arabia, is to enable the governments to implement its role based on Tunis Agenda and based on the -- what happened after the nine years still. we need to enable governments to take the role and responsibilities.
And in regards to the Seoul conference, it's a very good conference and but still the purpose of such conference is to bring the -- raise the awareness, and it's a very good conference to see the different perspectives in a very high level from countries. But at the end, it's for raising the awareness and perspectives of governments or other stakeholders. And for me, this is still missing something. Missing recommendations or policies and output that when we meet we agree on something, we have something like a public policy that we can implement when we leave. And that's what we need in regards to the enhanced cooperation. We can talk and talk and talk, very good talks and we agree in this talk, but we need to see how we implement this. And that's what we need to have an international public policy, to solve the issues we face now in the interim. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you, Saudi Arabia. I think you have formulated the role of this group as well because we are supposed to give recommendations concerning implementation of the enhanced cooperation. So I think all of us are aware that at the end of the day we should come up with recommendations.
I can see Marilyn asking for the floor and then Virat. Marilyn.
>>MARILYN CADE: Thank you, Chair. I'm struck by a couple of things, and one of them is that for many of us who lived through the four years of the two phases of the WSIS, and participated actively in the final word selection that forms the Tunis Agenda, I think we need to remember that there were two phases and there are -- also the WSIS outcome documents also include the principles, the declaration of principles. Because I think perhaps we're losing a little bit of vision that we came away from the WSIS. If I recall, when we started the first phase of the world summit, stakeholders were not allowed in the room and governments were meeting with all good intentions, talking about highly technical issues but without the participation of the -- of the stakeholders who bring a unique understanding. And who often bring not just technical information but also understanding about legal structures, understanding about social structures, understanding about services and products in the same way that government representatives do but with different -- with different areas of perhaps accountability or focus. Paragraph 72 in the Tunis Agenda, I think the -- our colleague from Sweden reminded us of something that is very wise words and that is, this document was agreed to by heads of state as a totality. In fact, heads of state didn't sign off on a single paragraph. They signed off on the entire document. And there's a lot in paragraph 72 that also talks about the role of the IGF in discussing public policy issues related to key elements of Internet Governance, facilitating discourse between bodies dealing with different crosscutting international policy public issues regarding the Internet and discussing issues that do not fall within the scope of any existing body. So I would just think that as we go away for the evening we probably all want to think about how we take into account the agreements that were negotiated and how we look at our assignment.
We will also have tomorrow morning the initial mapping document to look at and to see if that helps us in thinking about how issues are being addressed and where they're being addressed, and what the satisfaction level is about how different issues are being addressed and it will bring us perhaps to identifying gaps and to being able to think about what spaces and places can be turned to and whether there is a need for any new places and spaces.
I'm sorry to hear Saudi Arabia say that it's becoming annoying. I think maybe fatigued is the word, perhaps, not to -- to hear us talk about multistakeholder but I think what I'm detecting is perhaps a different -- different parties have a different expectation about what multistakeholder means and whether multistakeholder is bottom-up participatory and actively engaged at all stages versus consultative. And that may be a difference of opinion by some parties versus others. For myself, as a business representative, I think the issue for multistakeholder is that it must be bottom-up, it must be participatory, and that governments, I think, share with citizens of their countries and of the world the interest in making the most informed, most effective, most responsible policies possible. And to do that, we need to put as many brains and as many perspectives into the discussion as possible.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you, Marilyn. I believe this group is on the right track. We have the brilliant brains here, we have the experts here from all stakeholders, and with all the hope that we shall come up with some brilliant recommendations.
Are there any other (indiscernible), Brazil.
>>BRAZIL: Just a very brief comment, and taking what has just been said by Marilyn Cade and recalling the audience that prepared at the beginning of these -- holding the side around Internet Governance with the exclusion of civil society and now we are thankfully incorporating discussions. But one thing that disturbs me at some point as a diplomat that in some sense we see it to be reverse movement. Governments that were in the front line, in the limelight in the beginning, are now -- there's a clear movement to exclude government, it seems on some -- at least from some -- at least from some -- specifically the beauty of the pact of the Tunis Agenda, the outcome documents emerging from the World Summit on Information Society to recognize that the different stakeholders have different roles and responsibilities. They should work together. They should work mutually to find ways as Marilyn Cade said to lead to very informed decisions, to provide an environment to assist everyone in this collective endeavor. And it is somewhat disturbing to see some -- sometime there is a confusion about this, and maybe in the minds of some it may be the lack of historical experience of some actions undertaken by governments. (indiscernible) maybe not to allow governments to fulfill their roles in regard to -- specifically in the issues we have before us, that is public policy. So there is -- it is -- maybe disturbing is not the right word. But some people say no, let's not leave this to governments. Let's lead together because that's the spirit from -- that is the spirit from Tunis multistakeholder. That's recognizing that each stakeholder has different role and responsibilities. And I find for governments clearly a role for public policy. I think the -- our task is to interpret this in a way that is consistent with the spirit of the Tunis Agenda. But saying that an apple is an apple, a pear is a pear, not making a decision, otherwise the discussion is -- I think the kind of confusion that has been taking place over the years found in the -- the cacophony and the lack of a common understanding of differentiation of situation that requires different responses will not be healthy if we do not guide our work by very clear understanding of the picture, of the differentiation of the situations. And there, specifically trying to figure out what lies -- what falls under this category of public policy that will require, let's say, governments to be enabled to fulfill their roles with the fullest seasoned participation of stakeholders to the benefit of all. But I would again -- I see that kind of, let's say, reversal of the situation and a movement in the direction that is not also, I think, the right direction. I think we should be working together collectively, a joint effort with mutual respect, mutual recognition of different roles and responsibilities and be open on all parts to fully engage to the benefit of the eco-system as a whole. Thank you.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you, Brazil. I can see Grace, but I have been advised that there is some problem with the microphone for remote participation so I ask your indulgence and I would like to suspend the meeting for about three minutes. So bear with me, and we shall resume in three minutes time.
( break )
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you for your patience. I think we cannot solve this problem but it doesn't affect our meeting. I'm really sorry about the remote participants. We have about 10, 12 minutes to go until the end of this meeting, and I can see two nameplates. So first Grace and then (saying name) and at the end of the meeting I would like to turn to the observers, if they have anything to add, to say or any observation, and then I would like to conclude our meeting for today. So Grace, please, take the floor.
>>GRACE GITHAIGA: It's just some very quick -- very quick comments. One on multistakeholder and one on roles and responsibilities of different stakeholders. And it's just to support what Marilyn was raising, that multistakeholder is really -- must ensure participation from all stakeholder groups. It also needs to be inclusive, transparent, and accountable and must be global in nature and needs to be managed in such a way that none of the stakeholders or regions can determine the outcome without the cooperation of all other stakeholder groups and regions.
And in terms of responsibilities of the different stakeholders, I feel there needs to recognize that the roles and responsibilities of the various stakeholders in Internet Governance cannot be fixed and they will vary depending on the issue or the process or task at hand. Thank you.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you, Grace. India.
>>INDIA: Thank you, Chair. I think after the intervention by our distinguished ambassador from Brazil, I think not much is left to say. We also have same as -- concerns in terms of the direction which we are going. And again, we would like to just flag this issue that between enhanced cooperation and IGF, I don't think we're talking one against the other. I don't think that is the right way to go, if you compare them and then we say we're doing good there and everything is covered there and thereby -- the whole purpose of the working group is perhaps not there, and so I think that -- we should not try and sort of reduce the importance and the relevance of this particular working group. Thank you.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you, India. It was not my understanding that we are going against each other. It is my understanding that we are talking about complementary processes. As I mentioned this morning, interdependent processes. Or rather independent. And we may discuss eventually the same issues in both places, but probably the accents are a bit different and the outcome may be different.
So today we have gone through three groups of issues. We have discussed quite a lot of questions, so we have a kind of feel for the questions. And I'm really glad that we have very useful and very fruitful discussions today and it's very promising for the coming two days.
I'm turning now to the observers, if you have anything to add or complement. Anyone from the room, any additional comments? In case you don't have any comments, so I would like to see you tomorrow at 10:00. Hopefully by then we are going to have this spreadsheet document from the voluntary task force and we shall resume tomorrow at 10:00. I hope we can go through in the morning the remaining two groups and to go into the deeper discussion on some of the issues with the hope of coming with some recommendations at the end of Friday. So have a nice -- yes, Virat.
>>VIRAT BHATIA: Just a housekeeping question. Can we leave some of the documents here, will the room be locked or should we carry everything back? Because there's a lot of paperwork here.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: I am advised that you better take everything with you. So thank you for your active participation, and I wish you a very nice evening tonight. Have a nice sleep for those who are having jet lag, and hope to see you tomorrow at 10:00. Thank you.
***Live scribing by Brewer & Darrenougue - www.quicktext.com***
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7 November, 2013
10:00 a.m.
Working Group on Enhanced Cooperation
Geneva, Switzerland
>>CHAIR MAJORS: Good morning, Ladies and Gentlemen. Please take your seats. I'm happy to see you. You seem to be fresh and ready to work, even though it's a beautiful day outside. So I would like to give you a short summary of what we have done yesterday and what I propose for today.
So yesterday we started with the introductory remarks and the most important part is the mandate we have so everybody is aware of the mandate and I would like to continue our work in this spirit. We also agreed on the modalities of the work, that is, we are going to base our discussions on the contributions and we have a document to help us, that is the summary, or the analysis of responses. Which there was an attempt to streamline and downsize the contributions.
We also agreed that we are going to discuss the questions in groups, and we had a very good discussion on Group 1 which was about enhanced cooperation, meaning significance and degree of implementation. And there was a kind of agreement that we can we may consider it as the glass half full, half empty. I expressed my wish that we approach in an optimistic way, that is, the glass is full -- half full, and we are going to make it complete. That is our task.
In the second group we had public policy issues, mechanisms, and question pertaining to the IGF. And there was a proposal to map different issues. There was a voluntary task force which promised me to have the document by this morning, and I'm happy to report to you that the document has been prepared. So I congratulate to the participants of this voluntary task group and they have done a great job.
So after that in the afternoon we discussed the questions pertaining to Group 3, which is about the role of the stakeholders, especially the governments. I sensed a kind of agreement on the multistakeholder approach. Naturally there was -- there were divergences as to the interpretation, what it means. Some said that the role of government may be underestimated or even belittled, and there was some discussion about the interpretation of the Tunis Agenda. It is also felt that the Internet seems changing and it has changed rapidly since 2005 and there are emerging issues, and these emerging issues also create public policy issues.
So basically I think that's what -- where we stopped yesterday. I think we had a very good and constructive discussion and what is very important to me, that there was a kind of mutual trust. So I really congratulate you for this very constructive approach.
Now, we have the document. I think it will be made available shortly, which was prepared by the voluntary task group. What I propose is just to go over the document. I don't really want to have detailed discussion of the document because I think it's rather complex and it needs further consideration and probably some members of the group would like to take it back to capital and discuss it with other stakeholders or other colleagues back home. So what I propose, once we go through the document, we try and concentrate on Group 4 and 5 questions and eventually, depending upon the discussions we are going to have, we may request the Secretariat to prepare a kind of more elaborate document, a detailed one, in the style we had for the analysis of the responses. And probably this background document may be made available eventually for our next meeting, depending, naturally on us, when we decide to have our next meeting. And this is also depending on where we are going to stop tomorrow at 6:00.
So this is my proposal, and I'm just asking the Secretariat if the document is available. So we need five minutes. So in the meantime, I suggest to you that we start discussing Group 4. But before we're doing that, I would like to ask you if you have any comments, remarks, observations, questions, whatever. If not, I would like to ask you to look into the questions in Group 4. They're all of the developing countries, and probably we may continue discussions in five minutes with that. And we may come back to the document after the coffee break which will be, as we agreed yesterday, at 11:15.
[ Break ]
>>CHAIR MAJOR: You're still reading or would you like to continue? It's up to you. If you need some more time. But I think we can start the discussions. Unfortunately, it seems to me that we have some technical problems for the remote participants. The microphone doesn't seem to be working. So I would like to ask remote participants in case they want to contribute -- eventually -- I believe they can see the captioning. And they can send in written form. Okay. So they can't hear but they can talk. Okay. Good. Okay. So we are going to discuss Group 4, issues related to developing countries. I can see Carlos.
>>CARLOS AFONSO: Good morning. It's just information, and I don't know if this is already known but in the summary the responses to the questionnaire by APC are not actually theirs. The ones that are quoted as APC, according to the APC itself, are from the Best Bits responses to the questionnaire. This is just information.
The second thing that I would like to note is that most of the quotations in the summary are from developing countries and interesting that I think the emphasis should be more on the opinion of the developing countries than the developed countries themselves. No big deal, but I think it's a bit unbalanced. Thank you.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you, Carlos, for this contribution. I believe we tried to make the group balanced, and probably in the room we have representatives who can contribute in this sense and I really encourage everyone to contribute in general and specifically to these questions we are discussing now. Jimson.
>>JIMSON OLUFUYE: Distinguished Chair, Excellencies, Colleagues, Ladies and Gentlemen, Jimson Olufuye is my name. Good morning. As you know, I am the chair of the Africa ICT Alliance with the alliance of ICT, private sector groups, institutions throughout Africa. We started last year to bring together the voice of the private sector, and as of now there are about 12 African countries involved that is truly a private sector organizations, the ICT industry groups. I myself, I used to be the president of the Information Technology Industry Association of Nigeria, up to 2011.
While talking about developing countries, can be enhanced to effectively contribute to the discussion. I would like to say simply that Africa in particular is very much aware of the impact of Internet to its relevance to development right now and as Democratic Republic of Congo nation in the submission that we need to be very careful with regard to the new mechanism and trying to know -- I want to be aware of the current deliverables and possibilities.
So within that understanding, several other states in Africa came together last week with many of the ministers across Africa, we came together. We were in Tegali with regard to transform Africa and they came out with the manifesto that talks about Smart Africa, Smart Africa manifesto. And there's one principle in that manifesto which I found very, very interesting with regard to our government, what's the intention of our government, is that they are going to put private sector first in all their discussions. The manifesto is available with me, I will share it if so required. The African government felt that all stakeholders should be involved in the socioeconomic development of the continent. The summit was shared by His Excellency, president Paul Kagame and was co-hosted by ITU, Dr. Hamadoun Toure, and as I said six other African head of states dealt with many, many stuff. So that is the direction that everybody should be involved at all level of discussion. And in fact, I was privileged because I'm visiting Abuja and I was preparing for this meeting that I have to come to be part of it, as I have the privilege of leading the private sector ICT group for Africa.
So when we discuss enhanced cooperation, as we have seen in the mapping, there are a lot of dimensions. Africa needs more engagement, (indiscernible) in the current situations, and also not to take any mood out to drop the momentum that has been contributed positively to the development we're witnessing on the African continent. That's what I want to contribute for the start. Thank you.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you, Jimson. And I think it's very important what you have said and very instructive for us. I can see Grace.
>> GRACE GITHAIGA: I think this is a very important question to discuss because I was just looking at the other contributions even to the questionnaire and there was very little participation from African governments. In fact, I don't even think there was. And Africa, being, you know, a continent with I don't know 50 countries, it's really outstanding that they did not participate.
When it comes to issues of like IGF, national IGF, I know, for example, in Kenya it's been accused of just being a talk shop and not contributing practical solutions to the process. So just thinking about the role of developing countries and how it can be made more effective, I think I would want to support what APC suggested, that we have seen developing countries be excluded at different levels. But also self-exclude. So, you know, addressing this problem is actually not trivial. So the way in which Internet governance for development has been conceived and addressed in IGF and in other global spaces has not been useful. It's been seen as narrow and top-down and often does not go beyond access issues. So probably we need to start thinking of a distributed structure of Internet governance that is well-defined with aims and policies that may resolve this problem and make it obvious to developing countries that the process is worth our time. Thank you.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you, Grace. If I've got you right, raising issues is one of the things you think we should be doing. It's very useful. We are heading toward some kind of recommendation. I think that's a better way to go ahead. Baher, and then I see Iran. and Virat. Yes, Baher.
>>BAHER ESMAT: Thank you, Chairman. Good morning, everyone. I'm Baher Esmat with ICANN. On the question of developing countries, I think the responses -- or many of the responses that came to the questionnaire illustrated, you know, some of the efforts in building capacities in developing countries, whether in the global space of Internet governance and Internet policy issues or even within the technical space. In the past years -- and being, you know, myself I come from a developing countries -- we've seen a lot of capacity-building initiatives undertaken by Internet organizations, particularly Internet Society and the regional Internet registries in cooperation with national institutes and technical organizations, national technical organizations such as ccTLD, ccTLD managers and areas like IPv6, DNS -- DNS and DNSSEC and so forth. So this is one area that there is, I think, clear recognition of progress made that -- and also for a need for further development and improvement and more sort of engagement in that regard.
The other aspect is the national and regional IGFs also in the past couple of years have seen development and progress made in this area. I've been part of one of regional IGFs, the (indiscernible) IGFs, for the past couple of years. We've had two successful annual meetings. We managed to -- we as community managed to attract participation from the global Internet community in the Arab region, particularly from civil society and end user community. And I'm sure that in other parts of the world there have been success stories about national regional IGFs. I think the good thing about the IGFs like the global IGF itself, it provided the platform for the Internet community in developing countries to engage in discussions about Internet policies. This is something that is not often provided at national level in many -- in many countries.
Still on capacity building and on the IGF in particular, in the last IGF meeting in Bali we've seen a special track for capacity building in that meeting. We've also seen a daily session, orientation session for newcomers trying to explain, you know, concepts and trends in the Internet governance space, and the feedback we've heard in Bali and afterwards about this session -- about those sessions was very positive.
One last remark on developing countries and the sort of enhanced cooperation development in developing countries, the issue of language or the multilingualization aspect of Internet governance, and I understand that there are maybe a couple of questions that deal with this, this aspect separately. But I would like to note that one sort of remark that we often hear from participants in the Arab region is about lack of materials and lack of tools in the Arabic language, for instance, that could encourage and help more participation and get more people to participate in Internet governance fora. This is -- this could cover a range of issues from making materials available in different languages, making tools available in different languages, and also maybe trying to develop a glossary of terms, Internet governance terms in different languages. And one of the recent initiatives that UNESCO, together with ICANN and The Internet Society are undertaking, is to develop a glossary of Internet governance terms in Arabic language. And the announcement of this initiative was made in Bali a couple of weeks ago, and the three organizations will start working on the project in the next couple of weeks and we hope by mid next year we'll have a draft product for discussing these terms. Thank you.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you, Baher. Then I think it was Iran who wants the floor first and then Virat.
>>ISLAMIC REPUBLIC OF IRAN: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Good morning, everyone. Regarding Question 10, or this group of questions, I think we need to reply to a primary question first. If the developing countries have a role in global Internet governance and then ask how this role can be made more effective, according to what we have received from developing countries through questionnaire and what we heard in the room, many steps should be taken to consider the developing countries has a role in global Internet governance.
I believe there is somehow a link between responses to Question 10 and 3. We need to look at what developing countries reply to Question 3. If their responses to Question 3 shows a good extent of enhanced cooperation has been implemented, then we can say they have a role. But as we have seen, the response is different. If we want to hear how this role, which has not been established to be made more effective, it can be done by implementing the Tunis Agenda. Especially paragraph 35, 69, and 68. Participation of developing countries in global Internet governance cannot be done only through participation in dialogues or discussions. That's global level. It's their sovereign rights that has to be exercised, according to paragraph 35a of Tunis Agenda. I believe that investment, technical cooperation, education, capacity building, and so on are necessary but not the main factor in this regard, Mr. Chairman. Thank you.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you, Iran.
Virat?
>>VIRAT BHATIA: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. From the replies that have been received, it is quite clear that -- as my colleague stated some time back, that many of the replies that have been quoted are from the developing countries. But, in fact, the substantive issues have been highlighted by those who have contributed from the developing countries.
First, if you turn to the Tunis Agenda, Section 3 through 28 are devoted to the issue of financing. I know comments have been made about how important financing is of infrastructure. But if you read through the documents, sir, I would urge that nearly a third of the entire Tunis Agenda not only concentrates on the lack of financing as a major issue but, in fact, lays that as a precursor to the Internet governance issues that begin after Section 28. In fact, it also recognizes in Section 13 that til recently and in the past, public financing was being used for building infrastructure. But that is no longer the case and private sector investments are required.
So I would argue, sir, and submit to you that financial investments in infrastructure in a world where merely 40% has access to online services of which Africa at 16% and Asia-Pacific at 32% of the citizens is particularly underserved is a significant and major issue as we discuss the entire proposition of enhanced cooperation.
Thank you, an ITU report of 2013 shows that the gender distribution and access of online services is much better than it was when mobile services were penetrating the world. In terms of online access, 37% or 1.3 billion women and 41% men or approximately 1.5 billion men have access to online services totaling to a total of 2.7 billion online people and about 40% households across the world.
If you turn to the responses that have been given beyond the point of investment beyond the private sector and the contributions of the technical communities to reduce the cost of access by constantly innovating technologies as well as mutual discussions between carriers to reduce the cost of interconnection and international cable bandwidth, you would see that the IGF both at local and regional levels have received a thumbs-up from nearly across the board from all the communities who have responded. Two from India, Internet Democracy Project and SFLC have been particularly clear about the need and the importance of the idea of processes and the issues that lead to free speech where developing countries are concerned.
I would just wrap up by submitting to you in India we have, after hosting the first IGF in 2008, initiated a program to link together multistakeholder groups on a common platform in 2012. It was an informal initiative, a first step to a formal IGF. It was attended by nearly 400 plus stakeholders, 12 bandwidth sessions across two days, 60 speakers. And they covered everything including access but also free speech, issues of capacity-building, net neutrality, and many others which are specific to India but have a linkage to the global five themes of the IGF.
This year we congratulate the government of India which has called in a formal process for a national MAG that has been formulated, and we expect that that meeting will be called soon.
We also hope that more developing countries will generate local IGFs and issues such as enhanced cooperation are those that are represented by stakeholders at global fora would be discussed nationally and that there would be sufficient opportunity for developing country citizens to participate in a forum such as this through the domestic engagement and also in the global IGFs such as the one that will occur in Istanbul next year.
It is not easy for everybody to travel. Each of these cost between 3,000 to $5,000. And so I think the emphasis that has been provided in the questionnaires and the responses of national IGFs as a formal process for not only a dialogue but also development of policy eventually is an excellent step, something that we support and hopefully will participate in actively in the future. Thank you.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you, Virat. Very useful thoughts and very elaborate intervention. One remark, the IGF in Hyderabad was the third one. Was preceded by Athens and Rio. (saying name) was the first one, and this was a great IGF.
Parminder.
>>PARMINDER JEET SINGH: Thank you, Chair. And good morning to everybody.
Developing countries have a host of problems, and I would focus on the issue of the mandate of this working group which is, in my understanding, international public policy making processes and the extent or absence of developing countries in international public policy making.
For that purpose, I would separate the technical processes -- technical policy development processes, ICANNs and regional RIRs, which have their own problems, but that's not what I think primarily we are dealing with here.
I would also exclude the (indiscernible) dialect processes, which is the IGF, which has its own issues about developing country participation. But that again is not the principal purpose of this working group's deliberations, and the principle purpose is international public policy making processes.
And to understand where developing countries stand in this regard, we have to understand what are the current processes of international public policy making with respect to the Internet. Where does the international public policy making take place? If we understand that, we probably can comment on whether developing countries participate or whether participation has to be improved. Again, removing the technical policy side.
We need to focus, what is it that development of public policy making is taking place? And it is my summation that it takes place -- (echo).
Is it okay? It's okay now. Yes.
>> (speaker off microphone).
>>PARMINDER JEET SINGH: So it is either made by the big countries, which is where the biggest international -- Internet business is. Concentrated. And by default, it then gets reflected in the global Internet business. And that is take-it-or-leave-it policy for the whole developing world. That's where public policy making takes place, largely in the U.S. in that case.
Secondly, it takes place in rich country clubs like the OECD. OECD, as you all know, has a very strong Internet policy making organ which is called the Committee on Computers, Information and Communications Policy. It is an emerging platform, does public policy development.
However, I'm very surprised that when that particular Internet policy mechanism is so active and the most active of the OECD parties, the logic is used at the global level that there is not enough public policy issues to be dealt by a divergent mechanism. That escapes my understanding. But in any case, that's where a lot of public policy making takes place. And as you probably all know recently, OECD developed the Principles for Internet Public Policy Making. That is public policy by its own name. Principles for Internet public policy were developed by an intergovernmental process through advisory structures. The same which was India's (indiscernible) proposal which was rubbished on the global level. Exactly the same processes developed public policy principles. And, importantly, they did not develop it only for the OECD.
The real intention is to see global adoption of these policy principles. And it is almost formal that it has been sought that country to country, the goal was to say, okay, why don't you agree to these principles because these principles already exist.
And that's not a new model. We all know about the Budapest cybercrime conference and the convention. There are a lot of mechanisms which tried to pursue developing countries to sign on by saying it is a good instrument and it is already existing so why don't you just sign it. It is a good instrument, I accept, and you can sign on it. But the process of such kind of exclusive policy making takes place.
The (indiscernible) process is a similar one, which a certain number of countries decides certain principles and then we have a bigger country -- group of countries which are cooped, et cetera, et cetera. I think we need to understand where global public policy making takes place and what is the role of developing countries. More or less, they don't exist. They are sold well-prepared governance and a policy framework as take it or leave it.
And being on the global grid of the Internet, there is not much option for countries not to accept what is increasing because most of the richest countries have the dominant model.
I think what we need to focus on is that this is where public policy making takes place and where developing countries are with that and what is needed to be improved in that respect.
Therefore, I would easily say if OECD's CCICP is one of the principle organs for global public policy making, it should be inclusive of all countries. If it actually does become inclusive of all countries, that's precisely the proposal which India gave to the U.N. two years back. There is no difference between that model and the global model which India proposed.
So I think we need to focus on where public policy making takes place and the role of developing countries.
And capacity-building, yes, is very important. But as we know in WIPO and WTO areas, capacity-building has to be seen as separate from the participation issue. They are two different issues and should not be seen together. Thank you.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you, Parminder.
Sweden, then Brazil, and India.
>>SWEDEN: Thank you, Chairman. And good morning to all colleagues. I agree with what has been mentioned before, that it's primarily a task for developing countries to define what are the main public policy issues of relevance to them and also, of course, to assess to what extent they feel that they can participate in existing global foras that deals with these issues.
However, I just wanted to respond a little bit to what Jimson said because we certainly think that it was very encouraging to see the Smart Africa manifesto and some of the -- some of the areas that were identified there such as access, the access issue, accountability, accountability in the sense of better communication between government and citizens, better communication between government and private sector which leads to improved functioning of the society, improvement of democratic system and the enabling environment for the private sector which I think also was highlighted very much.
We just want to say that we see that as very encouraging and a sign of a number of developing countries playing a role and taking up a role in Internet -- related to Internet governance issues. Thank you.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you, Sweden.
Brazil, please.
>>BRAZIL: Thank you, Mr. Chair. This is an issue for Brazil that's very dear. Usually we -- as we look into our participation in Internet governance, we used to say there are two basic parameters for our initiatives. One of them is our full adherence to the multistakeholder model. This is something that is very embedded in our positions and have strong reference to the model we embrace nationally.
And the second one is the development by nation of issues that we also seek to highlight. And we are, of course, aware that the problems around participation of developing countries in Internet governance fora are not exclusive to Internet governance. It relates to development, the problems related to the condition of development: Financial constraints, lack of personal capacity-building.
As has been stated before, each of these should be looked into its own merit and deserves specific answers and initiatives. And it affects all stakeholders. It affects governments. It affects civil society. It affects -- as we look into a room which we could adequately face multistakeholder participation, but we clearly see lack of participation from developing countries at all levels, the governance, civil society. (indiscernible). It is of concern to us because it has an impact even for the agenda setting of discussions.
I will give an example. I participated in the IGF meeting in Baku, and I thought it was productive and very important for my own understanding of the process. This was my first IGF. But I was a bit frustrated by a discussion we had. There was a session that was termed "development issues," issues of concern for developing countries.
And I was a bit surprised to realize that the most important topic on the discussion was how to expand in the developing world the new generic top-level domains. That was the issue. What can be done? Why did not developing countries adhere en masse to this initiative that is so good, so -- that was devised to address developing countries? Why did it not happen? What can be done to address this?
Of course, even some developing countries members took -- had an apologetic tone and said in our case, maybe there was not much awareness about this, what can we do. We need to develop business.
And I took the floor and I said, I feel a bit frustrated because I thought we would be discussing issues that are on the agenda for developing countries that are not only in this forum, like access, finance, capacity-building. And all of these were not in the discussion. And I tried to provoke a discussion on that. There was no discussion on that. And people started -- again, were: What can we do to foster gTLDs in developing countries? So I think even for the point of your agenda setting, it is important to have developing countries' participation in order to impact on the agenda.
And then it brings me to think how can we reconcile these constraints for participation and that leads sometimes to a call for -- to have a single fora to deal with all the issues since there is difficulty to participate in a multitude of Internet governance-related fora.
So maybe an easy way is to let's make one single place where we can discuss one thing and make decisions for. I don't think that would work to that extent because we, of course, want to make sure we keep in mind a distributed structure of Internet governance that is something that could not be touched and should not be touched upon. But.
How can we reconcile this need for more meaningful participation, involvement with this distributed structure of Internet governance?
For myself, I think one clear answer is to provide some ways in which information could flow more. I think it's important to devise ways in which the lack of physical participation could be compensated by access to relevant outputs, information arising from those fora. I think this would be one way to maybe -- a limited way to address. But, of course, we will not be looking to all -- I seen a number of 150 processes that deal with Internet. So maybe you do not need information on everything that's going on in all fora. But as regards relevant things that are taking place that could impact on developing countries, I think we should devise maybe a friendly user mechanisms in which information could flow better. I think that would be one way to assist.
And from our perspective -- and then we refer to the proposal regarding enhanced cooperation as such, this difficulty regarding participation reinforces our understanding and our conviction that we need some platform that would enable for discussion of issues related to Internet governance in a holistic, integrated manner. I think this would be an additional benefit besides filling a gap in the overall structure. That would also assist developing countries, but participation enables to have a more comprehensive view of issues.
Even if this platform, I think how that should be devised, would it lead to decision-making or would it be of a more informative and policy discussion, this is something we should maybe evolve discussion. But, clearly, there is a need for a place in which such a discussion could take place.
And I would see an additional benefit regarding this as a tool to assist developing countries' participation. And here I mentioned at all levels, not only governments but also stakeholders.
So I think I will stop at this. But I think this issue is very clearly linked to the notion that we need to put in place some structure that will allow -- what issues will be dealt with by this, how this could be addressed. I think it's something for further discussion. But, clearly, we see a need for this as a way to assist and to foster developing countries' participation on Internet governance-related discussions. Thank you.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you, Ambassador. I share your impressions about the Baku meeting when we were confronted with the reality. Reality is always difficult to face.
After that, I think it was India who asked for the floor. And then we have the remote participant, Joy Liddicoat. And then Carlos and Marilyn.
Okay.
So India, please.
>>INDIA: Thank you, Chair. Good morning to colleagues in the room. Today I think we are confronted with this very important dimension of our discussion. As we see it, there are two key pillars on which we could perhaps look at coming up with some recommendations.
The first pillar is where we are talking about countries or regions or places where there is no access to Internet. That is one dimension of the issue, where if they're not part of this process, there's no question of their seeking any role in the governance eventually.
On that I think we have come up with any number of subproblems within that category. The issues, how do we improve this which is leading to a digital divide of a kind, which in 2005 and 2013/'14, I think there were regions that have been left behind. The divide is increasing exponentially. They lag behind in an exponential manner because the speed at which progress on Internet is making would make them deprived for eternity if we do not address that. So that's an important dimension. As a working group, we should look at recommendations under which I think very eminent suggestions have come earlier. The speakers mentioned about the need for financing. How do we touch upon the issue? Should we make recommendations on that? Secondly, whether capacity-building in terms of the latest technology transfers or training programs, et cetera.
Then coming to the other side of it, wherever there is access to Internet, then the second challenge is those regions and countries respective of the origin, in this case largely we are talking about developing countries, whether they have any significant role in Internet governance-related policies at the international level. I think there's the second challenge.
If you are looking at the later part of it, I think we are about to discover that we are all wanting to be part of a process through a mechanism but that mechanism at the international -- or global level is not present.
We have forums for discussion. We have forums for dialogue. But forums where we can actually make a contribution to the extent of being able to decide, again, is something which is lacking. A recognition of this fact has come through in the replies that have been given as well as in our discussions.
I think it will be very important also to touch upon this issue as we make a recommendation, at which point in time then the participation of developing countries in the Internet governance would become a subset of that particular larger recommendation we intend to make.
I think that's where Tunis Agenda has made the recognition that we should maximize the participation of developing countries in Internet governance.
But if we do not even have a structure, then why talk about developing countries? I mean, they are part of the subset of the global community. So I think it remains in a vacuum. If we do not create a structure or a mechanism for effective participation of -- I think it is at all levels. I think as the Ambassador of Brazil very rightly pointed out, this gap exists at all levels, whether it is government, whether it is civil society, private sector, or academia in developing countries. Thank you, Chair.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you, India.
I think now the floor is the remote participant. That is Joy.
>>JOY LIDDICOAT: Thank you. Can you hear me? Thank you. I wanted to -- (background noise). (indiscernible) -- I see the participation is indiscernible. If the secretariat could advise (indiscernible).
Okay. Thank you.
I wanted to enter a question and just emphasize that while I agree capacity of developing countries necessarily (indiscernible), I think it's very important to remind ourselves in this working group that the (indiscernible) is not conflicting and that (indiscernible) does exist in developing countries and that all (indiscernible). In other words, I think we have seen new leadership and new development from developing countries including India (indiscernible) policy issues. And I would (indiscernible) very strongly that developing countries are part of this and somehow should be (background noise) (indiscernible).
I was thinking of the Human Rights Council with a notion on (indiscernible) --
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Joy, I'm sorry to interrupt you.
>>JOY LIDDICOAT: The Human Rights Council has been (indiscernible).
>>CHAIR MAJOR: We have technical problems. And I think if you can write it down, your contribution, in a brief way, probably the secretariat can read it out and we can take it into consideration. But I'm sorry, at this point in time, I think the technical problems just prevent us to follow what you're saying. So if you could do us the favor to go to the chat box and write down what you wish to say. Thank you.
I think the next one was Carlos, I believe. No, sorry, sorry, Saudi Arabia. Sorry, sorry. Saudi Arabia.
>>SAUDI ARABIA: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And good morning to everyone. In regards to Question 10 about the role of developing countries and how can it be more effective in the global Internet governance, as my intervention covered well by some of the previous speakers, however, the sequence of the questions that Number 10 came after the questions that we asked how enhanced cooperation could be implemented to enable governments. And then we said how can enhanced cooperation enable other stakeholders to carry out their roles and responsibilities.
And when answering this, and even looking at the report, there was many inputs that the missing of having a fora for countries and governments to sit and discuss these important issues in regards to the global Internet governance does not exist.
And with Saudi Arabia, when we came to this question, we already stated the need to be a fora or a platform for governments to discuss these issues. And how can this be made more effective taking into consideration -- into consideration the establishment that this platform is through balanced equal footing participation through all countries.
However, in regards to the international Internet public policy issues, Question 15, that are of special relevance to developing countries, I can list some which is a very important such as multilingualization. This includes the local language content search engines and multilingual e-mail. International Internet connectivity, this includes affordability, Internet exchange points, and differences in the cost of carrying traffic. IPv6 transition, most developing countries have limited fixed line infrastructures, and communications is primarily through wireless technologies. IPv6 is much better suited to mobility than IPv4.
And as has been stated, contributions to capacity-building for Internet governance, this includes financing, training, and support. Developing countries must be involved in the development of public policy and must be able to present their interests in the evolution of the Internet. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you, Saudi Arabia. I can see Carlos, Marilyn, and I think after this we are going to break and we come back after the coffee break. It's 11:45, and we may continue the discussions on this issue. Carlos, please.
>>CARLOS AFONSO: Just basically to complement what Benedicto said besides the example of this issue of gTLDs and the (indiscernible) of discussing the developing issues, et cetera, there's another example which is the famous cybercrime convention of Budapest in which some developed countries got together, drafted a convention (indiscernible) and then came to us, developing countries, and said look, why don't you sign it? You should sign it. It's a great convention. And we replied no, we didn't -- we don't sign. Why? Because we did not participate in the discussions. Where are the -- where is the equal footing, you know, that we all keep raging about. So these are examples of practices that we have to try and avoid, and really in the convention the question of subsets, developing countries being subsets, I don't think we are subsets. We have to be equals. And the governments of developed countries must, you know, act on an equal footing with us, if they want our participation, those initiatives and structures, et cetera.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you, Carlos. Marilyn.
>>MARILYN CADE: Thank you, Chair. Before I go on to make a statement about Question 10, I want to respond to the comment about that particular workshop and a couple of other workshops that are like it. I was, too, fairly disappointed in what I thought came across as a -- what I -- I'm from business, we call that mar com, marketing communications. I didn't like it at all. I didn't think it was within the spirit of what we should have been planning for a particular workshop. And particularly not with a title that it belonged in. However, the Baku IGF overall was filled with rich and interesting issues and workshops and we met in a country in a particularly geographic sub-space that we had never been to before in the IGF. So I just wanted to not lose sight of the -- and to note that as the ambassador said, he was focused on a particular workshop, and I really share the concerns that he expressed.
But I want to go on to say that I think it's actually fair to say that within the IGF we are still working hard on how to thoroughly incorporate the development discussions into the IGF, that that is very much a work in progress. We made progress, but I want to just say I think we can do more. And when we talk later about mechanisms, I will probably say more.
Now I'd like to make a comment about I'm obviously not from a developing country. I live in the United States, or on united.com. I'm not sure which it is. Most of you know that I travel a great deal. I go to many, many different countries and I -- I also teach a course that is a survey course that is attended only by citizens from developing countries, that is focused on cybersecurity, the use of ICT's and disaster remediation, and Internet governance. The course attendees range from system administrators to managers in telecom companies and IPs to regulators to boards of regulatory authorities to people who work for ministries. And in the survey course what I talk about is the Internet governance ecosystem. And I talk about how to get involved in the GAC and how to get involved in the IGF and how to learn about whether there is a national or regional IGF in your country or region and if you're not engaged already, who to reach out to to become involved. I have never had any of the students, the attendees -- there are usually about 22 to 24 -- I have never had a single one of them say I don't want to go to an ICANN meeting. I don't want to go to a national IGF. Instead, they say how can I get involved? How do I find the resources? How do I get my management, whether it's private sector or government, how do I get them to understand the importance of Internet governance and why it's important to decisions we're making about our country.
So now I'm going to use an analogy. In the days of the narrow band Internet when we coined the words "E-commerce" that was only talked about in very specialized places. Today much of commerce is online in one way or another. We talk about the implications of the online world and about doing business online in a widely distributed number of places. I think for myself that what we need to focus on is strengthening and deepening the awareness about what Internet governance policies are and how you need to participate, both at a national level and to strengthen -- now, some in the room may still at the end of the day think that there is a need for a separate and new. But I hope we don't lose sight of the importance of definitely strengthening and deepening the mechanisms we have now. I'm going to go back to a comment made by Barat (saying name). We need to find more mechanisms to provide initial funding to bring participants from all stakeholder groups, including business from developing countries, into these mechanisms. We can't stop by saying there is no money. My experience is once an NGO or civil society or business or government comes to a couple of meetings, they become much better able to justify the participation and to articulate the value to their management stream. And after a couple of meetings, they're able to then become an ongoing participant and they're also much more able to use online participation when they have a network of colleagues to relate to. Thank you.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you, Marilyn. I promised you that we are going to have coffee break, but I also promised yesterday that we are going to have a segment for observers. Now it is your time. So if you have some comments to give, please do.
>>MATTHEW SHEARS: Thank you, Chair. And good morning. Matthew Shears with CTD. Just two very quick points. With regards to the comments that are in the summary document and the comments that have been inputted by participants to this process, speaking as a representative of civil society, there are a significant number and a great diversity of views coming from civil society that have been inputted into this process. Many of those organizations that have submitted comments are from developing countries, or represent developing country interests. And I would like to suggest that many of those views do not recommend, do not suggest that moving to a global mechanism is necessarily the way that is going to particularly solve the issues that developing countries have in dealing with public policy and public policy issues at the international level. So I think it's -- it's a leap, if you will, certainly from civil society inputs to go from a concern about developing country interests at international level to a global mechanism. And I would recommend that people look again at some of those inputs.
I'd like to also very firmly agree with the Brazilian ambassador. This is very much an issue of information sharing. I'm not so sure I'd go so far as to agree with a need for a platform, but certainly there are information sharing platforms that are under development and one is the European Union's new platform that they are establishing for global Internet policy observatory which I suggest the -- the aim of that is very much what we've been talking about, the need to provide information -- on organizations to provide policy information and to share information globally. Thank you.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you. India, I can see you want to take the floor. Let me ask for your indulgence and let's come back and I'll give the floor -- you will be the first after coffee break. So we are going to have a coffee break, up to 50, 10 to 12:00 and come back.
[ Break ]
[ Gavel ]
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Welcome back. You have copies here on the table.
Another thing, we had Joy -- Joy to intervene and we had technical problems. So I'm told by the Secretariat --
[ Gavel ]
Can I have your attention, please? Thank you. I'm told that the technical problems have been resolved for the remote participation so I suggest you listen to Joy Liddicoat. Joy, the floor is yours.
>>JOY LIDDICOAT: Thank you, Mr. Chair. Can you hear me?
>>CHAIR MAJOR: We can hear you.
>>JOY LIDDICOAT: Thank you. I wanted to make a point in relation to the last discussion.
In particular to emphasize that while it's important to acknowledge the concerns about capacity building for developing countries, and certainly on the (indiscernible). I think it's also very important that this working group acknowledges that developing countries do have many capacities so leadership and a variety of (indiscernible) that are critically needed, not only in relation to the Internet governance fora itself but also in other areas such as in the Human Rights Council, (indiscernible) and leading discussion of the relation of the same human rights as offline as online and I would be very consumed if there was any suggestion in the summary from this meeting which inquired that also civil society from developing countries are of the view that new mechanisms are needed to deal with the variety of -- some variety of issues on the discussion. Often civil society in developing countries provides barriers to existing mechanisms and assume a new mechanism would pose more difficulties. So I think I want to emphasize that point and think more discussion about the particular issues which I believe the changing needs and the mechanism exercise is specific issues which are not adequately covered by existing mechanisms and to understand those issues. Thank you.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you, Joy. Before the coffee break I promised India, and I always keep my promises. India, please.
>>INDIA: Thank you, Chair. Quickly just a small clarification. I think Carlos had referred to subset and the context in which I was mentioning was that the global Internet public policy issues which we will discuss, those are relevant to the developing countries with a subset of that and not the countries a subset of anyone else. So thank you.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: I think the point is well-taken. Grace, you wanted to take the floor? Okay, please go ahead.
>>GRACE GITHAIGA: Thank you, Chair. In the morning during my contribution I did point out that one way of dealing with this issue of making countries participate in Internet governance would be to have a distributed structure of Internet governance that is well-defined within said processes and then, you know, in a way it will make developing countries know which processes are worth their time. I want to note a number of questionnaire responses emphasized a value of a distributed approach to policy-making. And I think this is very consistent with the assumption that different policy issues may imply different mechanisms and that actors who should be involved -- and which actors should be involved in related policy divisions. So my suggestion is before we start thinking of establishing a new platform, as has been suggested, I think we need to map what the issues are, whether they're being addressed now, whether this is adequate, and whether we need new mechanisms to address them. And I think this is an exercise we started yesterday by compiling a list of issues mentioned in response to Question 4 and my suggestion is that we continue with this process.
And lastly, it would be important for us not to forget that the IGF has been central platform to addressing Internet-related public policy issues, which is truly inclusive in multistakeholder. So before we start building new structures, new mechanisms, perhaps it is time we thought of improving of how -- or how we can strengthen the IGF and what would be needed to implement this improvement as recommended by the previous CSTD working group. Thank you.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you, Grace. It is my understanding that the IGF has made a great progress in this aspect and it's trying to implement the recommendations of the previous working group. Just let me remind you of one of the main recommendations, that is IGF should discuss policy issues in its program and that's actually what has happened during the Bali meeting. There were policy questions which were discussed, and I think the output will be made available to all those who are interested and naturally, including governments, all stakeholders will benefit from this.
I can see Japan, Brazil, Ellen, Virat. So Japan, please.
>>JAPAN: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As other colleagues pointed out in the morning session, in order to increase the participation of developing countries in the global Internet governance, I think it is very effective to consider under implemented the measures to enable the developing countries to attend the existing international fora dealing with the Internet-related public policy issues such as IGF and to utilize (indiscernible) fora effectively, sufficiently. For example, raising awareness, information sharing, and enhancing remote participation. Thank you.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you, Japan. Talking about remote participation, we have one request but I'm not sure if Avri is -- would like to take the floor. Avri.
>>AVRI DORIA: Can I be heard? Yes. I hadn't actually requested the floor, but since I had got it, I had sent a note and basically at that time I was very much (indiscernible) with what Matthew Shears had said and wanted to indicate that civil society from developing regions has its own voice and that voice is conflicted with the new favor of multistakeholder mechanisms, the multistakeholder mechanisms that are existing with perhaps a single or a few other exceptions. And until such time as we concentrate on remote participation that meets current standards, it will be really difficult for these existing mechanisms to reach their full fruition and for people to actually participate in those venues. The technology does exist for supported, very full remote participation, but we need the (indiscernible) and perhaps the financing to make sure that those things exist.
The idea that -- of creation of new structures would help. It's really difficult to understand, as those who present us with new opportunities, for difficulties in participation. We really need to focus on the (indiscernible) we have, especially the IGF, and strengthen them as opposed to dissipating our energy, which is small, in new directions. So I'm really entreating us to really focus on strengthening what we have and truly focusing on making sure that remote participation is really a method of participation for people from developing regions of all sorts. Thank you.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you, Avri. I think your intervention was a good example that remote participation is working indeed. I can see Brazil and then I -- Ellen, you wanted to take the floor, Virat, and Jimson.
>>BRAZIL: Thank you, Mr. Chair. I took the floor to complement what was pointed out by Carlos Afonso in which the Budapest convention also provided an example of the need to involve developing countries' participation from the start. He mentioned an important point for us, principle that we follow that usually we do not adhere to an instrument in which we did not participate. But this is not an absolute in itself. Otherwise, we would not adhere to any organization and be global -- regional in which we were not in the initial group. So this is something that we could be flexible about it. But there is a practical reason why we want to be involved in -- especially in global negotiations, because others make sure that the outcomes will be in line also and will be acceptable for us according to our constitutional legal requirements and this is not the case at this convention. As it is now, it would require from us and others to change national legislation. Which is something we might do in case there is national consensus for that, but this is to indicate the need to fully involve in global negotiations some aspects because otherwise we might be found in a position in which we (indiscernible) at the Budapest convention. We see a lot of (indiscernible) in its purpose in the instruments that we are -- it is difficult for us from the point of view that this would entail internal changes that we are not prepared for the moment to make. And this leads me to indicate and to reinforce the need for developing countries' participation at large, to make sure that the -- and I repeat, the agenda (indiscernible) from the beginning will address also developing countries' concern. And if we think that one of our overall objectives regarding this review, 10-year review, we think largely in terms of outcomes, is that we want to make some substantial input for the millennium development goals follow-up. So I think we should give very serious consideration to mechanisms and ways we can collectively devise to enhance participation because otherwise the input that will come maybe will not correctly address developing countries' participation. And this is one point. And I'm also prompted by the comments that was made by Ms. Grace, I'd say we fully concur with this vision. I'd just like to read out one part, small part of our contribution in which we say, "The discussion of any new suitable framework or mechanisms must be preceded by the assessment of those current arrangements." So that is why we think the mapping is a very -- is a prerequisite to discussion. We need to know what is there, what is on the table, so we can provide for some intervention on what exists and if there are any -- and the second part says, "The discussion of any suitable framework or mechanisms should be guided by the purpose of addressing perceived needs or filling gaps." And to that end, Brazil proposes first to deepen discussion on what we want before discussing how to achieve what we want.
So we -- we really think we need some good information. I think this -- we thank the group that prepared this initial work on the mapping. I think maybe we'll adjust this later on, Mr. Chair, but I think this is a good way forward in providing us with more good information which we can build upon. Thank you.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you, Brazil. India, this is my intention, that we shall briefly discuss the paper because of the indications of this paper are much greater than to be discussed in a very short time. But before doing that, probably we proceed with the discussion we are having right now. So it is Ellen who asked for the floor followed by Virat and then Jimson and Marilyn. Ellen, please.
>>ELLEN BLACKLER: Thank you. This is Ellen Blackler. I'm one of the business representatives from The Walt Disney Company. I wanted to add something to the discussion so that we continue to be aware of the less formal ways that the community moves to address issues of concern raised by developing countries. Over the past year or two for the discussion at the IGF and other forums, as well as empirical research documenting the availability of content to driving adoption, we and others have put a focus on how to create an environment that encourages locally-relevant content creation. By way of example, at the IGF for the first time there was several sessions on encouraging locally-relevant content that were well attended by participants from developing countries. I attended two sessions, one organized by Google and one organized by Disney and UNESCO, that shared specific best practices in areas that are necessary to develop a robust content creation environment. The panels addressed a range of issues from developing local hosting capabilities to creating sustainable business models for content creators and other efforts such as the partnership we've developed with the Bandung University in Indonesia to encourage an app development industry by creating a prize contest for a locally-developed app. Attendees at these sessions were engaged and I hope came away with some helpful ideas and information. All of that is an -- activity is an organic response to this concern that we've heard about the need for local content development. And I'd like us to keep in mind the important role of that kind of activity when we talk about ways to address these issues.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you, Ellen. Virat, you asked for the floor.
>>VIRAT BHATIA: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I'd like to endorse the point made very strongly by the honorable delegate from Brazil about the fact that we need to carefully evaluate first the issues at hand and find out whether there is an existing mechanism to resolve those issues and whether there is an existing home for those. The working group has prepared the list that was circulated earlier and has about 465 word issues listed in what is lovingly called the laundry list. But I can assure you that after we've taken away the duplicates you will still have about 100-plus issues left there. This is based on the estimates that we did yesterday.
It is also important to note that apart from existing homes that might be available by way of existing mechanisms, a large number of these issues are purely domestic, for national governments to resolve. For example, a deep discussion on access and how important that is and whether there is a role for global governments and global stakeholders or whether that's mostly a national issue will have to take place before we discuss the final set of outcomes and mechanisms that are available or need to be made available. So I suppose the task would include both evaluation of this list of issues, whether existing mechanisms and a division between national and global issues. And after that exercise has been completed, we can proceed to have discussions on the options.
The last pass that I wish to submit, Mr. Chairman, is about the IGFs and the fact that the speaker on the -- on the remote participation spoke about technology, and we strongly endorse the fact that this is a group dealing with technology and Internet. We must find ways to ensure a higher level of participation, especially from the developing world in global events using technology because currently it would seem that the use of technology is a fraction of what is possible, if everybody put their minds to it. So whether it's a matter of cost or technology, I think that is an important area of focus. We should note, however, that to ensure participation from the developing worlds the IGFs have been held, including the next two, in the developing world so that cost of stay, travel, et cetera, are lesser than they would be if it was in a capital city of a developed country. So there are some efforts underway. More have to be made. But before we discuss the issue of mechanisms it would be important to allocate them into existing homes and domestic forces global. Thank you.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you. Jimson, please.
>>JIMSON OLUFUYE: Thank you. Thank you very much, Distinguished Chair, Colleagues, Ladies and Gentlemen. Well, I just also want to underscore this viewpoint who have been expressed before but to relate it to my own direct experience. First, as far as remote participation, it cannot be overemphasized, the need for us to get it right at every meeting. I recall the last IGF in Bali, well-organized and also I appreciate Chengetai and Steve and the government of Bali. I could not travel, but Baku and Abuja I could still contribute in my sessions, in the workshops. Though I have to wake up 1:30 a.m. until 5:00 a.m. in Abuja to be connected, but, you know, I was so happy. You know, with the webcast I saw everybody clearly. They could hear me. There is some little glitches here and there, but I could send my contribution and it was so beautiful. So we need to strengthen that. It's so important. And I will give that channel for developing nations, countries, for their voices to be heard. And really even in Africa, in our own organization, you know, that spans 12 countries in Africa, we meet every month and we use remote communication to move -- to move on, to communicate.
I also want to recognize or say that really we have some group of people calls SMEs, small and medium enterprises, that generally need to be heard. There's no doubt, to be there physically is better than remote because now you can hear me clearly in this hall than breaking.
So small businesses have challenges in terms of funding. It's not cheap. Virat said it. Many of us agree, it's not cheap. Must have a way or mechanism to enabling this sector of the voices to be heard. Many are willing to be around now, representatives but are not able to. For example, I have to sponsor myself to be here, and it's expensive. So we need to look at, you know, business financing for that. Then more investment in awareness, synergy, and collaboration. For collaboration is so important. Among all stakeholders for different organizations, countries, collaborating together. Even within the countries, collaborating together, creating more awareness so that we can have a grasp of what we have attained already, and that will help a great deal. So that just briefly what I want to add to the discussion on the ground. Thank you.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you, Jimson. Yes, I can confirm that remote participation has challenges and has costs. But this is probably the way forward to get more people on board. And I was really happy to be with you on the same panel, your being I don't know how many thousands of kilometers away.
Parminder.
>>PARMINDER JEET SINGH: Yeah, so I was trying to pass on to the mic to any potential speaker because my issue is a little different from the one under discussion. It came to mind because Virat was talking already about already dealing with the questions kind of thing. Since I have the mic, I will make my point.
I think as we have this long list of issues, when we go through, it gives you a good mental map of what kind of things need to be dealt with.
I remind that I and Marilyn were agreeing on some categories of issues which was like already being dealt somewhere. Second was being dealt with but not in a holistic matter in the sense of connecting with other Internet issues. And third was largely not being dealt with anywhere. And the fourth one which Marilyn added which is more of a trend, which is something in the future, and probably policy work is a great focus in that kind of thing.
So once you start kind of bunching --
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Parminder, excuse me. We haven't closed the discussion on Group 4. We come back discussing the paper. I'm very sorry about that.
>>PARMINDER JEET SINGH: Yeah.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: So if anyone would like to contribute to the questions in Group 4, then this is the time to do it. We have had very, very intensive discussion on that, very interesting one, and very constructive one with a lot of proposals, a lot of interesting ideas. And we have to continue to think about these proposals and how to synthesize them into a set of recommendations.
So I'm really happy that this discussion has taken place from so diverse aspects and so diverse points of views.
If you still want to contribute to that one, this is the time to do it.
If not, then we can go to the discussion -- a short discussion of the document which I think will take us to the lunch break. And in the afternoon, after lunch break, I would like to continue with the questions in Group 5. Hopefully, we can finish with Group 5 during this afternoon. And as you know me, I'm always optimistic. But eventually tomorrow, we can start drafting some recommendations. And it seems to me that the best candidates for the recommendations are the questions we have discussed now.
So even though there was a big discussion, I could feel a lot of convergence of ideas and a lot of convergences of recommendations.
So, Marilyn, if you would like to comment on Group 4 -- No. So anyone on Group 4, questions, development issues?
In that case, let me ask the members or one of the representatives of the voluntary task force to introduce this paper for the group.
Any volunteer? Thank you, Marilyn.
>>MARILYN CADE: Well, I'm going to open my introduction by asking two people to please stand up, Lea and Sam. Please stand up. That's why you have this document. So can we start with a round of applause.
[ Applause ]
Now I'm going to try to explain it.
When we spoke yesterday, we were taking Question 4 and doing a mapping exercise. And we had a number of categories that we proposed. So I agree with Virat. We have down the left-hand column the laundry list. Let me tell you where we got the laundry list.
The team went into the submissions and pulled out every bullet and plugged them into this list. So there's a terrific amount of duplication, and we are going to talk about how to synthesize the duplication.
But we felt it was important that you have a sense of the depth of the contributions in a single document. We added a column that's now called "draft categories, work in progress." And this is an effort to use your expertise and contribution to come up with a more homogenized list to go down from 400 and some duplicative into X number that are categories that everyone feels comfortable with.
So the labels need to be descriptive enough that the submitters agree with them and that all of us understand what they mean. I'm going to give you an example.
What you have in the draft categories is our effort to come up with labels or terms. Those aren't cast in concrete. The next category is called "consolidated groupings." That's where we want to plug in the actual headings or issues that the room agrees with.
So let me pick an example. We -- if you look at Number 7, it's called "IPR." We would -- and it appears in several places. We would assume that IPR, or intellectual property rights may be spelled out, would be a common term that if everyone agreed every time we see IPR, we would put the discussion about that topic and we would accept IPR under "consolidated grouping."
If you look at Number 1, the administrative of root zone files and system, we call that "critical Internet resources." The room might not think that that's granular enough. So you might decide you want to call it something else. All we're trying to do is give you a framework to build on.
I will just say a very interesting thing, if you look -- if you glance at this, you can begin to see -- And we started out, Ambassador, we started out with the list from Brazil because it was in the document and then we added on from there.
But if you go over to -- I'm just going to point to 117, 118, 121, 122, 133, 134, you're beginning to see as you keep going through the bullets the same phrases being repeated. So, obviously, our next step -- we did about a hundred. Our next step is to get rid of all the duplication and come up with the consolidated grouping list using terms everybody agrees with.
The next step we talked about doing was to identify the current activities and approaches that are underway and then to Parminder's point, then have a conversation about I'm calling it the "how satisfied are we." And I think Parminder -- Parminder, these four categories, that's right now under a heading called "status" because we didn't really know what to call it.
So you've got a document that we really need everyone to look at and to think about are you happy with the draft category labels that we provided to you to think about. Do you want to change some of them? And how do we do this quickly so that we can actually go ahead with the next step?
But I don't think this small team is volunteering to do all of the work without more help.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you, Marilyn. I would like also to thank all those who participated in establishing this list. And frankly speaking, the list is frightening.
[ Laughter ]
>>MARILYN CADE: I'm sorry, Chairman. I thought you meant exciting.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Yeah, that's exactly what I meant. It's really exciting and probably we have to calm down. And we need some time to think about. I don't assume that the horrendous task of merging and eliminating duplications is within our capacity right now. But we are probably -- it gives us a lot of thought for -- to think about in the upcoming days.
I reiterate what I said in the morning, that this is a very good beginning to take stock what we have and what we called the mapping exercise. So probably this is a very good first step.
But I would suggest that we might think about going further. As I said in the morning, I would like to ask the secretariat to provide this in one of the future meetings we have with some background document in this respect about the existing mechanisms and existing examples of enhanced cooperation.
So I believe it will be extremely useful for this group. And it doesn't mean that we don't have to work on this document ourselves but probably not right now. You may take your time probably. You may like to consult with your colleagues back home as well. So it's really up to you. It is really your decision what we're going to do with this document.
So any comment regarding the document itself?
Parminder, please. And then Chris.
>>PARMINDER JEET SINGH: Thank you, Chair. I'll continue with the comments which I was making earlier.
So I think we have a nice list here, and I agree with the categories as they are, including up to the status which is where we would be able to say whether we think they are being dealt with, they are being dealt with but not in a holistic manner, they have largely not been dealt with, and they are future trends which require a lot of policy work because the idea is that this is what -- and I agree with both the phrases, frightening and exciting but definitely enormous set of things which are needed to be done and which is the mandate of this group to figure out -- not to do it but to figure out the mechanism of what could start to do something about it, the mechanism and not addressing these issues.
Therefore, from these issues we have to go towards mechanisms, which is our mandate. And I think the translation starts from the status which is the four categories we mentioned, and then also the categories which I tried yesterday which is the technical policies, oversight and public policies. Like, the one, administration of root zone file and system, it is either one or two in that case. And as Ambassador from Brazil said, these three categorizations already exist in the relevant sections of Tunis Agenda. They have very clearly said day-to-day operation is one side, principles related to CIRs is another thing, which is oversight, I understand, and other public policy issues is three. So they have that.
So after the status, if we do that, we can then start entering what needs to be done under each category. And that's where our recommendations of whether we are satisfied, we think, you know, it should be done in a distributed manner, we need a new body, et cetera, comments can start coming. Last one even, role of stakeholders.
I think from issues, therefore, the conversion into the real elements of our mandate would that way be possible. Thank you.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you, Parminder.
Chris Disspain.
>>CHRIS DISSPAIN: Thank you. So thanks for asking about what we should do with this document. And I'd hate to see all this hard work go to waste. I think we should decide to move on, the way forward with this. And maybe the way forward is for a small group, sub working group if you'd like, to take this and move it down the line over the next few weeks.
I wanted to support Virat's very clear point about a number of these issues are not actually global issues; they're national issues. So as part of the process of going -- I think the next step is to go through and look at duplicates. I think that's really important because obviously there is a heap of those.
And then I think the next step after that is to say: Is it actually an issue relevant to this working group? Because if it's not an international global issue or for that matter an Internet governance issue, then it can go into a separate category.
And then I think we can start to look at rating them and doing what Parminder was talking about.
But I'd like to suggest that we do agree to have a small working group take charge of this document. I appreciate that the two or three people that have done this work so far can't do it on their own and we continue to work on the document. Thanks.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you, Chris. As far as eliminating duplicates, I think this is doable and it is relatively simple. As far as evaluating the relevance of some questions, I have my doubts that in a small group we can do that. Probably as the issues which have been raised came from contributions asked by the working group itself in the questionnaire. So probably those who contributed have thought about the relevance of the issues. So I don't believe that a small group may like to judge whether this is relevant or not.
So probably we have to be very cautious about that. I have nothing against, however, setting up such a small working body -- shall we call it a working party, using the ITU terminology -- to do a kind of reduction of the number of issues we have, retaining everything -- I'm just talking about the duplications.
I can see Virat asking for the floor. Sorry, sorry. India, you asked for the floor? Oh, Brazil. Oh, my goodness. We are approaching lunch break. I'm sorry.
>>BRAZIL: Thank you, Mr. Chair. I think I have some comments that were already covered by others. But one thing that occurs to me that has just been said, Mr. Chair, that it is doable towards having a more workable document, to eliminate duplication. I think that might be something more easily done. Just by looking at the pages, I identified eight references to multilingualism, either with a single word or multilingualism including internationalized domain names. So maybe we can retain both. But at least if we eliminate six, I think this would be the case in regard to other issues. So we may come up with a document with over 100 may be but more workable.
And in regard to the small working group that would be tasked to further elaborate on this, I think that's probably the most efficient way to go about it. But I would also think that we would need this group to be open to contributions because since we are dealing with a universe of issues, I think expertise and inputs would be needed from various parties that would not necessarily be in this working group.
And the most -- of course, the most burdensome issue would be to fill in current activities and approaches. I think the real challenge would be in regard to this column to identify exactly what are the current arrangements or what is being done in that regard. And we don't need to identify what interventions we might propose or agree to recommend or at least to identify.
So I think this -- I don't have any idea of the amount of work, but I think it might require some extension of time that I think if we can aim at having this by our next meeting, that would be, I think, maybe a big challenge enough for the working group to work around this. Thank you.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you, Brazil. Probably you don't need my advice of how to eliminate duplicates. Probably a simple sort on the Column 2 of this issue list will do and it will help. And then we can proceed on that.
So I can sense that to establish a small working party may be agreed upon by this group. So probably you would like to think about how you would like to establish this working party which will be naturally open to anyone who'd like to participate from this group.
India, please.
>>INDIA: Thank you, Chair. Quickly, first of all, we wish to place on record our sincere appreciation to our colleagues led by Marilyn for coming up with this list which, I guess, is largely based on the contributions that we have. I think it is a very good basis to start with, though there are duplications, and I'm sure there are a few things which we need to look at.
At the same time, the recognition that we could have at this point in time is if there are more additions to be made by any of the members of the working group, you could, perhaps, set a particular time frame during the course of the day by which time then there is a more acceptable list of issues. I'm not saying everyone agrees to what's in here but at least if there are any new areas, which the small group or the larger group would look at it subsequently.
And, again, with the clear provision that you could at any time if any member wants to add a new issue to be added, the flexibility exists. With that understanding starting to begin with, we have the issues settled to begin with.
And the second step would be, I think, on the lines of categorization of these issues. The two approaches I think as we heard, one approach could be on the lines which we already have -- where we have mentioned in our contribution that the last working group on Internet governance did classify them into four categories.
Perhaps if that is one basis or possibility, yeah, if you want to add one more -- there are four listed here. One can be there.
And, thereafter, the other suggestion was to look at just what Parminder has summarized based on what earlier I think were his discussions with Marilyn. So perhaps that initial kind of determination could be made in the larger group on categorization.
And then the smaller group would be tasked with the responsibility to place them in different groups and then thereafter come in the larger group to see the next steps. I think that could be perhaps a logical way to go about as we see it. Thank you, Chair.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you, India. I think this is a good way of moving forward. I think the voluntary task force was looking at the contributions, took the input from the contributions but nothing prevents us to give additional items. However, I caution ourselves as far as the extent of expanding.
We have constraints, meaning that we have to come up with recommendations according to a mandate for the next session of the CSTD which would be May. That is, we have to finish our work by end of February, beginning of March.
We have to be aware, also, we shall do our best but it is not going to perfect. We have to make some compromises.
So there's always room for improvement, I understand. There's always a possibility of taking up new things, but I caution you to be very, very careful how we are going to proceed.
As for the categories you suggested, I think this is a good way forward. It is the bigger group, that is the whole working group, which may establish the categories. And probably the working party we are going to create can work on the basis of that; that is, eliminating duplication and putting the issues into the categories or putting categories to the issues, whatever way you would like to put it.
Any other intervention? Virat?
>>VIRAT BHATIA: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. So just trying to consolidate some of the points and clarifying them. So the step one, I suppose, we're moving towards clearing the duplicates because we've got to come down from this list of 460.
Step two, I think a determination would have to be made about whether the issues that have been mentioned here fall under the overall ambit of Internet governance and lend themselves to the dialogue on enhanced cooperation. That's a key threshold through which the issues must enter the door for consideration for this group and its mandate.
The third would be whether these are national governments and domestic issues or whether they lend themselves to a global dialogue and a global discussion or policy making as some of my colleagues have called it.
The fourth step would be to classify them as -- I think the Indian delegate mentioned about the working group on IGF improvements. But I suppose it's WGIG that he might be mentioning. The four classifications are in the WGIG document. I suppose it is that document, unless I'm wrong.
Then there is the WGIG document versus the formula that has just been sort of offered by Parminder here.
And the last would then be to sort of qualify it as whether there is an existing home, whether the existing home or mechanism is doing sufficient work, and whether there is nothing currently available and, therefore, something needs to be found on a way to handle it. It could be about five steps.
I would say one -- I would just make one submission that whatever the smaller group does should be submitted on a no-judgment basis as a preliminary report to the entire group so that they're able to requalify an issue if they believe that needs to be mentioned separately and doesn't fall under the duplication because the smaller group, as you have mentioned, may not be sort of entirely authorized to strike off an issue as already exists. So I think we should provide that, maybe a week or a ten-day opportunity, to everybody to look at that list in case they absolutely insist that their issue has not been included. And that would be immediately after step one, which is when we clear out duplicates.
So I submit a five-stage process could be followed and the Brazilian Ambassador's point that we should have this by the next meeting so we could have a sensible sort of time period in which we can conclude this exercise. Thank you.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: I think we are getting there. If there's no one from the group who'd like to take the floor, I would call on the observer.
>>LEA KASPAR: Thank you, Chair. Lea Kaspar for Global Partners.
I was one of the people working on the document. And I just wanted to say that perhaps it might be helpful to note that if the group would find this useful, we can just delete the duplicates today and have that ready by tomorrow so we can just go on to the second step as was noted now. So just I want to offer my time to do that if the group would find it useful.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Definitely I find it useful if you deleted the duplicates. As for the continuation of the work, I would like to think about how we are going to proceed. It's very tempting to work on this document. However, we shouldn't lose sight of our main task. So what I suggest now to have our lunch break and let's discuss it after lunch, consider what we are going to do and how we are going to do.
Before breaking for lunch, Joy wanted to take the floor. Joy?
>>JOY LIDDICOAT: Thank you, Mr. Chair. I apologize for keeping people from their well-deserved lunch break. Just one suggestion to assist the smaller working group. I notice that a number of people offered to assist in preparing the document, and there are one or two people who are indicating they might like to also contribute to this task. And I am just wanting to make sure that would be possible, for example, Anja Kovacs from (indiscernible) Project, who wishes to assist. And if there are any others, I think that would be a useful contribution. Thank you.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you, Joy. I'm going to consider it. Thank you.
And now I think we are going to break for lunch and we come back at 3:00. Thank you.
[ Lunch break ]
[ Gavel ]
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Good afternoon, welcome back. You look fresh. You had a nice lunch and the weather is beautiful outside. I imagine you would have liked to walk down to the lake. Can I ask you to take your seats, please? Shall I sing something?
[ Speaking non-English language ]
[ Laughter ]
Okay, I would like to start now. I would like to the Swiss delegation to take their seat. Thank you.
Okay. So before lunch break there were a lot of things going on. First of all, we discussed the questions in Group 4. We had a very, very good discussion on that. I'm really happy to have all of these ideas confronted. And we had the short presentation of a very good paper containing a few issues, if I'm not mistaken there are over 480 issues. And we agreed that there would be additional work done on this paper and eliminate duplicates. I was promised to have this paper by tomorrow and eventually tomorrow morning we may start some kind of relatively short discussion on this paper.
What I suggest now to do is to attack the questions in Group 5. And I hope to finish it by 6:00. Leisurely we're going to take a coffee break at around half past 5:00. There's one thing I want to ask you if you have any comments on the discussions we had this morning or any observation concerning the way we are proceeding. If there are no comments, I would like to add once again that my target is to start drafting some recommendations tomorrow. There are a lot of issues which I -- I think that we may agree on, there would be a consensus, or close to consensus, and I want to repeat that this is a drafting exercise. It is not a final recommendation. We are just drafting something we can build on for the next meeting. But I find it extremely important that the -- at the end of this meeting we already have some things to build on for the next meeting, which I still don't know and it very much depends on you, how you feel it. It may be one or two meetings next year. I'm inclined to think that we may need to have two meetings, but it's up to you to decide.
Okay. So I suggest to go into the Group 5 and look through the questions pertaining to this group. I -- as usual, I'll give you about five minutes to go through and to concentrate and I'm expecting your comments after that.
[ Break ]
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Okay. So I think you had some time to review the questions in the Group 5 which is about barriers for participation and enhanced cooperation which is very close to what's been discussed previously. So I invite you to give your comments. So who would like to take the floor first? Yes, Grace.
>>GRACE GITHAIGA: I would like to just articulate some of the points that APC had raised but then, you know, they say they are the reflections of -- the comments are not reflected. And I just want to say some of them that in the barriers they highlight the absence of common principles for Internet governance at substantive and procedural levels. There's also not even a common understanding what the Internet is from an economic or legal perspective.
The second barrier is the geopolitical arrangements among states, and interventions by states and global policy processes appear to be aimed at protecting the specific business or political interests rather than reflect a broader mandate from all their citizens. There's also an equal distribution of power among governments in global Internet governance basis. Some are simply more powerful than others. And often positions are shaped by this powerful configurations rather than by a desire to achieve the best possible public interest outcomes. There's also limited financial resources, time, capacity, and knowledge operate as barriers for the participation of the Internet governance ecosystem by civil society, by small- and medium-sized business, and governments from developing countries. And then, of course, there's also the barrier of diversity, different political and cultural backgrounds and traditions, different understandings about the role of governments and different approaches by governments to inclusive policy processes.
In terms of actions required, one of the main things is that there needs to be more work with marginalized communities for us to develop local content in all languages that meets the needs and tells the stories of these marginalized communities.
In terms of how EC can address issues to a broader socioeconomic development, one of the key factors is that it should ensure that stakeholders from all sectors reach agreement on a common vision and go through ICT support and socioeconomic development and by respecting that they can contribute to meeting these goals. It is also important to manage conflicts of interests and put human rights and public interests first.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you, Grace. Any other comments? Parminder.
>>PARMINDER JEET SINGH: Just on the (indiscernible) of the group, since nobody else is commenting, I will talk to keep the discussion rolling. Two small points. One is that it was pointed out earlier, I think by the Indian delegation, that though we are talking about participation discretion is linked to the question of mechanisms because many of us think the basic barrier is a fact that there is no peer mechanism on which policymaking development takes place and that itself is a barrier. And if we have a mechanism, then you will have different kind of barriers. But a big barrier right now is an absence of a mechanism.
Second, because there are a couple of issues, a couple of questions under this set like the affordability question. In an effort to what a lot of you have said, that one of the (indiscernible) which should be applied to the issues is whether their relevant to our mandate, which is international public policymaking, and whether they are national level issues.
So I would think that in our discussion we should focus on the international public policy aspects. I do think even access and local content may have an international aspect, but we as a mandate of the group are discussing international public policy issues and that (indiscernible) should be applied when we get into these questions to make the most productive use of our time. Thank you.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you, Parminder. I think I just want to comment on your last point, which I think is a valid point. We have formulated questions, we have received the input, and that is part of our mandate. But it's up to us to decide upon whatever we take on board and whatever we think is not so relevant to our mandate. And we can naturally contribute ourselves. So we ask the (indiscernible) to contribute in forms of recommendations based on the inputs we have. But naturally, we can -- we should do our homework. So any other comments? Jimson, thank you.
>>JIMSON OLUFUYE: Thank you very much, Distinguished Chair. When it comes to Baher (phonetic), I just look back that now I'm involved and there are still many stakeholders that still need to be involved in the process. Thus far. And one of, I think, the finest new job (indiscernible) is gap in internal processes, even at the national level. Also regional level and then international level. There's no doubt about that.
When it comes to national level I can recall when we are talking about dot NG Nigeria there were a lot of issues. There was no understanding among the stakeholders, but until the government took the leadership role and brought in everybody, that was when there was peace, there was harmony. We are now working together. I now have the privilege of being a part of ICANN, basically playing at least some very -- I appreciate the leadership there. Some very neutral positions there, roles there. And that is business. The Government Advisory Committee too, at least from my experience from African perspective, awareness is a challenge because many government are not even aware that it could be involved in decision-making when it comes to the critical Internet, you know, resources. Talking about the ccTLD and the new gTLD and even the other issues that (indiscernible). But also this was a lot of language, you know. We have language barrier. Like Africa with more than 4,000 languages and 3,000 -- more than 3,000 ethnic groups, so it was also challenges. Before you get information to the grass-roots it takes a little while.
So more information, the challenge of submitting information, and also bringing people together. And also funding to do this campaign. I think that we also see an important job to do here, to develop some good funding to proper awareness, even down to the grass root. Because they are not aware, they don't know what they need to do, you know. And this is very, very important.
Then at the international level, well, it's an evolution. The process is ongoing. And I'm optimistic that by the time we're able to use the bottom-up approach we need to be clear what we need to do at the international level. But basically, the challenge is getting the home together. They say charity begins at home. Thank you.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you, Jimson. One comment I can make is about the GAC and the ICANN, as far as I know, right, there are about 120-plus governments who are members of the Advisory Committee, Governmental Advisory Committee, but you have a point here that naturally out of this 120-plus countries, only about 60-plus who are actively participating or physically participating in the meetings. But I think there is a progress there as well. And all the points you pointed out are extremely variable and we should concentrate on these points. Marilyn.
>>MARILYN CADE: Thank you, Chair. Something that Jimson said really sparked -- and Grace's comments really sparked my interest in commenting on the aspect of informed awareness. And informed participation and how much more we need to do to explain the relevance of Internet governance to the decisions that affect the use and the usability and the availability of the Internet and the online world.
We often use the word "internet" as a code word when we actually probably mean the World Wide Web, social networks, all of the rich sources of stored data as well as the Internet which connects those together. And I think one thing when we start thinking about where's work being done, we may actually find ourselves needing to parse that a little bit more to think about whether we're talking about online content or we're talking about transport. But in terms of thinking about awareness, I think explaining in more citizen-friendly language what we would say in business is layman's language, but citizen-friendly language what is going on in Internet governance that is a policy or a decision that may affect legislation or it may affect a regulatory change or it may affect an initiative that your government is going to be taking. If citizens are reading in the local media or seeing -- I was privileged to be invited to speak at AfICTS summit in July in Lagos and spent a fair amount of time talking to the Nigerian press about what Internet governance is and why it matters on a global basis. Because they were looking at it -- they were very interested in why AfICTA would be engaging in global activities as well as -- and why they would be engaging and working with the Nigerian government to focus on policies that the Nigerian government was addressing.
So I'd like to put my vote with, I think, both Grace and Jimson and others about the need for us to think about the importance of lack of awareness as a major barrier to how stakeholders can learn about the activities and how they can participate.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you, Marilyn. Raising awareness is the expression I hear most. Saudi Arabia. Majed.
>>SAUDI ARABIA: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. This is a -- a very good and important question in regards to the barriers, for all stakeholders to fully participate in their respective roles in global Internet governance.
Among the various stakeholders groups identified in Tunis Agenda, we believe that it's only the governments who are unable to participate in their role in Internet governance. As I stated earlier, there is no effective mechanisms for them to undertake that role, which is the development of international Internet-related public policy in consultation with all stakeholders. Enhanced cooperation was intended to provide this mechanism and the process toward the implementation of enhanced cooperation was to begin by first quarter of 2006. However, governments supporting implementation of the WSIS outcomes have reached the point of creating this group and its mandate as it's stated in the UNGA resolution. The purpose is to make recommendations on how to fully implement the mandate of the WSIS regarding enhanced cooperation as contained in the Tunis Agenda.
In regards to the other questions, how can enhanced cooperation address the issues toward global social and economical -- or economic development, bring us back to -- I mean, the creation of this mechanism -- and this relates to Question 6 is how to implement enhanced cooperation. We proposed that to establish a body, regardless it's a new body or under the U.N. system umbrella, and the enhanced cooperation body is a body and its related process mandate to (indiscernible) international public policy pertaining to the Internet. The processes will address the details of how issues are introduced, studied in consultation with all stakeholders, debated, agreed, disseminated, adopted, and implemented. But the first is to establish the body. Or to provide the platform for the government. As I stated, in the U.N. family funding, Secretariat support, high-level processes, these details will follow. But first we have to provide this platform. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you. Virat, please.
>>VIRAT BHATIA: Mr. Chairman, just a clarification. There are four questions here. Are we going one by one or can we go for all? How do you want to proceed?
>>CHAIR MAJOR: As you wish. I would like to take the whole group together, and if you want to spec -- treat questions specifically, feel free to do it.
>>VIRAT BHATIA: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The question I wanted to remind myself, Mr. Chairman, is about barriers that remain for all stakeholders to fully participate in the representative roles in global Internet governance. This is not specifically about enhanced cooperation. So I just want to be sure that we sort of attack that question. And I would argue, based on the comments that have been received from 60-odd bodies, that it would seem that governments and business have most access to information, activities, and events related to Internet governance. I would also argue, based on the evidence here, that the technical communities have perhaps the second best access and the civil society and academia easily the least access. I would quote, with your permission, from the submissions of Anja Kovacs for the project director for Internet Democracy who seeks distributed Internet governance process where she lists two specific reasons why civil society specifically is unable to participate. The first being procedural matter where much of the events that is organized are very last-minute and in developing countries and so information, availability, et cetera, is a challenge for civil societies, except those who are the regular players in this arena.
The second that she lists here, and correctly so, and this seems to be affecting more than just the civil society, is the issue of funding. Since we have not explored technology to its fullest extent, I think the point of funding is coming in the way of making our processes multistakeholder and certainly becoming one of the most significant barriers that are listed here.
I would also quote from the inputs provided by the United States where they have proposed solutions, including outline clear modalities with the default being the civil society can attend and participate on an equal footing with other stakeholders, provide advance notice -- meetings for notice -- notices for meetings, make available travel fellowships, publish all relevant material with no passwords, et cetera, and more participation. So I think excellent suggestions here from the inputs which we've included which I urge that the house consider as we respond to this question.
I now turn to the second question in the group of four which relates to how can enhanced cooperation address the key issues towards global social and economic development and here I quote from the India submission from the government -- sorry, it's a submission from another civil society from India, SFLC, which talks about the fact that infrastructure can play a major role in bridging this divide and any discussion or decision that allows for all stakeholders to act together in a covenant manner nationally will then become an example for what can be done globally. I think sort of evidence has been provided here.
On the third question that we're dealing with relating to what actions are needed to promote effective participation of all marginalized people in the global information society I again turn to the government of India -- sorry, the Indian submission by SFLC which states, and I quote, "that an established need to identify areas where further efforts and resources need to be pooled for the marginalized community. Firstly, affordable access to information and communications technology, digital literacy, for the rural poor and other marginalized groups, including women and children, should be assured." Much of what has been spoken by my colleague Jim here. And I think a very special effort. But this, to a very large extent, is about providing physical access and multilingualism. In a country like India, for example, we have 22 recognized languages. There's a dialect almost every 20 kilometers and hundreds of mother tongues. The rupee note carries 15 different scripts of how the rupee can be mentioned. So it's -- you know, we're rich in diversity in that sense. And so if it was taken as a microcosm of what the issue is globally, I think we have a good example to start.
I come to the last question, with your permission, Mr. Chair, and what are the key issues to be addressed to promote affordability of Internet in particular developing countries and the least-developing countries, and here again, the multistakeholder role of all the parties is critical. Private sector, as we have often spoken about for the last day and a half about investment, innovation, technology, human resources, infrastructure, et cetera, capital, the technical community, which is working very hard across the world to lower the cost of access, 85 to 90% of the remaining world, 60% of the unconnected world will connect on mobile devices. Prices of mobile devices are being dropped sharply across the world with innovation and help from the technical community, so they have a significant role also to stretch the limits of spectrum and what it can do with regards to data because the facility that provides with regards to voice are quite different than data and online access, civil society which drives transparency, which drives accountability, and strives for lower cost.
So if you look at this holistically, even in this role of providing access to developing countries and least developed countries, each one of them has a role.
I will close by saying that the government in India, just as an example, has made a decision about two years ago to transform a universal service obligation fund which was collected from a 5% of every mobile bill that was paid by a mobile subscriber and was originally reserved for connecting rural India has been changed and the law has been changed with an agreement of all parties to the parliament. And now $4.5 billion are being deployed to build a national fiberoptic network that will soon connect 250,000 villages purely for online access for the most part. So this is a remarkable case where consumers using mobile phones have deposited money in an account which is now being used to provide rural access. And so each one of those stakeholders I have just highlighted have a role in providing access especially with developed and underdeveloped countries. Thank you.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Two comments. I wouldn't call India a microcosm with 1 billion plus people.
The second comment is when you mentioned "spectrum," did you mean frequency spectrum?
>>INDIA: Yes.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Good. Sweden.
>>SWEDEN: Thank you, Chair. Well, we -- I would like to start with saying that we do think that there are barriers left that we have to deal with when it comes to participation of all stakeholders in Internet governance. And some of them have already been touched upon like the financial restraints, lack of awareness and not at least the issue of language, multilingualism.
Those are definitely restraints that affect participation of all stakeholders, I would say, but maybe particularly civil society, academia and technical community.
We also think that another barrier is the lack of policy transparency that still exists on many levels, both nationally and internationally. There is often a lack of consultation with stakeholders before new policy is put in place, legislation is put in place. And that is definitely a challenge for many stakeholders.
In the international arena, we see this as well. Just to take an example, documentation in some international organizations like the ITU, for instance, is only for members. My government has certainly pushed this issue on many occasions, that we want to increase access to relevant documentation to all stakeholders. So that is -- that is another issue.
I think when we're looking at Question 12 about marginalized people and how marginalized people can be more -- can participate more in the global information society, we think that that is part of much broader issues, empowerment issues.
For example, we have the question of gender equality which is very important. We know that women today are to a lesser extent users of Internet, for instance. So I think that's part of a broader issue of trying to empower citizens and empower stakeholders.
When it comes to the issue of affordability, we certainly think that it's very important to create an enabling business environment through deregulation, predictable business environment and definitely fostering competition because we know from experience that competition brings down prices. So we hope that we can work on some of the -- some recommendations that points in that direction. Thank you.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you, Sweden. I think we are on the right track. We are working towards recommendations.
I can see Baher. You wanted to take the floor?
>>BAHER ESMAT: Thank you, Chair. I'm Baher Esmat. I'm with ICANN. So I echo the views of colleagues about -- on the question of barriers, about raising awareness and funding as key barriers for participation in Internet governance, particularly from developing countries.
I also echo the views about language, language barriers. Marilyn made a valid point about making information available in laymen language for the broader participation.
One of the -- one other related issue we noticed in our engagement at ICANN and developing countries is the relevance of the issue itself. And it was mentioned by the distinguished delegate from Brazil, you know, the example of, you know, the session at the IGF about developing issues and, you know, the new gTLD issue and whether it's relevant or not. So the relevance of the agenda itself is quite an issue.
And that's why I'm not in agreement with the view that the lack of a mechanism or the lack of mechanisms is the main barrier because oftentimes we have mechanisms in place. But the issue is more about whether the issues and discussions are relevant or not.
At the same time, there are key governance issues for developing countries that are mainly national issues. They need to be addressed mainly at national issues like access. Many of the contributions to the questionnaire recognized that access remains to be a key issue for developing countries. And I would say that 99% of policy discussions about access, whether in terms of broadband access or availability of content in local languages, all these policies are more relevant to the national sort of governance dialogue.
So I think it's more -- the other point I want to raise is, again, in relation to access and in relation to the question about the social and economic aspects of enhanced cooperation. So there was the study of OECD, ISOC and UNESCO, I think, which identified one key fact about the correlation between the development of the infrastructure and the availability of local content. And, again, this is something that is very challenging for developing countries. And this is something that needs to be addressed more at national levels.
And if we're talking about mechanisms to address these issues, then we have to go back and, you know, using the term that many people use "that Internet governance starts at home."
So I'm more towards, you know, wanting to see more discussion or more listing of issues in relation to barriers and all this. And I think the exercise we're going to do shortly will identify whether those issues are relevant to the global agenda or the national agenda or elsewhere. So I'll stop there. Thank you.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you, Baher.
Well, for the time being, we have heard very interesting contributions. Some of them were controversial -- I mean, contradictory to each other. But it just reflects the complexity of the task which is ahead of us.
So I wonder if you would like to comment on this group of questions about the barriers, local content?
I turn to observers, if you have any comments.
Well, in that case, I think we have concluded the first round. We have gone through all the questions. We have given our comments, and we have had a rich discussion about all these issues.
So what is ahead of us is on one hand to formulate recommendations. On the other hand, we'd like to revisit the document which was offered to us by the voluntary task force and we were promised to have it by tomorrow.
So, I'm reminded that Joy would like to take the floor.
Joy, the floor is yours.
>>JOY LIDDICOAT: Thank you. Thank you for checking in. Can you hear me?
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Yes, very well.
>>JOY LIDDICOAT: Thank you. I just wanted to comment on the barriers to participation and to emphasize the barriers for particular groups that are listed in some of the submissions. And I'm quite concerned with some of the submissions in front of us. I'm a little concerned that some input seems to be repeating the (indiscernible) that we focused on, a particular concern about whether a (indiscernible) is needed or not. And I think that's doing a disservice to the hard work of submissions who have been active and taken submissions seriously.
And I would ask you to be reminded about that and to focus particular on the barriers of civil society from developing countries and particularly those who access -- have a really significant issue and for those half of the world's population who do not even have access.
In particular, I am also concerned about the barriers for women and particularly for women's participation in Internet governance. And this is the subject of a working group recommendation to the Human Rights Council.
And I would ask the secretariat perhaps to consolidate a list of recommendations in relation to participation from some of the other U.N. bodies. I think that would be a useful input, if the working group could (indiscernible) as part of the recommendation acknowledge the other mechanisms and statements within Internet governance that have reached these barriers and made recommendations and actions on them. Thank you.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you, Joy.
I believe in our discussions we tried to touch upon all the submissions we received. And we provided the kind of summary, which to my best knowledge, tried to really encompass all the relevant points and making an attempt not to forget about any of the contributions.
In the group itself, I think there are representatives of U.N. bodies. And as the meeting is open, there is nothing to prevent other U.N. bodies to follow what we are doing here.
Saudi Arabia.
>>SAUDI ARABIA: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We have listened with good interest to the interventions in regards to the barriers and to the understanding of how are we going to approach forward from this group.
However, Mr. Chairman, as the Saudi government, we came to this meeting and we have a mandate from the UNGA resolution. And when we say "enhanced cooperation," it has to be as referenced in the Tunis Agenda. And we are coming from paragraph 69 that there's a need for enhanced cooperation in the future to enable governments. And being as a government, we are here to try to accomplish or start this mandate in regards to the enhanced cooperation and able governments to develop international public policy issues.
Also, our references in regards to -- I have listened to the IGF dialogue and the enhancement and raise awareness of these, and we support this but in the same time, there should be in parallel the enhanced cooperation. And I'm also referring to UNGA resolutions that the two -- the IGF and enhanced cooperation is two distinct processes. The IGF is to provide the platform for all stakeholders to discuss dialogue, and the enhanced cooperation for governments is to provide the platform for governments to undertake their role.
But I'm trying to speak here and try not to use the word "enhanced cooperation" or "IGF." I will try to tackle the issue as it's facing the global as a problem.
I heard that there's -- I believe that the existing processes are adequate and there is no need for governments to assume a larger role in Internet governance.
However, last night, my colleague and I were thinking of various issues on the Internet and how the current mechanisms are simply not able to handle them adequately. So maybe when giving an example, we will be more clear. And since I'm speaking in English, excuse me for my diplomacy. I would rather we have this in all six languages, but I will do my best.
Everyone is familiar, for example, with the prevalence of botnets, phishing, malware, viruses, identity theft, online fraud and sadly child pornography. Who in this room has not received numerous spam messages containing an infected attachment or asking for the disclosure of personal identity information? Recently Saudi Arabia was the target of denial of service attacks against two of our largest companies in the petroleum industry, Saudi Aramco and Sabic. There are many more prominent examples around the world.
Countries also face major difficulties dealing with the practices which is dangerous or illegal. Most content providers are responsive to the hosts of their home base country.
The governments of these countries will intervene with the content providers when they believe that content is inappropriate or unlawful according to their laws or norms. But those governments are generally unhelpful when asked to intervene with content providers on behalf of other countries.
A recent example for Saudi and many other Muslim countries was the YouTube video defaming the Prophet Muhammad based upon him. Can someone tell me how existing mechanisms will solve the problem when someone in Saudi Arabia or any other countries loses their life savings in an Internet scam from another country or a major oil exporter has their operation shut down or major structure is turned off or government services are destructed or bank records are stolen?
Can someone tell me how the private sector, civil society, standard bodies, academia, can possibly handle these issues alone? Of course not. The only chance for success is the active participation of governments and their full role developing and implementing international cooperation and public policy in full consultation with all stakeholders.
We also have heard about the equal footing in regards to the decision-making policy, equivalent to the governments. It is important to realize the governments are the bodies who have obligations to their citizens, to protect them from harm and to establish and maintain their rights both offline and online.
No other stakeholder and group can perform this role in an unbiased manner. Unfortunately, because if they are at the governments in the multistakeholder Internet governance model and the Tunis Agenda has not been implemented, many countries cannot adequately benefit from the Internet or help their citizens solve the issues they are facing online.
In addition, some governments also cannot protect their rights as states when it touches the sovereignty of the states.
There's an entity or one entity has tremendous advantage of being able to enforce its low simply because it controls or manages or has access to so much of Internet infrastructure but also great influence over content providers operating within its border and exercises influence when it suits its purposes.
But it shows no willingness to extend the influence when governments requested to court content be considered insensitive or is morally offensive.
What we want is the following. International cooperation agreements are necessary and important and have proved to work well and to the benefit of all in the field of ICT.
Good examples are frequency interference, spectrum harmonization, satellite orbits and compatible numbering. Any government when presented with a claim of cross-border frequency interference, for example, will investigate and take action to correct the problem irrespective of what entity in its jurisdictions is causing the problem. This could not happen without the direct involvement of governments. No other stakeholders' group could do it or would even want to do it.
The same problems face all governments when trying to provide the benefits of the Internet to their citizens while protecting them and at the same time maintaining stability and interoperability of the Internet. The protection of citizens is the mandate of the governments. No other stakeholders group can do it, and most have no interest in doing it.
The current governance mechanisms do not and cannot successfully address most of the critical problems and issues within the Internet. Governments should be able to protect their people and their entities in their territories both online and offline.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you, Saudi Arabia.
Any other comments? If not, I think this is the proper time to break for coffee. And then I would recommend you to come back at :35, 4:35. Thank you.
[ Break ]
[ Gavel ]
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Welcome back. May I ask you to take your seats, please? Thank you. Before the coffee break we discussed Group Number 5 and more general questions, and I think we have come to the end of discussing the responses based on the inputs to the questionnaire. We have gone through all the questions and it is my feeling that there's a sense of understanding, we understand each other, we know what -- what are the concerns of some of us.
On a more positive note, I can sense some kind of consensus on some issues. So I would like to concentrate on those where we have the hope to achieve consensus. We don't really have to agree on everything. We don't really have to have all parties agree on everything. We may have dissenting voices. We have to keep in mind that we are formulating recommendations. It's not a resolution. Just recommendations. And we try to fulfill the mandate we have been given by the U.N. General Assembly.
So right now I suggest to you to start the exercise of drafting. It will be a process. We are not going to draft, right now, the final text. I have asked the Secretariat to take the notes, your suggested text, and you can see it on the screen where our captioning will be available on the other screen. I'm sorry for those of you who are -- who have your back to this screen, and some of you who are more fortunate can see both.
At this time I would like to concentrate on questions where I sensed a common understanding, and I think that was Group 4 and Group 5. So what I really want to do, the structure of the recommendations, I would follow the groupings we have been following during the two days up to now. So we may like to put them -- the groups and start by Group 4, that is questions of developing countries, and I'm expecting you to provide some text, what are the recommendations you think should come to the document we are going to provide for the CSTD next May. India, please.
>>INDIA: Thank you, Chair, and I think we have come to the perhaps the very important task which is of preparing a report of recommendations, a report with recommendations. I think it's -- while the approach that you proposed which is to take those areas where we seem to have a broad consensus and thereby focus on that and leaving those where we feel that there are -- obviously there's still not convergence of views at a later stage, I think we have some reservations on this approach. I'll explain why. Firstly, we all agree there needs to be critical discussion within the U.N. fora. We tend to leave the -- we tend to address all issues to start with and thereafter leave the final decision on those difficult areas to the last day. Taking that approach I think is sometimes useful because you tend to see that -- well, unless there's a certain amount of pressure that has been brought on purely on the issue of time, there is no -- no serious effort by the delegations to sort of arrive at a consensus.
But having said that, in the current approach that we intend to follow, one -- there are issues which are difficult ones, we acknowledge and we have seen the diversity of views that are there, particularly on Group 2 and 3. Completely leaving that to a later date might not be an appropriate way to go about because these differences persist in the last day. Number one.
Number two, there are decisions which are not to be made here. They all require certain inputs from the capitals and require certain kind of consensus building not -- outside the room, as I said. So my suggestion would be, Chair, would -- should we not start from the groups that we have prepared from the beginning and see whether there could be some consensus in terms of not necessarily the entire text but certainly on preparing some kind of, you know, (indiscernible) kind of language which would accommodate perhaps the idea that we intend to follow. Because at the end of today -- because we already -- two days of our discussions are almost getting over, and on the third day we have -- unless we have something to take back to the capital at the end of this working group meeting, it might be difficult to get decisions during the next -- and which will be the last meeting for all of us. So bearing that in mind, because if you have those issues which are difficult and they're presented on the last day of the meeting of the last session of the working group, I think we would not be in a position to mitigate some instructions from the capitals and thereby we would perhaps end up not making recommendations. Which is not -- which is a sad story. So I think as sometimes they say let's catch the bull by its horn and then see whether we can stand in front of it or we just run away from it. Thank you, Chair.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you, Mr. Reddy. I am ready to consider your suggestion. The reason I am suggesting the approach that what I suggested is to build on something, and that is your approach as well. You want to have something to build on. You are suggesting to at least to have some (indiscernible) on the different groups, that you can take back to capital, which is also a viable solution. But we have to take also into account that during our discussions there was an effort made to identify issues and we have come up with 480-plus issues, which I don't think we can manage here, right now. Even if they are been downsized to 150, we can't manage. So I am not against making (indiscernible) and start with this text, but I can also see the danger of in case we don't agree on some text now, then all our future meeting or meetings -- because I'm not very sure that we will have only one meeting. It very much depends on you and the results we achieve during the one hour we have now and tomorrow, the whole day.
So I'm just offering one option. I take your option, but I'm also wondering how others feel about it. Chris, please.
>>CHRIS DISSPAIN: Thank you. I'm -- I find myself slightly confused. I -- I thought we had undertaken -- we're undertaking a mapping exercise where we've got some issues listed and someone I believe is going through them and looking at duplicates and we're supposed to be having an exercise where we see what we end up with and see if they can go through a test as to whether they apply. So how can we be working on resolutions until we've at least figured out what we're talking about? I may have misunderstood, but it struck me that we were trying to work on a mapping exercise. I'm lost.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Chris, I would like to make it clear to you we are not working on resolution. We are working on recommendation. Now, the -- it's not but it's -- it's -- it's a very important distinction.
>>CHRIS DISSPAIN: I appreciate that. Sorry.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: And I've made clear that probably the mapping exercise is being done -- well, the technical part to downsize it will be done by tomorrow and we may have a dry run on the basis which has been suggested, the five-step approach on some questions. But I also made it clear that we are not going to continue it here because some delegations or many delegations are not in the position of going through this. So they would like to take it back to capital. And I also made it clear that I intended to have some kind of draft recommendations on some issues which we may have consensus on. Sweden.
>>SWEDEN: Thank you, Chairman. From our perspective, we think that it would be beneficial for the group to start with the two last groups because we have the same sense as you do, Chairman, that that's probably the areas where we have the biggest chance of, at this stage, reaching consensus on some recommendations. And I think it would be to the benefit of the whole group and contribute to building trust in the group if we can actually move forward with some recommendations since we're already at this stage. And I think also that we can benefit -- and I have at least benefited from the discussions we have had here these two days, and I'll bring that back to capital and to stakeholders back home and maybe work a little bit back home on potential thinking around recommendations on the more difficult issues. And I think we can also utilize the time that we have from now to the next meeting to discuss with each other also in different constellations on those more difficult issues so that we can come better informed and to the next meeting and start working on some of the more difficult issues by then.
And also in relation to the mapping exercise, I think the mapping is very important and our sense is that it especially benefits the questions in Group 1 and Group 2, maybe Group 3 and therefore, we think that we can do things in parallel. We can do the mapping exercise to help us with moving forward on those issues in Group 1, 2, and 3, and at the same time we can actually start to work on recommendations for Group 4 and 5 where we have more concerns. And so we agree with your approach. We think that that would help us build confidence in the group and maybe then that we would -- we can use when we approach those more difficult issues at a later stage. Thank you.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you, Sweden.
Marilyn.
>>MARILYN CADE: Actually, Chair, both that Constance and Phil had their -- and also Parminder so I will just wait my turn.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Parminder?
>>PARMINDER JEET SINGH: Thank you, Chair. Two set of issues trying to comment on how we are working and how possibly we can give a productive outcome at the end of the whole period of our working group.
One is about our express mandate, and the other is about expectations of the world from us.
And about the express mandate, first, and as the Chair reminded us oftentimes that there is a mandate, and let's stick to that. And the mandate is to examine the Tunis Agenda's mandate of enhanced cooperation and to give recommendations to fully operationalize it. Now, that's the mandate.
If we have to do something on the mandate, we have to go to the Tunis Agenda and do a search of the word "enhanced cooperation" and read each section, 68 and 69. Yeah. 68 first. No, no, 68, 69 and then 70 and 71.
And it says that there is enhanced cooperation which is defined as the issue of international public policy issues. Whoever has to do it, I'm reading the question out because that may be contention, equal footing of the governments or not or all stakeholders.
But it is very clear. We need to deal with international public policy issues related to the Internet. There's clear pointing to the fact that there are international public policy issues to be dealt with. They are important. And, obviously, that's why you find mention of the words in the document. And they need to be dealt with.
We need to figure out how to deal with them and that's the principle mandate.
The question of whether developing countries participate in that -- and "that" is not known yet -- or what are the barriers of participation, otherwise to "that" does only come after we have discussed to some length what is "it" we are talking about, how are we going to address international public policy issues, multistakeholder, multilateral, only private sector, whatever.
But that comes before we talk about the role of developing countries or various participation because I can't talk about the role of developing countries -- in what? In keeping their citizens happy? In warfare? What? It is about their responsibilities in international public policy issues. And it if that is not spoken, I don't see how 4 and 5 can be spoken.
And to speak about 4 and 5, it anticipates that there is an existing mechanism in some ways which is doubted by many people here, not a consensus but some people doubt it.
So I don't see how -- till we deal to some extent, whatever level we can reach a consensus, with the issue of mechanism, we discuss the role of developing countries in that mechanism because I don't see 4 and 5 as role of developing countries -- I'm repeating myself -- in just something but in that particular mechanism, whether it exists or not and, again, barriers to participation in that particular thing which can be defined only by 2 and 3.
The second part of my intervention is about a certain kind of disappointment with the fact that this group sits with a global responsibility to address questions which are bothering a lot of people everywhere. The newspapers are full of it. Stories are being written. People are discussing in their bedrooms. And we seem not directly addressing questions which people are bothered about. The U.N. working group is supposed to be addressing the world's problems. The world's problems are of many kinds. They are not just related to what has been called recent revelations but many other Internet-related issues, the consumer rights across borders, the cross-border data flows, Internet connectivity.
Taxation, where does value accrue? And where does tax take place?
Cybersecurity.
There are huge issues that people are talking about, to see that those issues either do not exist or are being dealt with at the present is the core we need to address.
After that, we address how to enhance the system by increasing participation of different people. So I think both ways we need to go to the meat of the issue, see where we can converge.
There was a lot of work happening outside this room. ICANN goes to the President of a country, makes some offers. They say that we should hurry towards internationalization of oversight. Those words are not being mentioned inside the working group which has the global mandate through a legitimate global U.N. process to be looking at those questions. It is something, I think, which is not quite right when we are well past the halfway stage of this working group.
I think we need to directly address these questions, find the views of the people, try to converge them as far as we can. But I think we cannot avoid those key issues to be dealt with first. Thank you.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: I think during the two days, it has been said many times that we have a mandate and we try to stick to this mandate. We have compiled a questionnaire. We have received inputs. We have discussed these inputs, reviewed them, and we have spent about two days reviewing and having some sense what are the main concerns.
I have nothing against bringing on board new issues as I told you because we are really mandated to give our opinion as well.
However, during the two-day discussion we had up till now, we have been discussing the inputs and some comments we have made on that. So it was my understanding that the group would like to work in this way.
And I repeated many times that we are going to work in this way and I had no objection to that. So I reiterate my proposal to work the way I suggested.
But I'm ready to listen to other voices.
Phil?
>>PHIL RUSHTON: I think listening to discussion thus far in your proposal, Chair, has been quite interesting. In the two days that we've sat here, I think it has been recognized that since the agreement of the output of WSIS, the world has moved on. We are more than halfway through what we think is our term of activity. And even in recent weeks, there has been activity that we couldn't have perceived six months ago being of interest to us in the discussions.
If we look at the mandate which says "to examine the mandate of the WSIS regarding enhanced cooperation," there are some things that I think we have talked around as the distinguished delegate from Sweden suggested, which is there are recognized barriers and issues around participation. And I think there is some value in looking at or trying to look at through the eyes of required activities to ensure that all voices, all stakeholders, are engaged. It is right to say that not all stakeholders are engaged. And we should work to ensure that our recommendations or at least one of the recommendations, I'm sure, address and endeavor to resolve those barriers.
Will we completely resolve those barriers? I would like to think yes, but I suspect not. I think in taking it forward and looking at Groups 4 and 5 which are fairly wide areas, I do think applying some sort of mapping exercise to try to take elements of 4 and 5 to make sure that what we are recommending on specific issues are of value and can be seen to achieve consensus within the room. It is not to say that we do 4 and 5 here and then walk away from it, but I think it is a part to say we try and do one, one issue that we have some sort of agreement on is important, that we can try out the mapping mechanism. Does that work? Does that have to be changed? Have we got it right?
One of the issues I think we are facing is we're trail blazing. We don't have a process. We are making it up as we go along almost. And I think while that's good and it proves that we're responsive to the needs, it takes time for us, I think, to come to some sort of agreement.
So I think if we are looking at our mandate and looking at a way forward, I think taking a very specific approach to the areas where there seems to be consensus, trying to select an issue from those areas and seeing whether or not there's some value in taking those forward, I think, would be a useful way forward. Thank you.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you, Phil.
While you have the floor, can you give me some concrete example how you think the way forward is in Group 4? Any concrete...
>>PHIL RUSHTON: I think I would pick up on the debate that we had before coffee and I think specifically referenced by the delegate -- distinguished delegate from Sweden on access to all multistakeholders in this debate.
I think Grace made a very useful intervention prior to coffee as to what the barriers were, and I think there's some activity there that we could look at to see whether or not we could make a recommendation going forward as to how we might address or suggest that those barriers be addressed. Thank you.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you. As far as I can see, this is very much along the line I suggested. Constance?
>>CONSTANCE BOMMELAER: Thank you, Chair. I would just like to support the point Phil made and the distinguished delegate from Sweden.
I think Parminder raises a very critical point which is the global responsibility of this group which is to look at hard issues. And a lot of work went into trying to list these issues, including emerging difficult issues.
And in terms of methodology, I would propose that we follow the path discussed before the coffee break and try to have a rigorous approach in looking at these issues. We could start with access. We could start with multistakeholder participation. And that exercise would naturally lead us to possible recommendations. Rushing to recommendations without having done this mapping exercise seems difficult from my perspective. Thank you.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you, Constance.
Saudi Arabia. Brazil? Brazil, okay.
>>BRAZIL: Thank you, Mr. Chair. And thank you.
Well -- sorry, I lost my notes.
I'd like to say I see merit in the two approaches. I think we -- well, first of all, I fully agree with India in that the most central issues we should tackle are contained in Groups 1 and 2. Clearly, for example, the way Question Number 8 is drafted: What are the most appropriate mechanisms to fully implement enhanced cooperation as recognized in the Tunis Agenda? This links directly to the mandate. And also when we asked: To what extent has or has not enhanced cooperation been implemented? So these are the core issues that are at the heart of our mandate.
So clearly this -- if we have to dedicate -- if we have limited amount of time, this should clearly be the focus of our work.
However, I also see merit in starting with Questions 4 and 5 in the spirit Sweden has mentioned to build confidence and establish models of parameters and also thinking that in the second stage we could benefit of the mapping exercise, a tool that would also enable us to tackle questions in Groups 1 and 2 more efficiently. So the Number 4 and 5 would be, let's say, the low-hanging fruit that we could go and have a more concrete outcome.
But, however, this -- I don't think you can disassociate this with the time constraints we have. I think the most crucial issue -- and I don't feel there is clarity at this most whether we are going to have one or two meetings. If we are going to have two meetings, I think we can allow us the luxury of not engaging to Groups 1 and 2 now, allow us some more time to go about it in our next meeting but with the assurance that we will have opportunity for that.
And I fully agree with India, that if we have just one more single meeting, it would be very difficult to tackle at the same meeting, to start dealing with different issues and at the end of the same meeting coming out with solutions.
So maybe, Mr. Chair -- I don't know the appropriate moment. But I think this decision on how to go about it should be linked to the decision whether we'll have one or two meetings. I think that might provide some more clarity for all of us. Thank you.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you. Very helpful. Really, really helpful.
So before I give the floor to Saudi Arabia and then I can see Jimson, I would like to think about the possibility of having more than one meeting next year. I suggest us to have one meeting in January and one meeting in February. I leave it to you now.
And let's listen to Saudi Arabia.
>>SAUDI ARABIA: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I understand the time constraint that we are facing for this very delicate job to come up with the recommendations. But we can have a recommendation, I believe, by this meeting, but is it going to relate to the mandate of the group or not? That's the core -- I mean, that's the importance, that the recommendation relates to the mandate of the group.
And I would like to bring the attention that the Cluster 4 and 5, it has been answered based -- or after the questions that relates to how to implement enhanced cooperation and what are the mechanisms. And when we answered that, we got the input. Then we reach a consensus in regards to the role of the developing countries.
So the core is to undertake Question 2 and 3 first. Then we will have, I mean, no difficulties going to 4 and 5. But we cannot talk about participation. Participation in what? The role of the developing countries in what? So it is very important to start with 2 and 3. And even if we are going to have two meetings, that as of to date puts us 50% of the work of the group even if we have two meetings. This is the second meeting. And we are approaching half or almost 2/3 of the second meeting. So it is very important to start with the core mandate to get the recommendations. Then it will be very easy to decide the role of the developing countries in the recommendations that we have and then how to enhance the participation in enhanced cooperation. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you, Saudi Arabia.
I think we had today discussions so we don't have to pretend that we haven't discussed these issues. And we don't have some kind of understanding what is on the table. So I believe that all of us have kind of an understanding what we are discussing.
Jimson.
>>JIMSON OLUFUYE: Thank you, Distinguished Chair, colleagues, ladies and gentlemen. Please permit me to just make a few comments with regard to the issue at hand.
Shortly before we went for tea break, there was an intervention by the distinguished representative from Saudi Arabia with regard to the role of government and the mandate as has been well articulated by Parminder and many others that have spoken.
Well, from the business constituency, from the business and from developing countries, we do know clearly that government have a very clear role. Governments are the sovereign rule in the face of citizens.
What we also are saying is that, yes, there is some dynamicism -- there is some dynamic evolution. Saw that while the government leads, it also leads with business and stakeholders so that we can all have the people together.
I would say this. I also want to illuminate the fact that when we talk about rule of law, it's already agreed that rule of law offline is the same as rule of law in the online world. And as such, how has it been tackled in the offline world? I believe through a lot of collaboration, through a lot of bilateral agreements. A lot has been achieved.
Even when it also drags into the online world, let me give you this illustration, something that happened in Nigeria not too long ago, maybe about four, five years back. There was a case of online fraud performed by a Nigerian citizen in Brazil. And the guy ran to Nigeria and (indiscernible) mighty structures in Abuja and many places. A true cooperation between Nigeria and Brazil, the guy was tracked down and (indiscernible). And the company back in Brazil got at least some of the -- got justice.
So what I'm saying is that government has their clear role and it is not in discord.
What we are also saying now is that we need to walk with existing mechanism, strengthen the existing mechanism. For example, it is such a great privilege that I'm here with my colleagues here, government, all the stakeholders, discussing this international issue. We are already discussing it.
And I believe, Distinguished Chair, after this time out, whatever we agree will go to the CSTD. What the recommendation is, it will go to the CSTD. We are a composition of CSTD already. And CSTD, from there, it will go to ECOSOC and ECOSOC to G8 where governments really persuade it.
So my submission is that, yes, we are making progress. We can actually really start some form of recommendation. Once we do the mapping, clearly everybody sees. And we also have some middle points, some understanding.
So we have existing mechanism. We need to recognize this. The government already played the role, and we also support it and play also a role -- important role.
And after this, CSTD will -- I have the privilege of being in the CSTD meeting, one of the meetings. And there's room for improvement. But we're making progress. So what we have currently can really pack in a lot of things if we focus on it, bilateral agreement, collaboration, cooperation, can pack a lot of things while we look forward to the optimum solution as the case may be.
I just want to illuminate this question with regard to the role of government, which is undeniable very important. Sovereign rule is very important. There is a mandate for government which we will respect. Our government takes the lead in Africa and we follow. If government does not really move, we are happy the government is willing to come with them to move together. So we understand the role of government. But at the same time, at this top level, we should not complicate the matter necessarily.
Finally, we got to the meeting periods, well, I wouldn't mind being around if you want to have three more meetings. But the funding issue is a challenge. So it is a major program we're into, and there is no funding. So is that a demonstration of the seriousness at the top level?
So there should be some really commitment from the part of government that set this up.
So this is good, Chair and colleagues. I just want to say that, well, as much as we can, if it is just one meeting, I personally will still be able to still try to fund myself to be here for one more meeting. Two more, I will need help. I'm a small business. And I feel that I have constituency, a lot of constituencies, as a matter of fact. So if we start making progress with recommendations and tidying up the mapping process, it will be better for us. Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you, Jimson. I fully understand your concerns and naturally take note of that. And probably if I suggest to have more than one meeting, I would suggest to have one meeting in January and eventually, if needed, to have an additional meeting in February in order to be able to have some contingency to be able to finish our work.
Marilyn, you wanted to take the floor?
>>MARILYN CADE: Yes. I think both the U.S. and Phil were -- and Virat. But I'm happy to speak, but I don't want to get in front of other people who have their flags up.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: I have a list and you are on it.
>>MARILYN CADE: Fantastic.
[ Laughter ]
What I wanted to -- first of all, I'd like to echo the comments that my colleague Jimson made.
Even when there is funding available, that funding goes, first of all, to governments, to civil society and to academics. It never goes to small businesses. And this is a significant burden particularly for small businesses to participate. And we need to be really committed to having the diversity of participation. The vast number of businesses that will be starting in all countries are going to be small businesses. And that is where the engine of economic growth and bringing the kinds of public policies and access to the world that we want to see happen.
So if we don't have the ability to have the participation of SMEs in our considerations and our deliberations, we are really missing a critical element of those who can help to provide thoughtful solutions. So I want to just reinforce the concern about that.
I think we also have to understand that it is important to bring experts from capital for governments and to bring experts from the other stakeholders, not just to rely on the folks who are here in Geneva or are local from any stakeholder group because of the expertise and the depth of understanding that is needed.
I would much prefer, Chair, that if we have -- that we have a longer meeting, even as long as four days, and that we dedicate our work. Many of us participate in other U.N. entities and activities, such as the ITU. We're quite familiar with multi-day meetings. So if we had this much work to do, one approach would be to have a four-day meeting and have only one meeting and to really dedicate ourselves to be able to diminish the cost implications of travel.
But I took the floor really to make a comment about the Group 4 items. I've listened to concerns expressed by some participants that we can't talk about participation in what but, in fact, we ask questions. And over 60 respondents found answers to questions about participation in what. We may not be able to address the question about participation in a new mechanism since I don't believe there's consensus in the room on new mechanisms. But we certainly could look at Question 10 and Question 15. I think there is one other question. Because we have robust answers.
We are an expert committee and we ask people to provide comments. And I want to be sure that we are living up to our commitment to those who submitted comments that we are focused on their answers. And there will be when we start talking about solutions probably some differences of opinion. But I do think we could start with Group 4.
And generally I found in the long number of years I've been working in these fora, it's always better to start with the low-hanging fruit and have a couple of successes before you start diving into the deep end of the ocean.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you, Marilyn.
As for the suggestion of having a four-day meeting, eventually a five-day meeting, I have to tell you that I'm really enjoying your company.
[ Laughter ]
It is a real pleasure to be with you.
>>MARILYN CADE: Chair, I hope you are not going to take a poll on whether everyone else agrees.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: No, no, no, no.
So I am ready.
[ Laughter ]
I'm really ready to have a four-day meeting or a five-day meeting. So much the better. And eventually it may be a good idea.
So I had to fight to have a three-day meeting because originally it was meant to be a two-day meeting. But I'm ready to have the four-day or five-day meeting and probably it will have small businesses to come and civil society and all of our representatives because the extra cost is much less. Probably we have to ask other stakeholders how they think about it. But that's another issue. I'm ready for that.
As for the low-hanging fruit, I like this expression, of course, and personally I'm all for it. But it's up to you naturally what you choose.
So next one on my list is Virat.
>>VIRAT BHATIA: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think the house would agree that three or four issues that have dominated the discussion over the last two days is about government's role in participation. The very difficult circumstances that is placed over developing countries are to participate in the Internet governance processes, even more within that the civil society groups and to some extent academia, and moving forward to identify what could be the mechanisms as well as said on day one that the heart of the problem is between Question 4, 8 -- 4 and 8 essentially.
But I think we need to remind ourselves that we can't be a solution in search of a problem. We can't start drafting recommendations unless we have -- and most of us have agreed on that at some stage or the other -- a clear problem definition which is identified by the issues and a mapping exercise which tells us through the five-, six-step process, whatever we finalize on, which of the issues that need the kind of mechanisms that have been suggested by some.
And I think the importance of the mapping exercise is underscored by the fact that if you look at the responses of the people who took the time to respond to us, the 60 responses, they've done a very elaborate job of putting those down as bullet points or numbers. And I think they deserve the importance and the consideration as we drive towards identifying mechanisms which is principally at the heart of Question 8 or Item 2, as it were.
A question has been asked about what should be the role of developing countries in what. I think a similar question can be asked that we start writing recommendations for mechanisms to address what.
So I suppose this is a chicken-and-egg story, and we have to begin at some stage where we can all find a basic consensus. My guess or assessment at least is that the last two buckets found a fairly high level of consensus in the sessions that you chaired earlier today. And that might be the appropriate place to begin work.
I would also argue that with regards to the meetings, I think there are 15 participants here who have traveled from outside of Geneva that are on the three stakeholders that are seated at this table. And there are about six or eight on the observer side who have traveled. You have very kindly allowed 20 observers but only eight -- seven or eight have come in. In the civil society, there are only two participants. On the technical community, there are three out of five. So I think there's -- sorry, three participants on the civil society side.
I think it's clear that these are the groups that are having difficulty even coming to this meeting. So given that they're having such difficulty even coming to a meeting which was planned for months and funding could have been arranged, I think the point that was made by my colleague here, Jimson, and others, we need to focus firstly on the latter two buckets.
And, second, if a meeting has to be held, we would request two things of you. One is try and combine it or bring it close to another event which allows the participants to defray their costs. And look for a four-day meeting because I think it is -- while it might be an imposition on the time of the governments which are in Geneva because they have many, many things to do, I think the incremental cost of staying for a day is a small fraction, 150, 200 Swiss francs at best, even lower in some cases, than all of our costs of flying and sort of parking yourself twice over for three days. So if you could please consider that suggestion. Thank you.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you, Virat.
As I told you, I have nothing against having a four- or five-day meeting, on the contrary. And your point is taken. Jimson's point is taken. And probably all of us -- or many of us are sympathetic to this solution. And thank you for offering that.
I have Iran on the list and USA and we have Avri who is a remote participant from the civil society.
Iran, please.
>>ISLAMIC REPUBLIC OF IRAN: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for your efforts. You're trying to solve the problem as soon as possible and as much as possible.
I may have been on your side first that we have to start with the easiest issues to solve, to make an example of our cooperations. But listening carefully to the room, I think the matter is not to start from deep ocean or shallow waters. I think the matter is to start with the core issue, which is more important.
We need to finish first the core issues. As you heard from me in the morning that the other questions like 10 or 15 are very much related to the answers on Question 3 or 2, therefore, when we don't have -- or we have not reached any conclusion on the core issue, how come we can go to the end of the matter?
I can make this example that we are constructing a building. Do we start from finishing, or do we start from the foundation? So the core issue which is the first and second group of questions are the foundation. Let's start from the foundation, not the finishing. That will help us to go faster in the other steps we are going to take.
On having the meetings for four days, Mr. Chairman, we are in your hands. We are ready to whatever the room is going to decide to have four or three days, two or three meetings, no problem. But let's start from the most important parts and very hard part of our job. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you, Iran.
United States?
>>UNITED STATES: Thank you, Chairman. Thank you, Chairman. Chairman, this is to signal our support for your approach to meet our mandate and to show progress as soon as possible.
Chairman, we think it makes very good sense to approach first those issues that are likely to reach consensus.
I think Brazil put it first, low-hanging fruit. And we agree and I think other speakers did as well.
We think it's important to allow the mapping exercise to move forward so that we can be informed on difficult issues that we wish to find consensus. Again, I'm remembering words -- if I'm remembering correctly of what the Ambassador from Brazil said, it would be very helpful to know where we are to better inform where we're going.
We think it is important to take the time we need, whatever time that is in the estimation and assessment of this group, to address all issues, important issues, core issues, all of them, to find consensus.
So, Chairman, for these reasons, simply to come in and to support you in your approach. Thank you.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you, United States.
And, finally, if I'm not mistaken, it's Avri. Avri.
>>AVRI DORIA: Am I muted? Am I unmuted?
>>CHAIR MAJOR: You are unmuted, Avri.
>>AVRI DORIA: I'm unmuted now. Thank you. I join those of my colleagues in the room who have suggested that we need to do the mapping exercise before we start to make recommendations. I guess I'm among those who do not understand how we can make any recommendation if we haven't finished the analysis. We have done a first discussion of the comments we received, but we have not done yet the analysis that the mapping exercise represents that brings all of these things together, that maps them against existing institutions and that finds the gaps, the gaps that I believe were our mandate to go back and see what they fill.
I also agree with those that say we must start with the most important part, but I for one still don't understand which part is the most important until we have done a mapping exercise. We may end up solving the problem for which there is already a solution if we try to do it before we have fully understood.
I also have a question. At the beginning of the inception you said that we would not be working on a basis of consensus. Perhaps I misunderstood when that statement -- when I heard -- or when I thought I heard that. I'm being very careful with my words, spending all day at the IETF where one speaks one way and spending all night with this meeting where we speak another way has been very confusing for my brain. But if -- if I didn't misunderstand we're not working on a basis of consensus, on what basis are we deciding what it is we, as a group, are recommending?
And finally --
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Avri.
>>AVRI DORIA: I support Marilyn's call for a longer meeting, if needed.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Avri.
>>AVRI DORIA: I believe it -- yes.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Sorry to interrupt you. We are working on the basis of consensus, which does not mean they are not -- we don't allow dissent.
>>AVRI DORIA: I'm still confused. So we are working on a basis of consent.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: You're not muted. Consensus means consensus.
>>AVRI DORIA: So we're working on a basis of rough consensus. Okay. Thank you.
Finally I wanted to say I support Marilyn and the other people who have called for a longer meeting. I actually also believe that it is better to maximize the time spent at a meeting as opposed to dealing with multiple travel events which cost people a minimum of two days, sometimes for some people it's four days just to travel to and from a meeting. If that needs to be done, fine. But if we can maximize the time, and again, I think it's very important for various reasons to have a very strong notion of remote participation for whatever meeting we do. In my case I had a conflict because of an important technical meeting. In other cases it might be funding, it might be other events. Participating in a meeting from 1:00 a.m. to 9:00 a.m. is okay as long as one can do it. And I appreciate all the efforts that have been made to make it possible. But I think that is essential medium in terms of supporting everyone in this group and supporting all the important observers who can contribute to this important role. Thank you.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you, Avri. Anyone else who would like to take the floor on these procedural issues? India, please.
>>INDIA: Thank you, Chair. The debate seems to have started from this end of the table. I think, you know, we again have a bit of a Catch-22 situation here. One, as I said, the particular -- we are talking the process now. We aren't talking the substance. I think to be very clear, some colleagues have gone down the path of, you know, looking at the substance and drawing conclusions and others are not interested. I don't think that's the case. The (indiscernible) for arriving at very positive and concrete recommendations is when we actually come to do -- as we know, let's at all agree to that, there are some difficult areas. Our difficulty sitting as part of the representatives of the government is that these decisions are not made just in this room. They are to be made back home. There will be consultations. All that we need is, if we decide to go down that path, we need to know what are those issues. Because we cannot come to the last meeting and be told this is the last meeting and then we are presented with a situation for which we will not have answers. And that's the short point I'm making.
So if we can find the solution, we should be able to do that. Whichever way we go, I mean, we have great confidence in your leadership -- I use the word "leadership" -- and to take it back there. Thank you, Chair.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Well, I'm listening to you very carefully, and I can't help thinking about the questionnaire we had, the answers which have been made available, and the summary which was made available as well. So we cannot pretend that we don't know the issues. We cannot pretend that back home people didn't know the issues who are responsible to -- for all discussions on the governmental level. So I don't think that this is a proper way of putting it. I fully agree that we need agreement, some of us need agreement from back home, or at least need to consult. But having said that, all the information was available and we knew the issues, we knew what we came here for, and we knew what was ahead of us. We have to work. Now we are discussing how we are going to work.
The easiest part is whether we are going to have -- well, probably we are not going to have two meetings, we are going to have one meeting. And as I hear from the room, there is a kind of agreement that we shall have a four -- eventually a five-day meeting. Which should be back-to-back to some other important event. Probably we have to consult our calendars. There's an IGF open consultation on the one hand, there are important meetings in the ITU, council working groups, this is (indiscernible). So probably we have to go back to your calendars and find out the appropriate way to handle it. It's most unfortunate that we cannot really take many more events into account which may be conflicting. I'm referring to eventually to IETF meetings or ICANN meetings or -- I'm referring only to meetings which we have in Geneva. That's one point.
And so the second point, how we are going to proceed. I heard three approaches. One approach was, don't do anything until we go through the mapping exercise. But we have -- we have heard as well that if we go into the mapping exercise, we need support for some of us. We need support from back home. Because we are going to make kind of value judgments and we are going to set categories and we are going to classify different issues which have been submitted to us which probably those who submitted to us vote -- or felt very important and they are very important for them.
So I believe if we go into the mapping exercise, a full mapping exercise, it may take the whole day tomorrow, but it will take a couple of more weeks. That's one point.
The other point is, I heard the approach that eventually we should go and tackle the core issues. I heard also that we cannot tackle core issues before we do the mapping exercise. I heard as well that we need some confidence building. And it -- it was said that eventually some questions in Group 4 and 5 would serve this purpose, to help us to build some confidence and to find out for me how this group can work together. Up to now, we have been discussing, we have had very nice debate, very good discussions, very good ideas, but as of now I think we have to work.
So I really think that probably as a compromise we should give a try to the mapping exercise, to start for a very short while and I have had the promise from observers that I will have a reduced list, and we can try, how does it work. But we're not going to finish with that, and I don't intend to finish it here. As we agree that we are not going to finish it here. We agree that we are going to have a kind of working party which will be an open and developing party in the same way that we have the working group here.
Now as for the core issues, if we agree that core issues are extremely difficult and may be some time damaging for the confidence if we fail at the very beginning, then probably I wouldn't think it's a wise thing, even though I -- I appreciate the logic concerning the foundation and concerning the building from bottom-up, but I also believe that at the end of the meeting we are going -- right now if we can have at least some kind of mechanism we can agree upon that is how to come to some consensus on recommendations, it would be extremely beneficial. And it doesn't prevent us to attack the core issues when we have the result of the mapping exercise, when we have a clear picture and we will be involved in that, to attack during a long meeting, which I suggest to be sometime, as we have agreed, next year, to attack the core issues and all issues and we can come up with appropriate recommendations.
So what I suggest for tomorrow, after having received the document, we start discussing the document. I would suggest to have this discussion for about an hour, and then I also suggest to try the procedure how to achieve some kind of consensus on recommendations. I hope this is agreeable to all of us. Yes, Joy.
>>JOY LIDDICOAT: Thank you. Can you hear me?
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Yes, Joy, we can hear you.
>>JOY LIDDICOAT: A brief comment. Thank you to the Secretariat for sending the document to the list. I wonder is it possible for us to make amendments to the document and post those back to the list. I'm asking because some submissions are not included, and it might be helpful to get those. But I also don't want to unduly (indiscernible) later a briefing on the document. I think if there's some guidance on that I would appreciate it. Thank you.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Joy, I consulted with the Secretariat and probably your request will be taken into consideration. Ladies and Gentlemen, this is a five-minute spot for the observers before we break, and I -- I hope you are going to tell us good news.
>> Thank you, Chair. So we've been working on removing the duplicates from the document now and while we have some time to go yet but it should be done today. So it's probably ready for tomorrow.
To answer Joy's question, perhaps not to confuse anyone, it might be best to send the list of issues that you have, Joy, to either me or the Chair and then we can get it and then we'll include it onto the list that we're working on now, if that's okay. Thank you.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: That would be a perfect solution. I'd prefer to send to -- to send it to the Secretariat. Thank you. Well -- just a request to observers, do you think you can make it available by 9:00 tonight? Okay. In that case, the Secretariat can send it out for the beginning of tomorrow's meeting.
So in this spirit I wish you a nice evening and I see you tomorrow at 10:00. Thank you.
***Live scribing by Brewer & Darrenougue - www.quicktext.com***.
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8 November, 2013
Working Group on Enhanced Cooperation
10:00 a.m.
Geneva, Switzerland
[ Gavel ]
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome also to today. I could see from the U.N. that it was a productive night, evening, morning. We have a document produced by the voluntary task force. They managed to bring down the number of issues from 483 to some 200, if I'm not mistaken. But I'm told this is not the final and there's still some work to be done.
So before starting our work today, I would like to give you some summary how I see the progress we have made during the second day of our meeting.
So yesterday we discussed Group Number 4 and Group Number 5 questions. And I think the discussion was very interesting and very fruitful, and I could sense a great deal of consensus on many issues.
At the same time, we received the spreadsheet. Yesterday it was 483. Now I think it's down to 200. These are issues which have been extracted from the responses to the questionnaire we have created. And I understand that there was some additional contributions to this spreadsheet as far as the issues are concerned.
So as I mentioned, the voluntary task group tried to eliminate the duplicates. And we are facing now to identify categories and what is behind -- what is ahead of us, in fact, is to identify mechanisms and institutions. So probably it's a huge task and I think we can agree that probably the time which is available for us is not enough, but we can have a test run, what I will propose a little bit later.
So yesterday we have also gave some thoughts about the future meeting or meetings. And it has been said that eventually, if we could have one meeting instead of two and one meeting would be longer, it would be beneficial for all of us. And I think there was a kind of consensus on that issue. So I would propose to have a third meeting, a five-day meeting, sometime in February back-to-back to the ITU Council Working Group on WSIS +10.
Probably the secretariat should check the availability of the rooms. So what I propose is the 10th to the 14th of February. But we can discuss it, but definitely I would like to have a five-day meeting.
We should take into consideration as well that we are going to have the IGF open consultation and the MAG meeting which I think -- I can't see Chengetai now. But I think it's around the 17th, 18th. I'm not really sure but somewhere around this time. So probably it will fit into this long period.
Yes, Marilyn?
>>MARILYN CADE: Chair, if I might just contribute to the consideration of the calendar for all colleagues for just a minute. The WSIS +10/WSIS Forum consultation dates are fixed, organized at the ITU, 17th through 18th of February which is Monday and Tuesday. Not all colleagues externally from stakeholders will be participating in person in that session but many colleagues from other stakeholders, which I'm not trying to address governments but other stakeholders, will participate in the IGF consultation, the IGF/MAG consultation.
Could we consider for efficiency's sake also the option of the week following so a second option to consider would be 17th, 18th February is the fixed WSIS +10 meeting. That, of course, needs to be respected. Then, if possible, a three-day MAG/IGF meeting, a weekend and then the CSTD working group meeting. I believe that would be the -- not looking at a calendar, but that would be the last week of February, the 24th. Because if external travelers, those outside of Geneva, do not have to travel to the WSIS +10 meeting but will be traveling to the IGF, it would be more efficient time-wise to have the IGF consultation and the CSTD working group consultations adjacent to each other. Just as a consideration.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you, Marilyn, for the -- for this information. I have no preference. My preference is to optimize on the costs and efficiency, of course. It is really up to you.
I'm ready to be with you, as I said yesterday, as I'm enjoying your company.
[ Laughter ]
And I mean it.
[ Laughter ]
Any time. But probably not during Christmas. But who knows.
[ Laughter ]
So, yes, Sweden.
>>SWEDEN: Thank you, Chairman. And good morning to all colleagues. Well, just to agree with the previous speaker, we have a preference for the week starting with February 24. Thank you.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Virat?
>>VIRAT BHATIA: Thank you, Chairman. Good morning, everyone. I think the point that Marilyn has made which is a lot of stakeholders will come to the open consultation for the MAG and they could stretch themselves over the weekend and stay back for the next four or five days for the conference. So that we do support the issue of moving it the week after the MAG meetings. Thank you.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Okay. I have no problem with that. I think we are going to have the open consultation on Wednesday and the MAG meeting on Thursday and there will be a consultation for the donor countries, donors, which will be on Friday and probably many of us won't be involved in this discussion on Friday. So you will have one free day, Friday, to go to the mountains and ski. And it is also applicable for the weekend.
Okay. So can we agree on the last week of February, a five-day meeting?
Joy? Joy, I can hear that you want to intervene.
>>JOY LIDDICOAT: Yes. Good morning, everybody. Good morning, colleagues. I need to ask you to call a halt to this conversation because the remote participants cannot hear the conversation, nor can we see the transcript.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you, Joy. I think we are going to fix it.
Saudi Arabia.
>>SAUDI ARABIA: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And good morning, everyone. We have no difficulties with the last week of February -- (typing noise). But if we could ask the ITU in the cluster groups of the council working groups in February, we need to know because it might -- the following week, usually it's two weeks, council working groups. And I'm not sure the WSIS +10, is it in the second week or the first week.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Can you check it?
>>SAUDI ARABIA: I will. And I will get back.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: On your Web site --
>>SAUDI ARABIA: It is not on the Web site yet. I checked.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Okay.
>>SAUDI ARABIA: I might coordinate with the ITU and get back to you this session.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Very useful. Very useful.
Yes, ITU, you don't know about the council working groups?
>>ITU: Thank you, Chairman. Yes, but it is still under discussion and then it will be posted on the Web site soon but I will check it with the General Secretariat and come back to you.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Well, provisionally, can we agree on the last week? I think this is the most suitable. Probably we can't find any other period which suits all of us. That's clear.
Jimson?
>>JIMSON OLUFUYE: Yeah. Distinguished Chair, Your Excellency, ladies and gentlemen, good morning. I support the last speaker about when the meeting should be called February 24th to 28th. Thank you.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: So I can conclude that there's a support for this. Probably we didn't take into account the ski holidays in Switzerland, but that's another issue.
For me, the important thing is we agree on a five-day meeting. It will allow us to work through all the issues which are ahead of us. And I sincerely hope that at the end of the third meeting, we will have a consolidated document of recommendation.
Ellen, please.
>> ELLEN BLACKLER: Thank you. Good morning. Can we talk a little bit about whether four or five days should be the meeting length? Is there a way we could stretch out each of the days a little longer, maybe start at 9:00 instead of 10:00 and maybe keep it to four so we can do travel on the fifth day?
>>CHAIR MAJOR: India, please.
>>INDIA: Good morning, Chair. Good morning all colleagues. We can fully support that proposal. If we can stretch a little more and work for four days, we have no difficulty. But we can also work five. Thank you, Chair.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: I have no difficulty starting at 9:00 and coming back at 2:00 and working until 6:00. I really have no difficulties about that. Still, I think we have to have a fifth day as a contingency.
Yes, Virat.
>>VIRAT BHATIA: Mr. Chairman, whatever you do, please don't make it 9:00 to 8:00 and five days.
[ Laughter ]
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Well, I can't promise on the last day that we are not going to stay here up until 9:00 in the evening, but I will try to avoid it.
Okay. Let's come back to this issue. Let's give a second thought. We agreed on the last week of February. We agreed that it won't be a three-day meeting. It will be a longer meeting, eventually four or five. I prefer to have a five-day meeting. But let's get back to that.
Now, what I propose now, we have the document provided by the voluntary task force. And I understand it's coming or it's being -- they still need one minute. What I propose, after we receive it, we have a one-hour slot to consider this document and I would like to have proposals how to proceed with the document.
What I can see, the complexity of it requires some further thinking. I really would like to have the proposals how to move forward. Definitely, it is a very valuable document and it will help us to clarify the institutions to identify gaps so I believe this is something we should really take seriously into consideration.
After the one-hour slot, we shall have coffee break. Then I propose to get back to two things. There was a proposal from India yesterday to kind of frame our work that is the end result, which are recommendations. And I would expect to have some proposal from India concerning some text which is, I would repeat, a draft. It is a draft and we are going to revisit everything during our last meeting.
Having said that, I would like also to have proposals for Group 4 and 5 questions as far as recommendations are concerned. Yesterday I heard that some delegates, some members, would like to propose some recommendations for this group.
In case we can come up with a consolidated spreadsheet on the issues and we can come up with the framework for the recommendations and if we can somehow put some text into this framework, I think we have done a great job. And this is a very solid basis for our next meeting.
So I'm just turning to Sam. You have the document?
It is in electronic form? It is available for the WGEC list?
>> I just sent it to wgec at unctad.org.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Okay. Thank you.
First of all, I would like to ask you, is it acceptable the way I propose to move forward? That is, one-hour slot to discuss the paper and after coffee break, we start discussion on framework for the recommendations and eventually populate this framework.
If it is acceptable to you, just one technical issue. I'm told by the secretariat, in case you need a printout which may be useful, it takes 10 to 15 minutes.
Joy, still have problems?
>>JOY LIDDICOAT: Just a question, a clarification, please. Perhaps it is an issue with the transcript or not quite hearing, I believe you suggested that after considering the document, we might need a framework for recommendations. And I just wanted to clarify that process because I believe at the end of yesterday, we agreed to consider gaps in relation to what issues proposed before making recommendations. So I'm just trying to clarify in relation to the proposed framework how that relates to the discussion and agreement we had at the end of yesterday. If you could clarify that for me, please.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you, Joy. Yesterday we agreed that we should move forward with the document. I had a proposal to have some kind of test run on some part of the document to find out how it functions.
It is my appreciation that we need additional work. So I would propose to have a kind of working party who would move forward with the document which has real -- really -- (no audio.)
(No audio to the scribes.)
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Is it okay? Okay.
So in the document, we still have, I think, three columns which are empty. And it is not a one-hour job to populate it. So that's why I suggest to have -- to create a working party to propose mapping of issues, and this will be a working party basically probably most of the time by correspondence. It is up to you to find out if there is a possibility of creating some kind of collaborative platform. I'm sure there is. And naturally the working party should work in the same way as the working group, that is, with the contributions of observers.
So that's the way I propose to move forward.
Avri, you wanted to take the floor?
>>AVRI DORIA: Yes, I did. Can I be heard?
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Yes, you can.
>>AVRI DORIA: Because I can't hear you so I can't be sure but I can read. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Chair, for giving me the floor.
I guess I am among those who was recommending that we really needed to complete this work before moving to recommendations. However, understanding that that choice is not ours to make, I would like to point out and let the group know that a few of us within the civil society side have been working on an early set of recommendations to put a stake in the ground. So if we are going to move to discussing recommendations, we also have a set that I will send to the WGEC list during the next interval so that hopefully that can be discussed with any plans that are put there by others. Thank you.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you, Avri. Very, very useful and very helpful.
Parminder.
>>PARMINDER JEET SINGH: Thank you, Chair. And good morning to everyone.
I understand we are now discussing for an hour how roughly the mapping could be done. So I would -- I think that present categories are good, kind of consolidates the laundry list and then specifies current activities and approach -- approaches.
And after we do that, we need to convert it into what we have to come up with, and that is a study of the mechanisms, existing, needing to be strengthened and new ones. That's the core of the issue. And how these -- the list, therefore, relates to that. And we have agreed that we are not going to come up with answers to those public policy questions but only to the extent that they lead us to the institutional requirements.
So as we started to discuss, I think we need to reach -- it's good to kind of clarify the purpose of this exercise and I understand the purpose is somewhat to validate what has already been observed in Section 60 of Tunis Agenda, that there are many cross-cutting international public policy issues that require attention and are not adequately addressed by the current mechanism.
Now that's where the whole enhanced cooperation discussion starts. So we are kind of validating that and also adding the facts and wisdom of the last nine years after WSIS.
So while I was thinking and also like Virat said yesterday about whether issues are local or global, there is a series of filters we can put on -- and figure out what kind of institutional requirements are needed. The first is to judge whether these are public policy issues. These are Internet-related public policy issues.
Second, we judge whether they are international or global.
Third, we judge whether some institutions are already dealing with them in a substantive manner.
And then we judge whether some of these issues are being dealt by some institutions but not adequately and not in a holistic manner, something Ambassador from Brazil has been insisting, that even if issues have been dealt, some of the issues are interconnected with other issues and holistic treatment requires some kind of new possibilities.
And then next category is of issues which have been called orphan issues in some of the submissions. I don't like that term. But we are talking about issues which more or less are very new and have more likely possible right now institutional home.
So that's it. So if we are doing this to each of the issues, even it is rough, we don't have to agree on each element belonging to one or two. It is enough that we find bunches under each and then we start talking of the institutional requirements, enhancements or new possibilities against each. Thank you.
I can get this list to the main list, e-list, and then people can see it.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you, Parminder. I think it will be extremely useful if you did that.
Your analysis, I think, is very close to the common understanding. Some may have different ideas.
Phil?
>>PHIL RUSHTON: Thank you, Chair. Good morning. I'm not one for new ideas. I leave that to others better than I. But I just seek clarification as to your proposal for a working party or an ad hoc group, call it what you will, as to how you see that working going forward from this meeting in advance of our next meeting realizing that it's not that long a wait. May sound like it. Three months, 12 weeks, maybe 14 weeks. So it would be good if you could share with us your thoughts as to how you see that time being used and how that group would work. Thank you.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you for being practical.
[ Laughter ]
Naturally, there should be some kind of leader of this working party or ad hoc group or coordinator. Let's call it coordinator.
And the working group would be eventually a correspondence group or it may have conference calls, but there will be a rolling document to which all interested parties can contribute with the end of filling the gaps. When I say "gaps," I mean in the sense of filling the empty columns and come up with a kind of final draft which will be submitted to this group for further discussions and approval.
Now, as for who is going to be the coordinator is up to you. It will be on a voluntary basis. And whoever would like to join this working party or ad hoc group is free to do so. I have no influence on that.
So probably it will be a good idea to start with the beginning who is going to head this -- who is going to coordinate and I need volunteers. I definitely would have a preference someone from the group, from the working group.
Phil?
>>PHIL RUSHTON: Into a dire space, but if you're calling for a volunteer, I'm happy to lead and take guidance from the group as to what I should be writing. So I'm happy to act as the convener of that correspondence group.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you.
So it's basically a coordination task to -- and I would invite all of you to join the group, ad hoc group. I would like you, Phil, lastly to give some working modalities as for the ad hoc group. Let it be a correspondence -- probably the Secretariat can set up a correspondence site, reflector, or if you think of other means, eventually a collaborative platform, that would be fine as well. Joy, you wanted to take the floor. Joy?
>>JOY LIDDICOAT: Yes, thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just wanted to reach out to also volunteer to support Phil and to thank him for his willingness to step forward and just to say I'm also willing to help volunteer to help assist, if needed.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: I'm happy that you volunteer. Probably there's room. There's enough work to be done for 2, even for 40. So we are undertaking a really big task. Yes, Virat.
>>VIRAT BHATIA: Mr. Chair, two points. One, I think we had some volunteers yesterday, including some observers on here who had sort of offered to help and you said you would take that under consideration, so I think at some stage if you could get a verdict on that, that would be helpful because we need many hands on this one, especially those who are passionate and are willing to do this and have responded to the question in great detail.
The second point, I just want to clarify because Parminder has laid out the steps and I had sort of put out a five-step process yesterday, I just want to make sure that we're clear there is a distinction because what was stated yesterday, with your permission I'll state that again, is remove the duplicates which has already been done, judge whether the issue falls under internet governance talk, enhanced cooperation, third, whether it's an issue that requires domestic treatment or needs to be dealt at a sort of global level. Third is the WGEC plus classification which is proposed by the distinguished delegate from India, and the last was whether the existing processes exist or need to be strengthened or any other options that need to be discussed. So if that is not -- is that what we are following or do we have a -- more edification of that? I just want to be -- and I think the House sort of had a broad agreement, I suppose, on that. Are we think anything different? And the second point is -- the third point is, do we -- the working group can't go after all the issues at the same time. Some sort of a prioritization might be required. So perhaps the step six, which is in terms of timelines and prioritization on which of the issues that need addressing first and which can wait, I think that will need to be done. You know, and we can talk more about why that is important now or later, but I think that is an important step, because we already have 100-odd issues, and even after filtering it there are lots of issues. So I just wanted to place that.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you, Virat. I'll start from the very end. And I would like to encourage all stakeholders, including governments naturally, to participate in this exercise. And the reason for that is very simple and very evident to me. We are talking about enhanced cooperation and we are talking about the roles of government. With other stakeholders probably if we are going to discuss it, government's participation is crucial. That's why I suggest again that the governments would like to participate in this exercise.
Now, as for the methodology or the steps you suggested, it's -- I think it's agreeable, probably within the group during the working process, you will find some adjustments. I can't really imagine that from the outset you know exactly what you're going to do. Probably it will be modified and probably some other ideas could be taken on board and you will find that some ideas you have suggested are not of that importance. So that's how I see as for the timeline. For me it's important that we have the kind of consolidated document for the next meeting. How you prioritize it, naturally, it's coming from our mandate, that is enhanced cooperation. So basically we have to concentrate on that, and it is my assessment from the meeting that the governments have concerns about their role in the Internet governance and enhanced cooperation. So basically priority for me in this respect.
Having said that, naturally all stakeholders are invited to (indiscernible). Brazil, please. Oh, Marilyn, you were first. I'm sorry. You're always first.
>>MARILYN CADE: That's good. You guys are looking at me for Thanksgiving, U.S. Thanksgiving holiday. I think I may be in Hungary. Thank you, Chair. I wanted to build on trying to be very practical and pragmatic about how to use the mapping document and make it simpler, while maintaining its depth and richness. I took a look this morning with the advice of some colleagues about the WGIG categories and I'm -- I think maybe you have them available. I might ask you to read them out. I was thinking one way we might think about simplifying this would be to put the -- and we could quickly do this as a small group of volunteers, kind of -- or we could do it after the fact, take the very long list of categories and put them, to the extent possible, under these four headings which I'm going to ask, if you don't mind, for you to read. And then if we added just one or two other categories, we would have four to six big categories with subtopics underneath them. And that, I think, would allow us to be much more effective in how we work. So if I might, if you don't mind, Baher, if you could read them, I think you had them pulled up, and there are just four. And then I have one final comment.
>>BAHER ESMAT: Okay. Yeah, there are four categories. One, issues relating to infrastructure and management of critical Internet resources, including administration of the domain names, IP addresses, root server systems, technical standards, peering, telecommunication infrastructures. Two, issues relating to the use of the Internet, including spam, network security, and cybercrime. Three, issues that are relevant to the Internet but have an impact much wider than the Internet, such as intellectual property rights. Four, issues relating to developmental aspects, in particular capacity building.
>>MARILYN CADE: So I'm not -- you know, particularly I think we've got to keep the richness of the bullets that have been prepared by our team but I think we also need some headings because when we all go home, we have to introduce this document to folks that are not immersed in it. And being able to say to them there are five to six major categories and here are the sum categories I think will be a much more effective way for us to be able to use the document. And then, when we develop recommendations, we will need to be probably particularizing looking at the subpoints. I'm not suggesting that we would make recommendations only on the main headings. I do think we will need to make recommendations that are specific to the subpoints because the stage of evolution or activity will vary depending on the subpoint. So that was my -- the first point I wanted to make, Chair.
And then the second point I wanted to make goes back to, I thank Mr. Rushton for volunteering to be a coordinator/convener. Sounded like Joy was volunteering to be a co-convener/coordinator. And I think if there were -- it were possible to pass around here and then post to the WGEC list a sign-up sheet for those who want to volunteer to be in what I will call the mapping group, it -- that would be one step. But I think we also ought to take a few minutes to meet, and maybe we could meet ad hoc at lunch, to kind of sort through what do we think -- how do we think this -- these procedures are going to -- going to work. Because we're going to be widely distributed over the next 10 to 12 weeks and we could try to come up with an idea of how it might work and what the calendar might look like for us to be able to work together online. Thank you.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you, Marilyn. It's very useful, as always. Just getting back to what Phil asked me about the timeline, probably it would be a good idea to set some kind of intermediate target dates in order to avoid some rush at the very end of the three-month period. So probably it would be nice to have some kind of intermediate document around middle of January to know where we are, how we are doing. And then have some kind of final draft for the meeting itself.
Before I give the floor to Phil, Brazil, you asked for the floor.
>>BRAZIL: Thank you. Very briefly, just to agree with the idea that the work of the group should be guided or should have a parameter of the five steps that were proposed, I think both by Parminder and by -- by Phil. I think they have a lot of convergence and the core ideas are there. And also to indicate the willingness of -- the interest of my delegation to participate in the group, to support the group, and to provide input also to that priority -- prioritizing of the issues in other areas. Thank you.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you, Brazil. I think it's -- it's some example that should be followed. Phil, you are recognized.
>>PHIL RUSHTON: Thank you, Chair. Just to go back to the timeline issue that you raised and to give people something to ponder on before we meet later today, I would suggest a first draft -- first run-through of the process to have been completed by about the first week in January. And to give people in this group time to review the great work that the correspondence group will do -- I sow that seed in your mind -- to have completed that by at least two weeks prior to your meeting. So we will complete it by -- if we start on the 24th of February, we will complete the work by the 12th of February. So with those --
>> [ Speaker is off microphone. ]
>>PHIL RUSHTON: Complete it by the 24th -- by the 12th of February. That's two weeks.
>> [ Speaker is off microphone. ]
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you, Phil. I really appreciate it and I think that's a reasonable approach. Saudi Arabia.
>>SAUDI ARABIA: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. What I was going to say is already captured by the distinguished ambassador from Brazil. We are willing to work in this working group or correspondence group. But as stated, the terms of reference or the parameters for this group has to be very clear set before this group starts. Especially that there will be nowhere physical meetings that -- I mean, an agreement or a guided approach can be taken. What has been stated by Parminder and Virat, that we have to put in this meeting for that correspondence group what are they going to do. For example, as is stated, what are the priorities of these public policy issues or these issues or what is the (indiscernible) issues that has been dealt. Maybe before that, is this a public policy issue or not, then what is the priorities of prioritizing these issues. Then has it been dealt with or not. Has it been adequately dealt or addressed or not. And then to identify the gap in order to be able to see what kind of an action is required in establishing a mechanism or a mechanism needs to be established or enhanced, something in the -- in the existing mechanism. But these parameters has to be set in this meeting, otherwise different views will come in the correspondence group through emails and it might be difficult to come up with a very consolidated outcome from this group. And we have full confidence with Mr. Phil, and he has been chairing so many working parties and what's the good thing this time he will not have a (indiscernible) after having it online. Thanks.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you, Majed. We have already set out the terms of reference. So probably the only thing we have to do is go back to the scripts and just formulate it. Provided everybody feels comfortable with that. Parminder.
>>PARMINDER JEET SINGH: I think that we need -- we really don't have much differences and I understand that there are two kinds of categorization that Avri mentioned and both can be accommodated, even in the existing Excel sheet. There is one column which says "consolidated grouping" and that is by subject area which can follow whether it is a CIS (phonetic) group or whatever development issues, more or less that we get classification plus something else. And the last column is status. And we all know the status is important because that directly relates to our mandate of what has to be done. And under status is the categories which I had mentioned which are about, you know, whether it is this, what has been done, what needs to be done, et cetera, et cetera. So I think both columns exist to accommodate both kinds of categories in the existing Excel sheet. Thank you.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you, Parminder. Sweden.
>>SWEDEN: Thank you, Chairman. We think that it's good to build on the work that has already been done. So the idea of categorizing these issues under the categories that were agreed by the Working Group On Internet Governance, the four categories, would be a good start. Then we can see if there is a need for any additional categories. But we think that it's important not to duplicate work too much and to build on what has already been issued.
When it comes to the working group or working party or whatever we want to call it, first of all, we would like to be part of that as well. We would also like to say that we agree with those before us that said that it's important with the -- in terms of reference for this working group. And we are not so sure that, for example, this working party will be able to prioritize between different public policy issues. Because that could be an issue, I think that could be quite contentious, what do we think are important public policy issues. That varies quite a lot, I think, from stakeholder to stakeholder. So my suggestion is that the Secretariat would maybe draft a very short document on -- that describes terms of reference and then we could discuss that later, maybe here today, so that everyone feels truly comfortable with the terms of reference and what tasks we are giving this group. I think for us, at least, that would be -- would give us much comfort. Thank you.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you, Sweden. Let me make it clear that the correspondence group is in no way to replace the working group itself. Probably takes its mandate from the working group, meaning as well that it doesn't take over the responsibilities of this working group. So probably the -- as Sweden mentioned, the prioritizing is an issue for the working group itself. So probably it would be too ambitious to give this task and responsibility to the correspondence group. Having said that, they may come up with suggestions and proposals, but the decision will be within the group. Joy, you wanted to take the floor.
>>JOY LIDDICOAT: Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just wanted to support the tenor of the conversations and points and to make two points. One is about the proposed categories. I do have some strong concerns about limiting ourselves to the WGIG categories, being the clear mandate to this working group is to consider (indiscernible) and I fear that by limiting ourselves to the WGIG categories we will not adequately capture the need and many blossoming issues that are affected in the submissions that we get. So I would suggest that we continue to think about the categories, and I note, for example, that some submissions had categories in them, the Big Bits submission, for example, with a range of different categories for these public policy issues which perhaps with the opportunity to reflect back to this working group might be useful. So I would ask (indiscernible) when we go to work on this task be given some flexibility in that regard.
With specific regard to I would just make -- I agree with the point made about some terms of reference for the task, but I think rather than being focused on the activities, it be focused on the output, what is it that as a working group we need this task to bring back to us. I think that would be very productive in the limited time available. Thank you.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you, Joy. Virat, you want to take the floor.
>> [ Speaker is off microphone. ]
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Oh,U.S. Sorry. You're in the Switzerland's shadow.
>>UNITED STATES: We're happy to be in the shadow of the Swiss mountains. Thank you, Chairman.
[ Speaker is off microphone. ]
>>UNITED STATES: We certainly want to state clearly our support for this mapping effort, and of course we'll be involved and supply what we can. And we want to be in that position because we think we really need this. We said yesterday, it's true today, we think that we need to know where we are to figure out where we're going.
Chairman, for us, this mapping exercise will create a record, if you will, of information that will then be very helpful for us, we hope, to deal with priority issues. And we know that our -- some priority issues will be difficult. But in any event, this mapping exercise should -- should support the effort of this group. We very much appreciate your clarification, but this map -- this mapping group that's going on certainly isn't going to replace the deliberations of this group so that they hopefully will be bringing back all of this excellent information and then convening as a group again and hopefully making progress on what some have called the priority interest. Thank you very much.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you, U.S. And thank you, Switzerland. Virat.
>>VIRAT BHATIA: Mr. Chairman, two quick clarifications, since I had mentioned WGIG yesterday I think to the point that the distinguished delegate from India has made yesterday, but this morning I did sort of improve on that by suggesting WGIG+ categories. So I agree with Joy that, you know, that session of yesterday we had, I think, conclude on this morning may not have been noticed in that fashion. But I agree with the point that she's making and I think we -- most of us agree on that.
The second was the point that was made from the distinguished delegate from Sweden and then referred to by the U.S. about prioritization. When I mentioned that as a six-step prioritization, it wasn't for the working party, it was really for the group to look at after the results come in and what kind of work this group can look at as a whole because really that decision should rest where everybody is involved in a bigger discussion. So I just wanted to clarify those two points. Thank you.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you. Well, after this discussion -- I haven't finished yet. After this discussion I will ask the Secretariat to draft the terms of references and bring it back to the group. And probably after finalizing the terms of references the group may start having informal consultations during lunchtime -- I'm sorry to dispose of your during lunchtime. You have heard it. So I think this is the way forward, and I am happy that many governments would like to participate and I would encourage all governments who are present and who have interest to participate in this work because I think it contributes very much to the work of this working group. Brazil.
>>BRAZIL: Thank you, Mr. Chair. I think the point I was going to make was already captured in your last speech. So I just wanted to follow-up on what Saudi Arabia and Sweden have indicated, that it would leave us more comfort if we could have clarity on these terms of reference. And as we listen to the remote participants, Joy, it is clear, for example, that in regard to categories there might be different ideas if we do not spell out clearly. And I take the point that there is a richness in the debate and that might develop ideas or improve categories, but this would, I think, lead us to lose a lot of time in this working group, this working party around, let's say, conceptual ways, so I think if we can come out of this meeting with a very clear terms of reference, as you have indicated, I think this will assist the working party and have very efficient work in such a short time frame, I think it would be -- it will assist us in the process. Thank you.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you, Brazil.
India.
>>INDIA: Thank you, Chair. Two quick points. Firstly, we also wish to convey our strong confidence in Phil, and I'm sure -- and also to express that we would be very much happy to assist in any manner as a delegation.
And the second, this eminent suggestion that we have to take as the categories should be WGIG+ because otherwise we could be accused of still having a 2004 mind-set rather than a 2014 mind-set, I think. Thank you.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you, India.
Mexico?
>>MEXICO: Thank you, Chair. Just to support what the ambassador from Brazil said, it is very important to leave this room with a clear mandate for this other group and especially for our experts back in capital so they have a clear idea what the work will be and how to proceed. Thank you.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you. Marilyn, then Parminder.
>>MARILYN CADE: Let me see. Since I was one of the people who talked about WGIG+ plus, let me see if I can clarify what I was meaning. I think we should drop after we finish this discussion any reference to WGIG+ plus and just talk about having a short list of headings which we work under and so we would no longer refer to them as WGIG. To respond to your comment, we wouldn't say WGIG+ in the future, we would just call them the agreed headings or something.
But I was just proposing we use the substance. And I think that's also what Virat was suggesting and Baher and others. So in the future, we wouldn't go out of here saying WGIG+, we would say consolidated headings with subpoints.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: So probably we can come up with WGEC categories. So we start a new era.
[ Laughter ]
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Parminder.
>>PARMINDER JEET SINGH: I agree with Marilyn. And I think in my understanding there is already a resolution, and I will try to give my perception of it as the secretariat settles down to frame -- draft the framework of reference, terms of reference.
We have a category of consolidated grouping which is what Marilyn is talking about, which was referred to as WGIG+, is now the grouping which is substantive grouping.
The next column is "current activities and approaches." Who wants to try to write what does that mean?
The last is status. And the status grouping is different from the substantive groupings which are by areas. And I think the status is still needed as the reference point for going forward in our discussion. So I think in this matrix, I understand everything which has been said. Seems to be accommodated. Thank you.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Avri. Avri?
>>AVRI DORIA: I would like to thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak on it. I would like to support those who are suggesting that there be a wider set of WGEC categories. And I would actually like us to empower the group to basically work on that set of categories and then come back to the larger group with an indication of those categories. I think that in the discussion of issues item by item, being constrained to a short set that is determined a priori, could make the task much more difficult.
So I would like to support those who have recommended, I believe India and others that have recommended the open set to be used.
I also would like to sort of indicate that while, I think, this will be of great and indispensable use for us in finalizing any set of recommendations, I also think the work will be very valuable and an outcome from our larger group to the general ways forward for Internet governance.
So I think the work should be seen in a larger light of more than just a tool for us, that I would like to suggest that it would be one of our outcomes. Finally, I'd also like to suggest that assuming that this working party will be working in the interim on some schedule and in some manner that they basically give the whole WGEC list -- I have trouble pronouncing it. It sounds like so many other things when people say it. I'm not sure what we're saying. So I'm sticking to the W-G-E-C.
I would like to suggest that they give the list of us, the entire group, periodic updates on where they've gotten and how it's going so that we can all keep track of it and anybody that feels their viewpoints are not being represented because they haven't been participating in the smaller group have the opportunity to then jump in somehow and add their voice. Thank you.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you, Avri. I'm absolutely sure that you will be part of the correspondence group, and naturally you are on the working group.
Now, what is -- I can see no -- no one asking for the floor. So can I conclude that we agreed on the establishment of this correspondence group? We kind of agreed on the draft -- on the rough terms of references. I would like to ask Phil and those who proposed terms of references to work closely with the secretariat during the coffee break finalizing the terms of references.
And if you have no other issues on the correspondence group, I think this is a well-deserved coffee break now.
And I propose to have it limited to 20 minutes. After 20 minutes, we come back and hopefully we can discuss the terms of references for the correspondence group and eventually we can also finalize the timeline for the work. Thank you.
[ Break ]
[ Gavel ]
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Good afternoon. Can I ask you to take your seats, please. Good afternoon. Before we start discussing the terms of reference for the corresponding groups, group of -- our working group, let me get back to the date of the next meeting.
I had an update from the ITU working group -- council working group's schedule. And it seems to me that the 24th -- the week starting from the 24th is an appropriate time for us to do our third meeting.
I know that most of you would like to have a four-day -- or some of you would like to have a four-day meeting. I still have a preference for the five-day meeting. So let me propose the 24th -- the week the 24th through the 28th. And I will ask the secretariat to check the availability of rooms here in the U.N.
I am updated that the request has already been placed. A decision will be made as far as the availability of rooms here in mid December. But I hope this is agreeable to all of us.
No, it's a room. It is an internal problem. We shall have our meeting. I don't know in which room. Hopefully in this room. I believe it's a relatively good setting.
So let's get back to the terms of reference for the correspondence group of the Working Group on Enhanced Cooperation.
Phil, can you tell us what are the proposed terms of references?
>>PHIL RUSHTON: Thank you, Chair. Good afternoon. The terms of reference of the correspondence group is available in paper form at the front of the room if you have not already seen it.
Now that we've agreed to terms of reference, Chairman --
[ Laughter ]
[ Silence ]
>>CHAIR MAJOR: I'm really pleased to see that everybody's for the paperless work. Having said that, electronic copies have been sent out as well so in case you want to fall back to the good old electronic form, then you're welcome.
Please continue.
>>PHIL RUSHTON: Thank you, Chair. So you have before you a draft set of terms of reference which I will walk through. I already have some comments and some amendments, so there will be a revised version. But I think if we can capture those as we go along, that will be useful.
So starting at Number 1, which is always a very good place to start: The correspondence group will work electronically. If necessary, conference calls will be held; but it is my intention that the main method of working will be e-mails.
Two: The correspondence group is open to all stakeholders, as you indicated in your initial presentation this morning, Chair.
Three, the correspondence group will provide three update reports to the WGEC Chair and mailing list. Those will be at the end of November, this year; the beginning of January 2014; and the end of January 2014. Again, I think that was a request made by a participant in this meeting earlier this morning.
The correspondence group will provide an initial output in the first week of January 2014 and a final document for consideration by this group by the 12th of February, 2014. That then gives you 12 days, Chair, and for our colleagues here to review, comment, criticize, rewrite or do what they wish to do to the document.
The correspondence group will review the identified public policy issues into the WGEC list. We created this WGEC list just before coffee.
I would say -- and just to make it clear, that the identified public policy issues comes from the revised spreadsheet that has been created and distributed here today. So that would be our starting point.
B: The correspondence group will identify where there are activities associated with the issues in that list.
It will also identify, if possible, the status of mechanisms and any limitations therein to the mechanisms.
It will also attempt to identify the gaps in order to ascertain what type of action is/may be required.
The point being there for C and D, Chair, as you will see from point 6, is that we will attempt to do these activities as input into your meeting in February.
However, where the issue cannot reach consensus, it will be referred to the -- that issue will be referred back to this group. And I should make it clear, and have one amendment there, that what will be referred back will be the various positions taken on the correspondence group.
So if there are five views expressed, you will get five options, Chair.
You're more than welcome, sir.
The correspondence group -- and I wish to make this explicitly clear -- does not replace the WGEC. We are there to be a tool of the WGEC and nothing more. And just to make it formal, Chair, we say that these have been agreed by your group as of this date so that there are no misunderstandings.
I, therefore, put forward these terms of reference for your approval and the approval of colleagues with the two amendments that I have suggested, the one saying that the identified public policy issues in 5A is the spreadsheet that has been developed in this group and that any issue that is not reached among consensus will have the options referred back to the working group.
So with those two amendments, Chair, I offer you the document. Thank you.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you, Phil and secretariat. It was a good job.
Any comments, observations, remarks?
Parminder.
>>PARMINDER JEET SINGH: While I think the list is really exhaustive and we really don't need to kind of address issues, therefore, it may not be completely completely complete. However, if there are real -- somebody really has a pressing need to put any issue on it that wasn't before -- but that's not what I'm intending to do because somebody referred -- and I think Avri did -- that it could also be a substantive outcome in some way from the group.
And, therefore, the public policy list should not be frozen in any manner. Though, I would greatly advise we don't add too many to it.
I was not really sure with Phil's amendment whether the amendment, whether the amendment one referred to this kind of thing or it could be the identified public policy issues. Thank you.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Yes, Phil?
>>PHIL RUSHTON: Thank you, Chair. The issue becomes if somebody comes to this correspondence group with a new issue, it will not be the correspondence group that decides to add that issue. That must be your group. That is your responsibility, Chair. I'm sorry to say.
We will only work with the list. We are a tool of this group. Therefore, if somebody has an issue that is burning a hole in their pocket that they wish to have added to the list of issues that will be considered by the correspondence group, it needs the approval of your group. We are a closed user group in the sense you are giving us a task to work to. Thank you.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you, Phil. That's exactly how I think.
Sweden.
>>SWEDEN: Thank you, Chair. First of all, thanks to Phil for working this out. This is very useful. And I think by large we could go along with these terms of reference. Just a minor, minor issue, I think in para 5C talking about identifying, if possible, the status of mechanisms and any limitations therein, we might put different things into the word "mechanism." So we are wondering if we could expand that a little bit to "fora" and "processes." That's just a minor comment. But, otherwise, we feel confident with these terms of reference. Thank you.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you, Sweden.
Is my understanding correct that under "mechanism," we may understand as well the different fora?
Yes, Phil.
>>PHIL RUSHTON: If the meeting is agreeable, Chair, I will make that amendment.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Okay.
Ellen?
>> ELLEN BLACKLER: I would support that and add it would also include activities, those kinds of things that business is doing to fill some of the gaps that aren't really a fora. Thank you.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Yes, U.S. U.S.
>>UNITED STATES: Thank you, Chairman. Just a question. Where we say the status of mechanisms, how should we read the word "status"?
>>CHAIR MAJOR: I understand it -- Phil, please.
>>PHIL RUSHTON: My understanding, if I perhaps can offer an opinion, would be -- it would be a narrative describing the activities, the fora, the processes, and the mechanisms associated with any given issue in that list. So it would be as comprehensive as we could make it. I would look to make it, as I say, descriptive rather than judgmental. That would be for the process to be taken here. Thank you.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you, Phil.
For me, Number 7 is the bottom line; that is, the correspondence group does not replace the Working Group on Enhanced Cooperation. So we have a clear idea about the terms of references. I think it's mostly acceptable.
And I can see you, Parminder. I can see you.
>>PARMINDER JEET SINGH: Saudi Arabia raised the fact earlier but since I'm responding to Phil's point, can I go ahead?
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Yeah.
>>PARMINDER JEET SINGH: Thank you, Chair.
There was a discussion earlier about the status being what. And I tried to describe certain elements of it. And I don't think it is a narrative thing. It is a category thing and categories being passed to the WGEC list as well. And I remember there was a lot of support that we need to convert the issues to the requirements of what needs to be done and, therefore, we were categorizing into like: The orphan issues being met but not adequately being met, some institution is fully dealing with it. That kind of categories were the status. And it could be inclusive -- stakeholders' participation inclusive of all governments' participation. There are processes globally which are public policy bodies that are not inclusive of all governments. And there are processes which are not inclusive of stakeholders.
So the status is to find out what those mechanisms look like with reference to what then needs to be done which is the mandate of the working group. Thank you.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you, Parminder.
Saudi Arabia.
>>SAUDI ARABIA: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I would like to thank Phil for this draft of terms of reference.
To make it very easy to me, I'm trying to imagine that I'm now part of this working group and I have these terms of reference and I would see if it is clear to go with these terms of reference.
I heard that -- I mean, I understand that there is no possibility to add in the correspondence group any more issues. But, for example, what do we mean exactly by "review and identify the public policy issues in the WGEC list." What exactly -- reviewing in terms of what? I mean, is that -- I mean, we need to be clear when we say "review and identify the public policy," are we going to do an exercise in regards to these lists? Are we going to combine them? I mean, we need to clarify this and then we say "identify where there are activities associated with the issues in the list."
Okay. We don't want to say, okay, there is and there is not. I mean, it has to be said also if these activities associated with adequately addressing these issues. I mean, it's not like a matter of answering yes or no, especially -- I'm trying to raise this not to involve in this discussion in the correspondence group.
In regards to the "identify, if possible, the status of mechanisms and any limitation therein," I think the idea is to identify, okay, the status of the mechanisms, if it is adequately addressing or not and if there is actually global arrangements to address this issue. It has to be there. I mean, is there global arrangements? Is there a mechanism existing to address this issue? This group has to identify this thing.
I would start here. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you. I really want in the future interventions to hear the text, not the criticism, but text you suggest to be included or to exclude. I think we are past the time to give statements.
Phil.
>>PHIL RUSHTON: Thank you, Chair. Just to clarify my comment earlier, in respect to the distinguished delegate from Saudi Arabia, I didn't say that issues could not be added to the list but if issues are to be added to the list, then it has to be agreed by your committee, Chair, not by the correspondence group.
I take note of the comments and clarifications sought on 5B and 5C and would take guidance from this group as to what text they would like to see there so that we could adequately capture the text.
I have to say, Chair, that 5A, B, C and D was taken from the text that we're seeing on the screen and were the nice and wonderful words from the Saudi Arabian delegate. So if I'm not captured that right, I do apologize.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you, Phil.
Joy.
>>JOY LIDDICOAT: Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you very much, Phil, for your good work. I just have three brief points. The first is in relation to point Number 2 of the terms of reference. The word "stakeholders" there, I take it this includes not only stakeholder members of the working group but also observers? I would just like clarification.
Secondly, I'm a little troubled by the words in para 5D in relation to what type of action may be required. I think the word action could cause difficulties. I'm thinking, for example, of the United Nations Human Rights Council which is dealing with a number of public policy issues that have intimate related components. And I would find it difficult to imagine this working group might suggest action in relation to any gaps in the Council's mandates. I think it is a suggestion that this working group might focus on that, that there would be some serious concerns with it.
My suggestion is that instead of "action," instead of the use of the word "action" there, we might say "recommendations" so that we focus on what recommendations this working group might want. Thank you.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you, Joy.
As 4.2, "stakeholder" means what it means in the sense of what we mean by it in this working group and what we meant by it when we sent out the questionnaire.
As for your remark concerning "action," I fully agree with that. It probably should eventually be changed to "recommendations" or fully left out for consideration by the working group itself because the working group is tasked to give the recommendations. But I leave it up to you.
Next on the list. Marilyn.
>>MARILYN CADE: Thank you, Chair. Actually my question -- I guess that was -- that's the point that is exactly why I took the microphone. I wanted to ask.
As I understood this, this is preliminary and preparatory work and the drafting of recommendations would come after we've concluded this work and would come from the body as a whole.
So I guess I'm -- I might just modify D to say "attempt to identify gaps in order to ascertain what might be required" without -- because it could be an action but I think the drafting of recommendations is going to be done in the body as a whole. And I would prefer that the mapping group not start actually getting into drafting recommendations. I think we actually have quite a bit to discuss.
And that takes me to an example. When I heard our colleague from Saudi Arabia and also Parminder, I was thinking about under B -- 5B, the mapping group would be talking about activities associated with the issues, looking first to the contribution submissions that have been made but then also based on the participations in the mapping group adding additional documented -- and I would think we need to do that.
So if we're looking at the submissions, then everyone has the validation of what's been suggested. But if we are going to -- and I think we need to -- add -- potentially using additional information, what additional activities, we should in the mapping group sort of document where we got that information.
So I'm going to use a specific example that was mentioned yesterday. The European Internet Observatory, which is still under development, is an emerging clearinghouse. And it will gather -- so if we were to add that as an emerging activity, I would expect to sort of document where the further information about that could be found.
That then let's us continue to build our own shared understanding of the activities that are going on. We are, as the mapping group, I think, to Parminder's point, then going to be discussing about how satisfied we are in order to move on to D. And that will be a gap analysis which I think, again, we're going to have to document. And to Phil's point, we may end up with different documented options that get put forward to the group.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you, Marilyn. I really would like to concentrate on the text we have in front of us and to try to finalize it. Probably when we clarify the responsibilities for the group and for the correspondence group and for the working group, we have already made a great step towards finalizing these terms of references.
Phil, would you like to answer?
>>PHIL RUSHTON: Thank you, Chair.
Certainly under A we should put the fact and clarify the fact that additional issues to be added would require the agreement of your group, as we have said.
For 5D, the point about what type of actions may be required, the point is well made by delegates. I would say "attempt to identify the gaps in order for recommendations to be drafted by the WGEC" to make it very clear that we are just identifying the gaps.
As we keep saying, Number 7 is the bottom line. We do not replace the WGEC. So I think these points are well made.
The point as to -- in 5B identify where there are activities, I would say we should cite the source and, indeed, would provide text at the end of B to say "associated with" -- start again, "associated with the issues in the list and cite the source for such identification." Not the best English, I apologize. But I think it does the job.
So there are some changes to 5A, B, C and D that have been identified.
And, of course, Chair, it is also important to realize that we only have three months to do this work, failure to complete the work of the correspondence group will necessitate a five-day meeting in February because we will have to complete some of the work of the correspondence group in your meeting.
However, I will endeavor with my colleague Joy from New Zealand to ensure that that is not the case. Thank you.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Let me remind you that there's a weekend preceding our meeting in February and there is a weekend after the meeting.
Yes, Phil?
>>PHIL RUSHTON: I shall seek permission from my wife to attend.
[ Laughter ]
>>CHAIR MAJOR: So do I.
[ Laughter ]
Sweden, please.
>>SWEDEN: Thank you, Chair. Very briefly, we can go along with the terms of reference as amended. And, I mean, if we would like to add some additional comfort, maybe we could add to para 7 something along the lines that would not replace the Working Group on Enhanced Cooperation and will not take any decisions pertaining to the mandate of the working group or something like that, if there is such need. I'm not sure there is such a need.
Also just to answer very briefly to the comment mentioned, brought up -- the issue brought up by a colleague from Saudi Arabia, I think when it comes to the mapping, we feel that that should be a very factual thing, factual mapping of where are processes and where are issues are discussed, what are the issues and where are they discussed.
But when it comes to the more sort of evaluation of this, the value judgment on whether or not one particular issue is adequately addressed, we think that that is better handled by the group itself as well as the priorities as we mentioned earlier.
So that's our view. Thank you.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you, Sweden. It is my understanding that there's a kind of general agreement with the amendments on the terms of reference.
I still have Joy.
Virat, you want to take the floor?
>>JOY LIDDICOAT: I --
>>VIRAT BHATIA: My points have already been addressed.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Okay. So, Joy, please.
>>JOY LIDDICOAT: Just to say that my points have been dealt with. The only one, I just didn't hear a clear statement that (indiscernible) my volunteer to assist which seems unfeasible given the size of the task and the short time available.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Yes, Phil.
>>PHIL RUSHTON: Thank you. I think, just to make it very clear, as you yourself has indicated, Chair, as with the questionnaire which went to all stakeholders so that this correspondence group is also open to all stakeholders. That is my understanding. Thank you.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you. Saudi Arabia.
>>SAUDI ARABIA: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just heard that we can further delay the talking about the adequacy of addressing these issues and not in the correspondence group but in the meeting. If this is the case, I think there is no need for this correspondence group. Yesterday the respected ladies there did a wonderful job by doing this and they can continue by just doing and adding that what are the associated activities, if any, and there is no need to have a correspondence group if they are not going to tackle each of these policy issues and see if there is global arrangements to address them or not. And if it's adequately addressing them or not by either to find the gaps and then do the required action as a correspondence group which will come to your meeting then it will come out as recommendations as the meeting agrees later on. But if there is no task to go over this, I think we can just continue without a correspondence group.
And before we approve this terms of reference, we -- if there is any amendments, we would like to see it in writing before we adopt this terms of reference. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you, Saudi Arabia. It is my understanding that the group will do its work in view of proposing to the working group recommendations or some -- some input for the recommendations. So, in fact, it is going to be extremely useful for the -- for the working group itself.
As for the amendments in the written form, probably it can be done very quickly. But I think it has been made clear and there was -- I couldn't really hear many dissenting comments on the terms of references, so I had a feeling that we kind of agreed on these terms with the amendments. Iran, please.
>>IRAN: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'm seeking a point of clarification. I heard that this correspondence group is open to all stakeholders out of these -- I mean this group, just wanted to hear it from you, since this correspondent group is a part of the WGEC I don't think it's necessary to open it to all the stakeholders. Thank you.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you, Iran. It was my idea to follow the way we have been working up until now, and I do intend to continue this way. We had received inputs from all stakeholder groups, which seem to be very useful, and we have taken them on board to discuss them, so I can see no reason why we can't continue this way. It made our work richer. It made our deliberations more wider, so I think this is the way to go forward. And I think most of the members of the group do agree to that. India, please.
>>INDIA: Thank you, Chair. I think I need to intervene. I was not planning to intervene, but I think it is required, I think, to make a few points.
The first and the foremost is this working group has a diverse composition. There are member states, there are representatives of the private sector, the civil society. I think there are other groups, also. Now, if we embark upon a part of reaching a particular decision or recommendation, it was -- it was useful to receive inputs. I realize that during the first (indiscernible) if you want to call it. But the challenge here is every time we put out a -- a questionnaire or a set of issues, and if you want to go to the larger stakeholder process approach, we have no difficulties. But then we only have representatives in this working group precisely for this reason. And if they wish to go in their own individual capacity, let's say the private sector wish to go within themselves, they could further disseminate among their members and collect inputs but there are representatives to this working group. The purpose will be defeated if we every time -- and we cannot embark on this process every time, and the end result would be another 500 pages a compilation and then do what? I'm sorry to pose these very direct questions, but we need to have some brevity in what we are doing. And you rightly observed that we know the issues. We know the issues, and we are now trying to do a mapping exercise. I think it's no harm if we could define that the respective groups could in turn, in their own right, because there are representatives of that particular group of the stakeholders, could collect inputs and give it to the correspondence group. That would be an easy approach, rather than the correspondence group reaching out to all stakeholders and coming up with the bulk of information which we do not know where to head thereafter. Thank you, Chair.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Can I have some text for -- to support your proposal?
>>INDIA: Thank you, Chair. The correspondence -- the correspondence group will be open to the members of the working group. In fact, we don't need one to -- we don't actually meant for the working group. It's a correspondence group of the working group. Which is required to -- which internally -- I mean, in its capacity they could seek other members' views. They're most welcome to do it. But within themselves, they reach certain conclusions or certain observations which is brought to the larger group. Thank you, sir.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you. Brazil.
>>BRAZIL: Thank you, Mr. Chair. I think this is very important for us to have a very clear understanding of what this correspondence group is aimed to achieve. I don't see the work coming from this correspondence group as having, let's say, the kind of more political nature of or policy stated that is expected from this working group as a whole. I see the output of the correspondence group as a technical instrument, a tool for our work. And personally -- and I have made a point previously that personally I'm not feeling entitled to participate because I lack the expertise to engage in some of the issues. I think it is in our interest to have the best available expertise contributing to give out a very clear picture of where we stand with regard to each issue, what are the processes associated. I would be a little bit concerned if we maybe restrict the ability of people to contribute because we may be lacking some kind of input that might be necessary. And then, this will come up to the larger group and we will make the appropriate decisions as -- because we have the mandate, not the wider stakeholder community. But I think if we can it would -- see this as an input for our work, and then, of course, as a working group we have a particular mandate and we have the composition agreed that we should do it. I think maybe that could be a way out of -- of this. Again, I think the composition of this working group, I'm not sure if we have among us as complete expertise to cover all the areas and come up with all the -- or what I said maybe the X-ray of the situation. Then this will be an instrument for us as -- as the magical group to propose some kind of intervention. Thank you very much.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you, Brazil. Andres.
>>ANDRES PIAZZA: Yeah, thank you very much. With regard to what the distinguished colleague of India was proposing, I guess I don't know which of the opinions of the rest of the group, the members of the group, but if we have that question was open to every stakeholder and we have observers that can be on site and also in the remote participation channels with access to the information available. And also we -- the possibility of providing inputs. And then we accept those observers to be able (indiscernible), for example, the mapping exercise and then the whole purpose of the working group and our -- of course, our philosophy should be -- should keep open. And I understand what Brazil says regarding the goals of the correspondence group. And to be honest, I would like to be -- I would prefer to have more clarity also regarding the goals of the correspondence group as well. But I think we shouldn't go back to discussion if -- that -- if the working group should be open or not because I guess at least I have -- I haven't seen any reason why we should go back there. We should have -- we already established that we want it to be open, right? Or not. I don't know.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you. Jimson.
>>JIMSON OLUFUYE: Thank you very much, Chair. While I've been ruminating, I made a point and I would like to propose this text, if possible. With regard to item 2 of the terms of reference, the correspondence group is open to all WGEC stakeholders and accredited observers. So this correspondence group is of the working group, as the distinguished delegate from India underlined, and Iran. So this is what I would like to propose, the correspondence group is open to all WGEC stakeholders and accredited observers. Thank you.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you, Jimson. Avri.
>>AVRI DORIA: I'm unmuting myself, so apologies for the pause. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I want to speak with those who are discussing the correspondence group being open and very much open in the same way that these meetings have indeed been open. And so I think it's very appropriate that we do that.
I also want to point out that one of the reasons I believe that we were doing this correspondence group is because we felt that this was very essential work, that it was work that was a continuation of the process that came out of the comments we received from the wider stakeholder group community, and that it was work that we did not want to put in line for this particular committee, this particular group, but wanted it to be done in parallel. So I think it's very important that this group be able to do its work, to be able to reach out for the experience and other help that's needed. We see how much the observers have already contributed to this effort. We wouldn't be as close as we are now, I believe, without their incredible efforts, their overnight work, their over lunch work, and all of that. So I think we have to recognize that and keep that, that in.
And in terms of this group being able to make evaluations, I think any initial evaluations that they may make are an aid to our work but are something that we, as a group, would be able to take and discuss. As Phil said in his discussion on all this, nothing they do is final. Everything they do is recommendations to this group as to how to proceed further. So I think any of the evaluation they make, whether it's on things like status, on things like adequacy of the mechanisms or the processes, I think we recognize that that is all work that we will need to review as a group and be able to modify and amend as necessary before taking this document forward. Thank you.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you, Avri. When we started the discussion about the participation of stakeholders the concern I heard was a very practical one from India and it was the eventual output -- the volume of the eventual output. And for me, it's a very reasonable argument. Probably we want to deal with documents which we can handle.
Now, I'm turning to Phil, who has volunteered to this position. Can you give us some assurance that the volume of the output will be of a size which is understandable by humans?
>>PHIL RUSHTON: Thank you, Chair. You do not ask for much.
[ Laughter ]
On a serious point, Chair, you want something by the 12th of February that is not an activity that we should treat lightly. I can empathize with the distinguished delegate from India about the volume of work. If we cast our minds back to the first meeting, a similar concern was expressed about the number of questionnaires that we would receive in response to making that open. I think we received 70 questionnaires and that was manageable. We have the public policy issues list that we started, we are going to go through and further categorize them against the WGEC list as opposed to the WGIG list -- somebody ought to change the acronyms. I think that it will be manageable. I do not anticipate people coming in with vast volumes of work. I could be wrong, but I think people actually maybe will provide the information going forward according to the process.
I think it is -- if there is a large volume of work as a result of opening this up, I think that will make your task and the task of this group more rich in terms of the information that it has in front of it. And in that terms we will need five full days. But I think it is -- we are duty-bound, given the mandate that we have from the U.N. General Assembly, to do as good a job as we possibly can. And if that is volumes of information -- which I have to say I do not anticipate, given that we only have three months in which to gather this, so it's publication of, join our group, provide the information, collate the information -- it's not going to happen. But I think we shouldn't put barriers in the way in order for people to contribute if they have a desire, a wish, or indeed the information to do so. Thank you.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you, Phil. Well, let's keep the discussion on the level of -- on practicalities, and we have an assurance from the practical approach and basically that is the concern we all have. I didn't have any intervention concerning the kind of political considerations. So I would like to stop the debate on the terms of references. I'm really sorry for those who want to take the floor, but I think we have covered all issues, and the real issue is how we can move forward as a group ourselves. And that is the main thing.
We have a team to facilitate our work, our next meeting. We have a promise that it will be a document which can be handled by us, which will have our work, and for me that is, you know -- so I would propose now for you to approve the modified terms of references as they are. So Saudi Arabia wants to take the floor, please.
>>SAUDI ARABIA: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As I said earlier, we want to see it in a text so we know exactly what are these terms of reference.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: So let me propose the following, we come back after lunch and the text will be available. I propose a five-minute discussion on the text. A very precise discussion. If there -- if there are parts you don't like, you propose something else and we proceed. But there's a general agreement here in the room, what I can feel, that there's a need for this group, for the correspondence group, there's a need for the exercise. The exercise will result in proposals which we can take up on board and it will facilitate our work. Is it agreeable? Yes, Phil.
>>PHIL RUSHTON: Thank you, Chair. I will sit down with the Secretariat and get the text amended. We will circulate that to the mailing list rather than paper-based. I will be back in this room 30 minutes prior to the start of your meeting, should anybody have any comments or questions, so that we can further amend or make the proposals to amend so that we can meet your five-minute deadline. So I shall be back in here at half past 2:00 with people having any comments or questions. Thank you.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you, Phil. Last remark before we break, as I mentioned in the morning, I would like to proceed with the framework of our recommendations, so I would like from the proposal for the framework some text, and I would like to have some rudimentary recommendations for Group 4 and 5. If there are members who would like to proceed in this way, I would like to have the text as well. And in this spirit I wish you bon appetite and see you back at 3:00.
[ Lunch Break ]
[ Gavel ]
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Good afternoon. Thank you for taking your seats. And I would like to thank you also for the hard work you did during lunchtime, those of you who have had discussions. And I understand that there are -- there's a proposal for the mandate of the correspondence group. I just want to remind you that before lunch break, we had a proposal which was amended. And now I would like to see the final result of the consultations.
Can I ask Phil?
>>PHIL RUSHTON: Thank you, Chair. Good afternoon. Indeed the revised text, as we discussed this morning, was posted early in the lunch hour. So I thank the secretariat for their support in that process.
As I also said prior to lunch, I was in this room from half past 2:00 to take comments on the amended text, and I have received some amendments to that text.
So I will read those out, if you will allow me, Chair.
So under 5A, there is a word to be inserted. And it says "now review the identified international public policy issues." So the word "international" has been proposed to be inserted.
There is alternate text to B. It says -- excuse me. Excuse me -- "list where there are existing international mechanisms addressing the issues in the list." I will repeat again: "List where there are existing international mechanisms addressing the issues in the list."
A proposal has been brought forward as an alternative to C, which is: "Identify the status of mechanisms, if any, whether they are addressing the issues." So C would now read: "Identify the status of mechanisms, if any, whether they are addressing the issues."
And then in D, again, insertion after the term "gaps," it would say "attempt to identify the gaps and required action in order to ascertain." So the three words "and required action" have been proposed to be inserted, Chair. Thank you.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you, Phil. I have a general remark. I don't really want to see anything in the terms of reference which is taking over from the mandate of this group. The correspondence group is to have the work, not to replace, not to override the work of this working group. So any action is within the mandate of this group.
I can see Marilyn. But I think, Parminder, you were first.
>>MARILYN CADE: Thank you. Chair, I would have to see this rewritten, but I have an immediate concern about limiting our work to using the word "international" rather than "Internet." I think our work is focused on Internet issues. And I want to be careful that we don't find ourselves -- and I'm just going to use an example. I think that some of the issues identified by those from civil society and others who were raising concerns from developing countries might -- if we're using "international," I think we may be missing the fact that we need to be -- in some cases, there will be a need to have a regional recognition of an issue that might be arising.
So I would actually prefer that we use the word "Internet" rather than restricting it by using the word "international."
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you, Marilyn.
Parminder.
>>PARMINDER JEET SINGH: Thank you, Chair. First, I would respond to Marilyn's proposal and I see the mention of enhanced cooperation in Tunis Agenda clearly refers to international public policy issues pertaining to the Internet. And I think that is our mandate, and we should stick to our mandate. Otherwise, we will go too diffuse and the idea is to see what are the gaps in international Internet-related public policies and, if there are gaps, what to do about it.
The prior issue on which I wanted to comment was about the composition of the group. I am for extending all kinds of outreaches to all levels and keeping it open. And if you wish to go for another round of information seeking, I'm very happy to have that because it will be more focused information.
My concern is that out of four, probably different in the new amended text, but more or less still I'm talking from the old text are the four activities or mandates of the group, three are evaluative. They consist of making a judgment.
Now, collection of information -- and this group being a repository or recipient of information from all quarters is one kind of activity and that should be and can be very open. I'm not sure how a huge group would be taking evaluative judgments.
And my concern is entirely practical, that it won't happen and we will be back in the group with a list without being able to close the gaps which I thought was the primary purpose of making a small group; that when we come back, there's more clarity about certain judgments around different gaps and then we can work quickly. And if we are not able to assemble an effective group, we would not be able to do those evaluative functions. And that's the concern, if we can separate information sourcing from the evaluative aspects of this group and organize the group in a manner which it is effective to do both the works properly. Thank you.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: As I mentioned earlier, the mandate of the working group hasn't changed. So in case we are thinking in terms much actions, recommendations or evaluations, it is within the mandate of the working group, not within the mandate of the correspondence group. I just wanted to make it clear. In case you have doubts, I will put it down in my report and probably we can be done with that.
Brazil.
>>BRAZIL: Thank you, Mr. Chair. My intervention is more or less in the same sense of your last intervention. I see the outcome of this correspondence group as being a factual document that will assist us as a working group to move ahead and provide and elaborate recommendations and make an analysis on this. So I think this is important because the contributions that are expected from to be us, from an expanded group of stakeholders, I think, as I have said before, I think we benefit to have enough expertise and information coming from other parties.
But those contributions should not entail analysis or lengthy elaborations on the issues. I think we are expecting also very factual information, very focus-oriented inputs. I think this must be made clear. Otherwise, we'll end up, the coordinator, with extensive pieces of paper from which he will have to pick what is relevant.
What is relevant here are the factual information, one that will allow us to have a clear view, an x-ray, but not an analysis of this. As you have indicated, Mr. Chair, we are not expecting proposals of actions, recommendations, just this picture upon which this working group will work. This is our understanding.
I think that might be the understanding of the room. Otherwise, it should be specified because it will assist the working group in its preparation. Thank you.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you, Brazil. I strongly urge you to follow the wise advice from Brazil, and let's move forward. We may spend half of the night here discussing words in the terms of references for the correspondence group, which is a technical group, and which you will provide input to us and it is up to us to evaluate, to give proposals to recommendations.
India, please.
>>INDIA: Thank you, Chair. And I wish to thank Phil for certain amendments which he proposed. I think they're very valid amendments which have slightly made the task more focused, number one.
Secondly, to look at what Marilyn was saying about "Internet," the way to fix this is we strictly go by what's said in the Tunis Agenda. If we could add three words in 5A, "international public policy issues pertaining to Internet," I think that is what the text is actually. So then they were talking of Internet and again international public policy issues.
And in any case, our objective is core towards such policies only and also to identify whether there is a role at the international level, not at the national level, because the task of this group is to look at that particular dimension.
And the second one which is, again -- I don't want to open this discussion, but Jimson had made one very important amendment before our lunch break in para 2. Are we looking at it or are we going to shelve that? I just want to know that. Of course, it is clear it is not reflected so it is not there. But I thought that was a fairly good suggestion. Thank you, Chair.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you, India.
Before we went to lunch, I really urged you, especially governments, to participate in the work of this correspondence group. So I rather concentrate on these issues than on the particular words. The sense of this correspondence group is to provide information to our group. And if governments do participate, I think we have a good hope to come up with recommendations which are beneficial for the governments.
I can see Sweden.
>>SWEDEN: Thank you, Chairman. Very briefly, we support what was said by the Brazilian ambassador. We think this should be a very factual tool that we can continue to work on and base our work on. And the only small comment that we have in that regard is that we think that it should not be within the mandate of this correspondence group to evaluate whether or not something has been adequately addressed or not addressed in a specific fora, process, or mechanism. Otherwise, we are very thankful to the hard work that Phil has put into this and with contributions from all colleagues. And we think we can work on this basis. Thank you.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you, Sweden.
Phil?
Saudi Arabia, you want to take the floor?
Virat after Phil, Japan, and United States. And I would like to close the discussion because I think that we are very, very close and probably in the last two hours we should do some real work. I'm really sorry to say that. You have been doing a great job up to now. The discussions were extremely good. I really enjoy them. And we are getting closer to it.
But after deliberation of the terms of references, I would like to have some kind of framework for the recommendations on one hand and eventually if some members think that they could offer some recommendations, then I would like to see them.
So, Phil, please.
>>PHIL RUSHTON: Thank you, Chair. Just two comments, one to respond to the distinguished delegate from India. I would like to claim credit for the words but, unfortunately, I cannot. I'm merely the scribe. The proposed changes came from my distinguished colleagues from Saudi Arabia in the 30 minutes I had set aside. So if there is credit to be given to the terms used, please direct them to my colleagues from Saudi Arabia.
The other issue -- and it goes back to something that you said, Chair, and to the Ambassador from Brazil which is in 13 weeks -- and I keep emphasizing 13 weeks -- there is going to be no effort to judge anything. It is merely factual. I do not have time to sit down and evaluate what I hope will be input. And I hope you will reflect that in your minutes, Chair, that all I will do, along with colleagues who participate, is reflect back into your group the facts that we are given. Where there is agreement on the facts, great. Where there is no agreement on the facts, then alternate views as expressed on the correspondence group will be presented to this group to discuss and debate. I do not intend to get into the middle of an argument. That is not my intention, believe me. Thank you.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Very grateful for that. Thank you. So you left me in the middle.
[ Laughter ]
Okay. I can see United States and Japan and then probably we can close.
>>UNITED STATES: Thank you, Chairman. Don't want to -- to take the time simply to come in to support your approach, to agree with those who see the correspondence -- the correspondence group as a fact-finding group, I think for the purposes, as was said, to have an x-ray of progress currently being made.
We agree with the comments that Sweden made. There's no rendering of judgment by this correspondence group. That is the purview, that is the work of this group.
So, thank you, Chairman. We support the approach.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you. Japan?
>>JAPAN: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We deeply appreciate the hard work to prepare the correspondence group. And Japan would like to support the work of the correspondence group and would like to be a member of this correspondence group and cooperative work of the correspondence group. Thank you.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you, Japan. Very grateful for that, especially for the last part that you would like to be part of it. I encourage again all governments to be part of it.
Having said that, can I take the terms of reference as accepted by this group? Thank you.
Oh, Saudi Arabia, sorry.
>>SAUDI ARABIA: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. What exactly -- I mean, is it the way it's presented right now? Because we have two Bs, two Cs.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: I go back to Phil.
>>PHIL RUSHTON: That was going to be my question to you, Chair. I presented amendments to --
>>CHAIR MAJOR: In that case, we accept the amendments. We clean up the text and we accept the amendments.
Yes?
>> VIRAT BHATIA: Thank you, Chairman. If we are accepting amendments, then 5D now requires the group to make -- suggest actions, which is -- that's the corrected text.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Yes, I understand. Good point.
>> VIRAT BHATIA: Which is the job of the larger group. This was debated extensively. And the word "action" was dropped because it is a synonym for "recommendations" or "towards recommendations."
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Can you suggest text?
>> VIRAT BHATIA: We should keep the original text. I just had one more point.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: As I indicated, it is in the mandate of this group to make recommendations, to make judgments, evaluations. It's not in the mandate of the correspondence group, so there's no need according to the mandate of this group to delegate any of these actions. It is us who are going to do it.
Yes, please, continue.
>>VIRAT BHATIA: The second point that I had is with regards to 5B where the word "identify" has been replaced with "list," I just want to clarify and understand that because if "list" means just putting the name of an association or a body, then that would be insufficient because for the larger group to be able to make a call on the substantive contributions of that group, then it can't be just listing. It will have to be descriptive. So if listing does not mean restricting a descriptive notion -- because the contribution and the progress can be identified only after reading a descriptive notion. And if that's not on because it is the word "list" which is just reference to a name or an abbreviation, that, I believe, will be insufficient even for the group to get their document out to us. So either we agree that "list" doesn't mean just the name or we go back to identifying we're okay with either one so long as we have an agreement and understanding.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you.
Saudi Arabia.
>>SAUDI ARABIA: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. But if there is -- I mean, if there is no meat or an output that will help us, why establish this group, if we are just going to have informative?
If we are only getting informative, it will be more appropriate, more balanced, especially with the Item 2 there, to do the same thing we did with the questionnaire. We formulate these questions, send it as a questionnaire, get the replies, then the working group will decide.
But if you are going to have a correspondence group just for collecting information, why waste the time? Just formulate it as questions, send it as a questionnaire. And it will be more balanced that all stakeholders will be -- get the chance to reply and that's it. And especially when I say if you're going to do the required action or a proposal. So you are limiting me to just say, okay, there is a mechanism and I speak about that mechanism? I cannot even say that mechanism is not appropriate? That mechanism is not international mechanism? That mechanism is not an intergovernmental mechanism?
I mean, you cannot just direct me to one corner and I just follow that based on the questions.
If the correspondence group is not going to do evaluative or to propose something, put them as a question, send them as a questionnaire, and save the time, I mean, for the correspondence group members.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you. Nigeria.
>>NIGERIA: Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for giving me the floor. I have to -- I shall thank you for the great job for the comments here. Everything is (indiscernible). They actually address so much what has been happening as part of the discourse.
So that effect, I would like to be included as a member among the correspondence group. I want to be a part of the process to be helpful. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you.
So right now we have two Bs and two Cs, if I'm not mistaken. Any proposal how to move forward?
Yeah.
>>SAUDI ARABIA: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Based on Tunis Agenda and from there we get the enhanced cooperation, when we say "enhanced cooperation associated with framework or mechanisms," and that's based on Tunis Agenda, paragraph 60 -- I mean, either 68 or 69, so the most appropriate thing is to say "mechanisms or framework" because that's the thing that relates to the enhanced cooperation. Existing activities, we can have so many existing activities but it is not in the code of the enhanced cooperation, international --
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Is "framework" acceptable to the group? That's what you want, "mechanism and framework"?
>>SAUDI ARABIA: Tunis Agenda says "mechanisms" in paragraph 60, if I'm not mistaken. Yes.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Okay. The second B in blue. There was a concern about the first list in point B in blue. Can you clarify what you mean by list? I think the proposal came from you.
>>SAUDI ARABIA: Yes.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: So what do you mean by "list" with respect to the intervention of Virat?
>>SAUDI ARABIA: Because if we say "identify," it will be judgmental. You identify something. Should I agree with it or not? But it's just to give me something that's already established, listed to me. This is a corresponding group, okay. We need answers in one line, two lines, one paragraph, not five pages to identify something that you see as an international mechanism or a framework. It is either yes or no. Is there a mechanism? Yes. Put the name of it. That's why we said "list."
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Sweden?
>>SWEDEN: Thank you. First of all, if you could indulge a little bit the text. Unfortunately, my eyes are not so sharp.
Just to comment on the point made about analysis, analyze the material versus just mapping, I think it still has a lot of value to do the mapping. And I think it's a big difference between mapping and what we need to do sorting different issues in different categories, for example, and identifying where, in which processes, in what mechanisms, so -- in what fora they're addressed and a questionnaire.
I think the questionnaire, we have already done that; and it has been really useful. We have connected in that way a broad range of views on this issues. But I think the very nature of what we are trying to do now to move the work forward is quite different from what we can do with the questionnaire. So we think it's a lot of added value.
And I've heard from a lot of colleagues here that actually doing this kind of mapping to have a good factual base to have a more informed discussion when we are going to move forward towards formulating recommendations has a lot of added value.
So we don't really see the point made that this shouldn't be of any added value and that we should repeat the exercise that we have already done when it comes to the questionnaire. Thank you.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you, Sweden.
Andres.
>>ANDRES PIAZZA: Thank you very much, Chair. I guess the distinguished colleague of Sweden already took many of my points, so I want to agree with him. And I want also to congratulate Phil and the rest of the group, too, for the progress made and also say that I want to be available for the corresponding group, too, in the next month. So I want to be listed. Thank you very much.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you. I believe practically all the working group may volunteer. I can see no problem about that. So I just once again encourage you to do that. Virat, please.
>>VIRAT BHATIA: Mr. Chairman, on the point of listing versus identify, the notion that a one-line or two-line answer can be given, as has been suggested by the distinguished delegate of Saudi Arabia, the concern that we have with that is the following: And I'll illustrate that with an example. For example, if the discussion is about human rights and Internet and IGF was listed as a fora and it was just listed IGF, then that's actually leaving it to everybody's judgment on what IGF does. On the other hand, when the group is doing the research and getting information, if there was a list that 18 sessions across the last nine years have occurred, including one main session, and so many participants have spoken, this is the kind of text available, we expect that to come up, when that is substantively different while making a judgment on whether the IGF is an effective international mechanism for enhanced cooperation where the issue of human rights and Internet is concerned. And I think that's -- that's the kind of information that this group is looking for. And I think that's the kind of information that will come, both from the filings that have already been made by the 60-plus participants and if you were to open this further, then others would substantiate it. So the quality of work that will come in will obviously make it tedious for us to go through some more papers, but we will make a much better qualitative judgment based on the evidence that would be provided. And that is the reason why I suppose it would help to be descriptive rather than one or two lines responses back.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you, Virat. As you may know, I am also involved in the Radio Advisory Group of the ITU, I'm the vice chair, and as the vice chair I was chairing a correspondence group on the improvements of the VR, this is the Radiocommunication Bureau of Information Systems. We have gone through a kind of similar debate about the mandate of the group and after they settled the issue of mandate there was a great enthusiasm from the members of the Radio Advisory Group to participate. Can anyone tell me how many people participated out of 60-plus? Three. In addition to -- two in addition to myself. But the bulk of the work had to be by me. And I took all the blame, because you can't do a good job. There's no way you can do a good job. And those of you who are familiar with the ITU know that. So please, don't insist because we are going to end up having poor Phil doing it on his own, and while I'm too pessimistic but I hope some of us will help him and some of us who made commitments will really contribute.
But I believe, let's stop now the discussion here, try to stick to some -- some of the formulation. Believe me, it's almost irrelevant, at the end of the day, what we agree on here. Because the work we are going to have is the more important one. So I really ask you to approve whatever we have and let's move forward. It is going to be a very useful thing for us as a group, and we will be very grateful to Phil and a few others who are going to contribute. And I really hope there will be more than two, as was in my case. Thank you. Phil.
>>PHIL RUSHTON: Just to save myself the embarrassment in February, Chair, unless there is input, I will do nothing.
[ Laughter ]
So it is up to others to contribute. I'm sure that will not be the case.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Okay. Brazil.
>>BRAZIL: Thank you, Mr. Chair. I was not going to intervene but just to agree with one point that was raised by Saudi Arabia, that if the final outcome of the group would be thinking to identify, at least without any kind of judgment recommendation, that would be -- not would be in favor of that. But if it is an intermediate step, as a tool to assist us in a second stage then to have -- to provide for analysis on this. So I think the way you are proposing is just okay.
There is one point of clarification I would like to ask you because in both of these refers to the status of mechanisms. What is exactly meant by the status? Is it -- I don't understand what is the concept of the status? Is it something that is apparent to you, something that is -- what -- what is the criteria to judge the status? I'd like to have some more clarity on this, please.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Valid question. Before I give the floor to India, can the originators of this brilliant idea, this spreadsheet, clarify the status, meaning of the status. Parminder, are you able to do that?
>>PARMINDER JEET SINGH: Yeah. After disclaiming brilliance, I can try to say what it was supposed to mean, and it was supposed to mean along with a (indiscernible) that was sent to the list which was about four or five lists, we will try to judge the mechanism like it is validity with the subject, it is (indiscernible) with the subject. So there's a certain list which would be used and it has a proposed list. Otherwise all kinds of judgments, and we can -- I think that work can be left to Phil to have four or five categories, which have been discussed since the morning, about what are we talking about, what kind of judgments we are putting on the mechanism. Whether it is international, whether it is dealing with the subject entirely or partially, and that kind of categories. But yes, it is a judgment, but we can keep it closed by giving four or five, six exhaustive options.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: It is my understanding that the group intends to have an intermediate -- intermediate report by the end of November, and most likely in January, and we'll have time to comment on that. So basically if we are in disagreement with something, probably we can contribute the same way. And it is also up to us what we accept and what we don't accept. And we can allow the group to make mistakes. I know that they are not allowed to, but still, I believe they will make mistakes, they will make errors, and we have to be very lenient. India, please. And I believe I would like you to be the last one.
>>INDIA: Thank you, Chair. I thought Phil should be worrying about which, we should take the blue or the black. You have two choices.
>> I prefer the blue.
>>INDIA: You prefer the blue. Okay. Thank you, Chair.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: But what is more important for me, the number of people contributing. And don't forget that. Can we go? We delete the black and retain the blue. Sweden?
>>SWEDEN: Thank you. Well, just to make clear, I think the blue is the one that is giving this group a mandate to evaluate its existing mechanisms, as it's phrased, or addressing the issues in the least. So we would have preferred the black one, and I think that is what I have heard a lot from the room. Thank you.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: I really understand your concerns, but believe me, it's of no significance. I'm really sorry to say that we shall see from the number of contributions. I may be too pessimistic as opposed to our assignment really because I'm generally an optimistic person, but from my experience I'm -- I believe that the main thing is -- just sets the working group -- the correspondence group and let it work. Yes, Virat.
>>VIRAT BHATIA: Chairman, can we suggest a compromise where we can go with blue with the exception of listing to be clarified to be descriptive or support the point made by Sweden, sort of go through identify and then take away the required action. That certainly is a -- is a problem. So if you can take those two out, then we can go with blue, it can work.
[ Speaker is off microphone. ]
>> We took away "required action"? Okay, fine.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: There's no action to be taken. There's no "required action."
>>VIRAT BHATIA: The only point left is --
>>CHAIR MAJOR: So can you please reflect --
[ Speaker is off microphone. ]
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Retain blue? Okay. Delete black.
[ Speaker is off microphone. ]
>>CHAIR MAJOR: The other way around? Virat --
>>VIRAT BHATIA: There's one indication of I just -- I read this when you say, list the existing -- sorry, this is a bit difficult to read for me. List what the existing international mechanisms addressing the list means, nearly half or more of the list that has been prepared and provided by the 60 or inputs are going to be wiped out of the discussion, if -- I mean, we should either say national/international or not have international because this means half the work that's been done, or maybe more than half of the work that has been done, could be wiped out. Just a suggestion for the room to consider. So I'm suggesting either international and national or remove international.
[ Speaker is off microphone. ]
>>CHAIR MAJOR: You want to take the floor? Marilyn.
>>MARILYN CADE: I just want to mention to colleagues that that was why I intervened before. We sent out a questionnaire with 18 questions in it and in good faith and we worked very hard on that questionnaire, as I recall. I think some of you actually left me unsupervised for an hour or two until midnight or something, but we worked very hard on that questionnaire, as we all recall. We sent it out and then we all worked in good faith to get people to fill it in. And the people who filled it in, a large number of them, the majority of the responses came from governments. I think there's a real problem if we restrict our analysis now in a way that will not take that input into account. If we could go back to -- I share the concern that Virat Bhatia has raised that the word "list" could end up with just a narrow term that people wouldn't even understand. If I listed APWG or MAAWG, M-A-A-W-G, most people in this room wouldn't know what that is but it's the Messaging Anti-Abuse Working Group which does a huge amount of work on spam and that would be relevant information. So I'm hoping that we'll be flexible but not get multiple pages, just a short description. But the thing I'm most concerned about in B is, whatever the word is, "list" existing mechanisms addressing Internet public policy. I -- isn't that what we asked people to do, to respond to. And how do we do the analysis if we do not include the kinds of mechanisms and framework -- I went back and looked at the Tunis Agenda and I believe it says frameworks or mechanisms, if required. But let's say the concern here is we need to be able to include the scope of the questionnaire that we distributed. It is really unfair to those people who we asked to contribute if we do not take their input into account.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you. And it's also against our intentions. Parminder and India.
>>PARMINDER JEET SINGH: I think we have a duty towards all people who have given inputs, but we also have a duty, which is quite friendly, to the UNGA which gave us a mandate. The mandate is here, and we have to respond to the mandate. It is good to work with a big broad based pyramid, but you have to go towards the tip which is the recommendations which are in accordance with the mandate. And if you had to go towards the tip, we need to focus on our mandate which is very clear about enhanced cooperation which is defined as pertaining to international public policy issues. That's what the mandate is.
So now defeatists say that because there are responses of certain kinds we need to know -- our recommendation has to be based on that. That's a good material for us to understand the issues, but we need to work on the mandate. And the mandate is very clear, it's about international public policy issues. I don't understand what we would be doing about talking about what, for example, India is doing on (indiscernible) diversity on the Internet within India. That's not what we can put in our recommendations. So we want to waste time of the group spending time talking again about those kind of issues when we are now supposed to be giving recommendations outside the mandate is my concern. Therefore, the international public policy issues and international mechanisms is precisely now trying to get narrowed down to what we are supposed to respond to. Thank you.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Okay. India.
>>INDIA: Thank you, Chair. I think we've been constantly compelled to make interventions but at one stage you are gaveled with talking about moving forward but again, it's a very fundamental issue. Given the mandate of this group, I think we need to bear in mind that the way in which even the Tunis Agenda has evolved in Paris with 60, 61, they talked about an adequacy of mechanisms of frameworks for what? For the international public policy issues. Now, there could be a mechanism at the national level which is dealing with a possible international public policy issue, but that is not the relevance or the mandate of this group to identify. We're looking at an international mechanism, if we -- quite possible in the middle of the discussion we may say well, it's already clear, that's a different story. But at this point in time we need to look at those international mechanisms. And that is the spirit with which we are all in this room. So let's -- I have no problem in listing all that, but the only thing is you go further and we'll have a much larger database and then we'll have to sift through the same process, the process through which you're going and stick only to the international issues rather than the national issues. Thank you, Chair.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Well, as a matter of fact, I do trust the correspondence group to make appropriate judgments whether it's relevant or not relevant, and I really trust them, since they are also members of this group, to come up with a final document which will be -- which we will be able to handle in the proper way. And so I tell you, I don't really want to spend much time on that. We are just going around and around and we are just postponing to do real work. I'm really sorry to say that. Phil.
>>PHIL RUSHTON: Thank you, Chair. I'm sorry to prolong the agony. But I am now, as one of the co-conveners, slightly confused. I am told on the one hand I should make no judgment, there should be only factual information. Now I am being asked to make a judgment on whether or not something is international or national. I think the bottom line is, if the information comes in, I will put it into a form that is agreed to by the correspondence group and you, too, will have to share my pain, Chair. I am sorry to say this. I will buy you a nice cup of coffee afterwards. But I will make no judgment. This -- I reiterate for the fourth time, this correspondence group is merely a tool for the working group. It is the working group's role, expertise, to make the judgments. Thank you.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Okay. I will ask you for the coffee a bit later. Let me propose the following thing: The output of this correspondence group will be a Chair's document and it will be my responsibility to take and make any judgment which I think is appropriate. Is it acceptable? Okay.
[ Speaker is off microphone. ]
>>CHAIR MAJOR: You want to take the floor, observer? I have taken the decision over.
>>MATTHEW SHEARS: If I may, Chair. Matthew Shears of CDT. Part of the mandate of this working group is to seek, compile, and review inputs. If we're moving to a terms of reference -- and I apologize for prolonging this further but I do feel this has to be said -- if we're moving to a terms of reference that focuses on mechanisms, international mechanisms as some have inserted in here, rather than fora and other activities, we are effectively removing a considerable portion of the work that should be done as part of that review process. And it is quite astonishing to me that we have 60 or so inputs to this process and now we're saying that most of those inputs actually don't meet some kind of new set of criteria. They have not been reviewed. Those issues should be reviewed, as a part of this process. Thank you.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you. Just let me repeat, I expect an output from the group which will be my document, and I will make the judgments. Brazil.
>>BRAZIL: Thank you, Mr. Chair. I -- as I see it, I think the -- this correspondence group is still not -- is fully consistent with the mandate we have. I think actually in spelling out the questions we have been fully respectful of all input received. I think we initially had this lengthy list of over 400 contributions, collecting all of the views from all participants on the relevant issues to be examined. So what we are trying to do to organize our work to make it workable for us is to request for an input. What is the input? On the basis of these contributions we have, we want to have a document relating these to saying whether those issues that were identified by submissions that were obviously related to something that is theirs, who is doing what, I think this is something that we find -- we found as a group properly to have in order to move forward. But this is, to my view, fully consistent with the fact that we are being respectful of the submissions that we have received and trying to relate to them. But making it into a way that is workable for us, otherwise either we cannot make out the work that was mandated to this group. Thank you.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you, Brazil. I will reflect the results of this discussion in my report, and I suggest we move forward. We have two hours to go. I closed -- I closed the debate. I would like to move forward, and I would like to ask India if you have any proposal for the framework for our recommendations?
>>INDIA: Thank you, Chair. At the outset I must say that I have not really been able to come up with a very serious framework, but something which I attempted which would -- would be in the form of what were the broad elements of the report rather than put together language at this stage. So that is my -- this is based on the discussion that we had and the similar reports that have been produced by the working groups. If you permit me, Chair, I just will highlight some of the elements of it rather than going into the specific details because it will be -- it would be quite unfair to draw a conclusion when we are not even started making serious assessments about various contributions that we have received.
With that admission, Chair, I think firstly, the way we look at this, we could have a kind of introduction to the report which would talk about the mandate that has been given to this working group by the U.N. General Assembly Resolution 67/195. With a specific recommendation made -- or recommendations to be made on how to fully implement the mandate of the enhanced cooperation as contained in the Tunis Agenda and how we went about doing this process, the modis operandi which the working group has chosen and the meetings that have been set up and how we arrived at the questionnaire. So this could be captured in the body of the report in the form of an introduction. And of course, today's development which is talking about this -- talking about the correspondence group which has been tasked with a very sensitive assignment of -- I do not fully agree with saying it is not just reporting of what has been given but I think it's a very sensitive job of even to put together those ideas and presenting it as one particular input to the working group. And based on -- the next part of the report could be looking at what is the broad approach that we want to take on this. The group seems to have taken a clear recognition that there are a large number of issues above the Internet and also on the use of the Internet that affect most of the people who have access to it and also looked at areas where people who have no access to it and how to perhaps look at addressing those issues.
Secondly, there are also issues which needed a holistic examination on the use of Internet because it -- one way or another it will touch upon the concept of enhanced cooperation. So that would be the next element. But we also have seen some acknowledgment in the room, at least some delegations have said that there are issues that are to be dealt with by existing mechanisms and then others who said that while there is still no home for some of the issues, that when they say issues they're talking about the international public policy issues pertaining to Internet, I think.
Having made this broad position of what has been achieved and what are the gaps, we would then look at what are those relevant areas, relevant broad areas that the working group could look at as a possibility, again flowing out of the Tunis Agenda which is firstly talking about this identification of those international public policy issues pertaining to Internet which is an exercise the correspondence group would come up with which will perhaps could be part of this particular portion of the report. And there are technical issues as well as issues relating to the oversight. That would be in the range of the -- thereafter, I think the most would say assessment-based aspects will now have to come into the report before we actually go into the recommendations.
Now here, when you talk of assess -- prior to assessment we also need to look at the role of various stakeholders. Now, this is where there seems to be some lack of convergence, if I can use the word. The issue which is of whether what has been described in the Tunis Agenda of the relative roles, do they still remain intact or there has been certain cross -- cross, what do you say, movement of some of the responsibilities of the various stakeholders. But I think it will not be inappropriate, at least to begin with, to use what is the language that's given in the Tunis Agenda, for example, with regard to the role of the governments and with regard to the role of private sector, the role of civil society, and the role of Internet -- governmental organizations. And one thing we must certainly do is bring in the role of academic and technical communities which -- who have been left behind for God knows what reasons. I think their contributions also need to be recognized and see what relative role they can also bring into the whole enhanced cooperation element.
At the end of this -- I mean, here we need to -- again, in each of these, we could have a shepherd which -- initiating from what is given in the Tunis Agenda. And if there are any changes, the group feels need to be added or to be made, and that is something -- that would be part of an assessment, frankly an assessment we'll have to make, given the views that are prevalent in the room.
Then comes the next level which is the inputs that are going to be moving into the mechanisms or frameworks. There are views about fora, the colleagues have said, or activities.
Now, this is where we need to be making perhaps a very close -- we will be taking a close look at this part of the report which would talk about the need for strengthening the existing mechanisms and at the same time talking about the need for having possible new mechanisms.
And this is where the direct input we will get from the correspondence group which would have done a certain mapping of the existing -- of identified international public policy issues. And then we have the mechanisms or frameworks which are existing. And if they're not in the view of the group, then we need to perhaps touch upon that part in this part of the -- in this part of the report.
And there's one more dimension which we might need to reflect, again, this is the relationship of whatever mechanisms which are existing or new ones, with the existing bodies, international bodies, which are dealing with international public policy issues. Just to give an example, like WIPO. There are issues which are already being dealt with by WIPO, similarly ITU, some aspects. We could come up with this relationship of those existing mechanisms or the new ones with this new body -- with the already -- with the part of the United Nations system because they are already part of it. And there is also already a big debate in the WIPO how to deal with issues relating to what has been transacted on the Internet.
Toward the end, I think it will be very important for us also to look at -- I mean, this is one thing which I thought would be very relevant to look at the relationship with the IGF because as we made this process that we should have two processes which are complementing each other and working on a side-by-side basis.
Of course, I did hear some views today that some believe that it is in itself part of the enhanced cooperation. That's debatable. But I think we need to, given the current mandate of the Tunis Agenda and the U.N. General Assembly resolutions, very clearly pointing out that these are two processes distinct and having certain complementarities which need to be further strengthened, in a sense. It could be a very good relationship between the two processes.
Broadly, I think -- the last issue which I think will be a final outcome of the correspondence group would have to come under the relevant roles which we are going to define. The role of, let's say, a particular stakeholder and possible areas under which have been identified by the group, those could be either listed there or could be annexed to the report. So that -- to keep the main body of the report relatively shorter and to have an annex which gives those areas which we have -- perhaps believe could be part of a particular stakeholder's direct response.
Here comes the challenge. There could be areas where they are cross-cutting, where everyone is involved. We need to devise the mechanism of how to list those international public policy issues that we would like them to be looked at by a stakeholder or stakeholders. Thank you, Chair.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you, India.
It's nice to hear one's own ideas back. You are already writing my report, so I'm real grateful for that.
I think there is great merit what you have said. And probably what I suggest to you is taking from -- either you can provide the written form or we can take it from the transcript. And I will ask the secretariat to start an initial rolling document in this sense which really makes sense. And probably it's something which people can contribute and say, no, we want a different categorization, we want a different structure. But we have to start somewhere. And that's my main idea, that eventually we should come up with some kind of structure for our recommendations.
I fully agree that naturally we will have an introductory part. We will have an analysis part. We will have all the text which is needed for this report.
But to have some kind of structure for the recommendations, it is really needed to think about how we are going to formulate.
One idea I had was based on the document which was offered to you as a summary of the responses, which is strictly related to the inputs we had and which also reflect the mandate. And it may be also an idea to reflect these categories what we had in the summary paper in the recommendations. In the process of our work, we may find that eventually we should deviate or we should split some of the categories. It may be that we shall merge some of the categories. I still don't know. It very much depends on you and on the way we are going to move forward.
I really thank you for your contributions. And if you want to add, please do it.
>>INDIA: Thank you, Chair. I was remiss on my part not to mention another important dimension which is relating to the developing countries of which I think there is -- some contributions are coming in. And that would be a part of the report which will have to come perhaps just before conclusions, I guess, because it will also be drawing upon some of the recommendations that the group would be making on whether it is on the relative roles or whether it is on the mechanisms.
Thank you, Chair.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you. Any comments on the intervention of India?
Sweden, please.
>>SWEDEN: Thank you, Chairman. Thank you, first of all, I would like to thank India for this work. I think it is really a good start. Definitely something that we can work on. We're looking forward to seeing it in written form, and then we will analyze that further. And maybe we can work on a rolling document, as you said.
I just want to make one thing clear from our perspective for the record, that when we're talking about "mechanisms" here, our interpretation of that is that it can be a process, it can be an organization, it can be a fora.
So that is -- potentially, that's a list that could be expanded. I think that's very important to make clear given both the mandate of the correspondence group and the structure that was proposed by India on the report. But we are -- once again, would like to thank India for that. And I think we can work further on that. Thank you.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you, Sweden.
Avri?
>>AVRI DORIA: Thank you, Chair, for giving me the opportunity to speak. I just wanted to mention that several of us put forward a document that was intended as food for thought and I believe is in many ways complementary to many of the recommendations just made by India.
In that document, we try to reflect the reality with the Tunis Agenda as the starting point for all of our discussions but that it is also not the last word on Internet governance or the roles and responsibilities in an evolving Internet.
It takes into account and respects the many views that we have received to the questionnaire. It appreciates the existing mechanisms respectful of the idea and the many organizations of the Internet technical community.
And it attempts to avoid any top-down recommendations that would harm the organic international Internet processes that are ongoing and constantly evolving.
So on behalf of those who contributed to the stake in the ground, I would like to ask the members of this community to consider our offerings as we move forward. Thank you very much, Chair.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you, Avri. I think your contribution has been circulated within the group to be taken into account. And I would like to remind us all that we are all part of the process, which is the WSIS +10 process.
So with this in mind, we have to pursue our work. So we are going to contribute to this WSIS +10 process.
I can see Jimson.
>>JIMSON OLUFUYE: Thank you, Distinguished Chair. I want to really appreciate you for the way you have moderated thus far.
I would like to speak to the proposal or the submission of distinguished representative from India.
Actually, I wanted to comment to talk about: Have you left us out, the developing countries? And then he came up again and talked about it.
So I think a bigger gap on enhanced cooperation is to focus in on what happens at developing nations. That should be given a lot of recognition in the report.
And, also, to agree with the distinguished delegates from Sweden with regard to what we mean by "mechanism" because there are a lot of processes that is ongoing that is also facilitating the process of building confidence with regard to formulating international policy pertaining to the growth of the Internet.
And, lastly, there was a very important forum that took place here in Geneva that was May last year. There was a lot of inputs in that forum, very rich because I read the script and everything. So I think it also would be good if we make reference to that. The correspondence group can have it, actually can look through it, can be part of the reference group because I can recall a lot of vital inputs in that discussion, the first discussion enabled by the CSTD.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you, Jimson. I believe the document has been made available to the group. It was the initial document -- one of the initial documents for the first meeting that was the transcript of the 2012 May meeting of this year, so open consultation the CSTD had in the ILO last -- not last May but May 2012. So thank you. It's well taken, but it has already been made available. If you wish, we can resend it.
Virat, you wanted to take the floor. And then even though I told Brazil we are not going to have coffee, we are going to have coffee.
>>VIRAT BHATIA: Thank you, Chair. I just wanted to come in and throw our weight behind the framework presented -- the early sketch of the framework presented by distinguished delegate from India. I think we don't -- we perhaps don't realize the importance of this because otherwise this could take one of those four days. And so if -- I think this is really excellent use of our time. If this framework that has been stated in some ways can be structured and put together for comments, then it would be our -- it should be our endeavor to try and agree broadly or as closely as possible on at least the framework when we begin the four-day meeting.
You see I'm emphasizing again and again a "four-days" meeting in February because we all want to be back on Friday evening home.
If we could try and do that, then I think it will help to have an effective Monday morning rather than spending half the day just arguing on the framework.
As the contributory groups work on their mapping exercise, the other larger group on e-mail can mail this as close to as possible. Thanks.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you, Virat. That was exactly the reason, I'm sorry to say, that pushed India to make public this vote and share with us because I want to save time. And this is a very, very valuable contribution and it will save us a lot of time.
And I just want to ask you, in case you have something electronic -- in electronic form, to submit it to the secretariat. And, eventually, probably we can work offline to put out a document on the working group Web site and for consultation with the other members.
And when we come back in February, we are very prepared and we know what we are going to do exactly.
Having said that, I propose to have a 20-minute coffee break. And after coffee break, I would like to ask the United States who submitted some contribution in form of a recommendation to propose to us. And I would like to close our meeting, if possible, before 6:00. Thank you. So we will come back in 20 minutes time.
Oh, Sweden, sorry.
>>SWEDEN: Thank you. Just to say also together with Brazil, Mexico, U.K. and Sweden, we have also worked -- well, Sweden, (chuckles) we have also worked on some recommendations that we would like to present to the membership.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: You are more than welcome.
[ Break ]
[ Gavel ]
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen. Can I ask you to take your seats, please. Thank you. Right.
So before we broke for coffee, we had a wonderful contribution from India for the framework. And we were promised to have the electronic form in a short while, probably by Monday. And I'm going to work with the secretariat to have the document out on the Web site in order you can have a look at that and comment. Probably this is going to frame our work for the next meeting and will save a lot of time for us.
The other thing I mentioned before the coffee break was that we had contributions from several participants, members, in form of recommendations.
So who would like to start with the submissions, please raise your flag and let's try to finish before 6:00.
I would like to emphasize that this is a draft. We are going to consider it and probably we shall get back to the recommendations -- draft recommendations in our next meeting. But probably this is offered by some of the members for your comments.
I believe United States wanted to give the recommendations and eventually from the group of countries, Sweden or Brazil. I'm not sure.
Okay. United States, please.
>>UNITED STATES: Sure. Thank you, Chair. In the spirit of the guidance that you provided earlier today about looking at possible draft recommendations that could be put forth, particularly in the discussion we had about looking at Group 4, perhaps to start, we put together something to offer for the process.
Should I just read it?
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Yes, please.
>>UNITED STATES: Okay. "International Internet organizations should continue to evolve to meet the needs and facilitate the participation of all stakeholders (including particularly those from developing countries) in their collaborative mechanisms and stakeholders from all groups are encouraged to engage in those Internet institutions to further realize the benefits of their participation.
Where participation may be hampered by lack of awareness, educational opportunity, political priority or financial resources, the Internet governance community should endeavor to help find ways to enable such participation."
Thank you, Chair.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you, USA. It is very helpful. And as I mentioned to you, this is a draft and probably you consider it also as a draft. And we have to start from somewhere. And I'm really glad that at least we have some draft recommendations.
Any comments? You are not obliged to give comments, of course. But if you feel like, raise your hand. Brazil.
>>BRAZIL: Thank you, Mr. Chair. And I would like to thank the U.S. for this.
Mr. Chair, I think this is language that captures much of what we have said. And, of course, we would think that meaningful collaboration from this group should go beyond this and provide some more substance to those recommendations. But I think this is -- this captures the framework in which we should work. So I think it's valid that if we can come out of this meeting with some formulations upon which we can build, can try to insert more substance but will, let's say, already give us some direction, not start from zero.
In that same sense, we have been working with Sweden, and my colleague from Sweden will introduce the text.
It is something which is not at all our ambition at this point in time. We are not, of course, prejudging the outcome of the discussion we have but will provide for some sort of initial way to try to figure out how the recommendations made from this group could look. I would like this to be seen in that light, not something that reflects something that is -- reflects our ambition. It certainly does not. But it is an initial step in that regard.
And I thank the U.S. also for this. I think it is very important that we initiate our next meeting with something already in writing to -- not to start from zero and lose time, even in trying to figure out how to go about it. This is the purpose of this. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you, Brazil. That is exactly my thought when I asked the participants to contribute in this sense, to start the process of producing recommendations or just the beginning of recommendations. It is also the most difficult part to start something.
Parminder.
>>PARMINDER JEET SINGH: Thank you, Chair. And thanks to the U.S. delegation for starting off. As the Chair says, it is a difficult thing to start off, and we have something we can build over it. And building over it -- I'm going to a layer part, not that I have a problem with the process. And we are into talking about recommendations about part 4 and 5. I mean, the sense of certain discomfort about talking about this has not gone, and it is also exemplified with the present text on the screen. That is not a part that something is more important than the other, but some set of questions are dependent on other sets of questions. And as I now engage with this particular discussion, I again feel that 4 and 5 is so dependent on 2 and 3 that your mind is going to start making contributions not knowing we are trying to increase participation in what mechanisms, we are examining the role of developing countries in what.
And that comes back because I don't disagree with that part which is on the screen. However, it's one part. Existing international organizations who are doing work should be more inclusive and the reasons given are about awareness, finance, et cetera which, again, are an important set of work. But a lot of people here earlier, yesterday, or perhaps the day before, said that one of the biggest reasons developing countries can't participate is because there are no mechanisms. And that was repeated by a few people. That's the big thing.
Now when we discuss -- having not discussed that big thing, you already are uncertain about the contributions you are making. I mean, what is it you're talking about. And if we speak about that, I mean, I would like to contribute that the biggest problem of developing countries' role is an absence of mechanism. Then I'm probably discussing 2 and 3 and 4 and 5 which I should not do.
So that makes me unsure what should I do in this part because for me the biggest problem of participation is absence of international forums where all countries are on equal footing and they can start from the agenda onwards to the final outcomes be a part of the process.
So I would think that for me is the biggest excluding factor. And other factors are important, but they come later. And I agree with those factors which have been put on the table. Thank you.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you, Parminder.
Ellen, please. Oh, no, Jimson first. Sorry, sorry.
>>ELLEN BLACKLER: I would just like to say in response that I had -- I have some of the same concerns, that it's difficult to do recommendations without having kind of this fact basis that we were looking for. But maybe if we can have an opportunity to review things we come up with in this process in light of the facts again, we'll be able to make some progress, that it is not an either/or operation.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Just reflecting on that naturally, it's an iterative process and we are going to review and probably not once.
So, yes, we take it on board and probably with the mind that we are going to have other inputs from the correspondence group. We are going to clarify issues, what Parminder has raised. And in the light of that, probably this will fit into whatever we are going to recommend.
Now Jimson.
>>JIMSON OLUFUYE: Thank you, Chair. Distinguished colleagues, I would like to also join us to appreciate the contributions thus far and in particular the recommendation coming from United States.
Well, we know that the issue at hand is an ongoing work and there is nothing wrong for us to make progress as much as we can, even as much as we are within the bigger picture.
Well, I want to say I agree with the proposals and I have one or two other propositions here, recommendations. It's similar to what has been proposed, but maybe we can marry them down the line.
The first one is that, that the ongoing inclusive national, regional, and international cooperation on matters pertaining to the Internet be sustained among all stakeholders with governments, private sector, civil society, technical and academic community actively playing their respective roles.
Then the second one I would like to propose, that the mandate of the United Nations Commission for Science and Technology for Development be enhanced to coordinate international public policy issues pertaining to the Internet in a collaborative, multistakeholder framework that include governments, private sector, civil society, technical and academic community on an equal footing.
Thank you, Distinguished Chair.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you, Jimson. I can see Phil -- oh, Sweden, sorry. I'm sorry, Phil. Sweden asked for the floor first.
>>SWEDEN: Thank you, Chair. I just also wanted to thank the United States and Jimson for those contributions. I agree that it's a good starting point, and I think that's how we should see it. And I think we all agree that what we have on the table now -- right now is only draft, and it's a way to move the work forward.
And I think it's good that we work in parallel with the mapping and the drafting of recommendations. So I would like to thank, again, those that made those contributions. And after we have had the discussion on this, I'll come back with our joint recommendations. Thank you.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you, Sweden. Phil. No? Okay. Anyone asking for the floor, I just want to repeat, this is a draft. We are going to revisit it in our next meeting. This is something, just a beginning. I can see Nigeria and Marilyn. Nigeria, please.
>>NIGERIA: Thank you, Mr. Chair. I would like to proffer this proposal to -- that international (indiscernible) is already addressing international public policy issues pertaining to Internet strategic awareness and capacity building programs particularly in developing countries and across all sectors, including governments, private sector organizations, civil society, technical and academic communities. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you, Nigeria. Marilyn, please.
>>MARILYN CADE: Thank you, Chair. I'd like to join with others who express appreciation for colleagues in the room who have already put forward some drafts for us to be thinking about. I'm very impressed to have already some language and some good thinking. But I wanted to ask, since I'm a bit slower in thinking, just to think about perhaps there would be a process for us to be able to not wait until our next meeting, but to be able to accept drafts of further recommendations and have a kind of a rolling single document for those -- a place where those would be aggregated so that we can not have to search through the mail list but, you know, have a place where we can find all of the drafts that are submitted as we go forward. Thank you.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you for the suggestion. Probably we are going to do -- not probably. We are going to do it. Sorry. It will be posted on the Web site. And you will have opportunity to contribute, even in between the two sessions we are going to have. Feel free to submit your proposals for recommendations, and it is most welcome and it will be reviewed, I think periodically, by all of us. I expect you to go from time to time to the Web site and find out if there's something new. But at the same time, probably we should establish a mechanism of kind of alert that there's something new. So we shall work it out within the Secretariat.
Saudi Arabia.
>>SAUDI ARABIA: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It's good to accept drafting recommendations but we share the views expressed that when writing recommendations about Cluster 4 can 5, and without covering the Cluster 2 and 3, it's not really clear what kind of recommendations we want to come -- to put. However, we do -- can offer a recommendation as it's a draft and will be looked at at the next meeting. We could say that enhanced cooperation will help assure that Internet governance is carried out according to WSIS principles with full participation from all stakeholders in their respective roles. And enhanced cooperation will enable governments on an equal footing to carry out their roles and responsibilities pertaining to Internet and that by operationalizing enhanced cooperation through a body under the U.N. umbrella international public policy decision will be legitimate. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you, Saudi Arabia. I think, as I mentioned, all submissions, all proposals for recommendations will be included in this rolling document which will be posted on the CSTD Web site. Sweden.
>>SWEDEN: Thank you. Well, Brazil, Mexico, United Kingdom, and Sweden would then like to put forward some draft recommendations. We have tried to capture what we have interpreted as some of the areas where there might be emerging consensus, especially in relation to Group 4 and 5 of questions. And we would like to emphasize that this is just a starting point and it's not a finished product in any way, but something for the group to consider. That's the first one.
Members should explore ways to strengthen participation of all stakeholders from developing countries in existing global Internet governance fora, including through funding mechanisms and alternative working methods such as remote participation.
Members should increase efforts to empower stakeholders to participate through capacity building, including but not limited to training programs, awareness raising, best practice sharing.
Three, members should work with developing countries to create a fair and consistent domestic framework that stimulates competition and creates affordable access for all stakeholders.
And four, the role of government should include but not be limited to, to empower Internet uses, ensure a fair and consistent legal framework that is transparent, accountable, and equitable, and protect human rights online, to foster a robust global Internet infrastructure and support multistakeholder processes and partnerships.
So once again, I would just like to underline that this is just something that we see as a starting point, something that we can build up on, and I believe we can send -- send those drafts to the Secretariat. Thank you.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you, Sweden, Brazil, Mexico, and United Kingdom. I hope I didn't forget anyone. Naturally, we expect that you submit it electronically to the Secretariat that we would be able to post it on the Web site and the same applies to Saudi Arabia. We would like to have your contribution in print form to be posted on the Web site. I can see India, then Mexico and Phil. And Japan. Sorry. Japan was the first. I'm sorry, I couldn't see you. So please, take the floor.
>>JAPAN: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I deeply appreciate the U.S. and Sweden and Brazil and Mexico and U.K. to prepare the great contribution, preparing the draft of the recommendations for starting point of the discussion. Japan would like to submit the region comment and other input concerning the recommendations after the meeting concerning with the -- the regional organizations within Japan. Thank you.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you, Japan. We are awaiting for your submissions. India, please.
>>INDIA: Thank you, Chair. Just to flag that we would be making a recommendation on the list to address that particular dimension relating to the digital divide and the need for certain measures because where there is no access, no Internet, I think they also need to be brought into this before we can start talking about their empowerment, which some of these measures would empower those or make them part of the operation system. But we need to perhaps address other dimensions. On that direction we will try to put a recommendation. Thank you.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you. Understand I can't help myself to sharing with you that when we were in Durban there was a -- one morning I think many of the participants went to a school which was some 40 kilometers from Durban to help them to paint the walls. And after this very nice action there was some meeting with the students, young students. I believe it's a secondary school. And there was a question asked, how many of you have you heard about the Internet? Of the 30, there was one student who raised his hand. Just one. So I think there's merit in what you're saying. Okay. Mexico.
>>MEXICO: Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'd just like to thank my colleague from Sweden to introduce this proposal, recommendations, because we thought that, as you mentioned, that the objective was to have something -- quickly to start something and have it in black and white. So we think it's a very good step, and as you said, this is -- this -- all these contributions will be a working process and contributions regardless of what we decide on the other points, but it's a starting point. Thank you.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you, Mexico. Phil.
>>PHIL RUSHTON: Thank you, Chair. Much thank the contributors for providing the thoughtful and thought-provoking contributions. I'm sure, as the distinguished delegate from Mexico said, it is a starting point and something to evolve. The only point I would ask is that when the documents and proposals are posted on the Web site, could we also have the source of the proposal identified so that we can engage in conversations and discussions going forward to see and understand and hopefully when we come back in February to be very conversant with the other's views and hopefully agreements. Thank you.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Well, it is my understanding that we shall quote the sources. I mean, it provides the understanding of the sources as well and it's not really the understanding but I would assume the wishes of the source to be quoted. Yes. I can see Parminder, and before -- and there's --
[ Speaker is off microphone. ] Mexico has already taken the floor.
We have to recognize also some contributions were received by e-mail which will also be posted and there were contributions from Finland, Mervi contributed, and we have contributions from Avri and Carlos. So all these contributions -- and Joy. All these contributions will be posted on the Web site. If you feel like introducing them, that's perfectly okay. If you don't, that's okay as well. So I just wanted to flag it that we have further contributions that will be posted on the Web site. Probably at this hour we don't really want to go into detailed debate, but as I indicated to you, I think this is just the beginning. Lesotho.
>>LESOTHO: Thank you very much, Chair. After sitting here a little bit quiet for the week, but solely because most of the points that have been raised are things that we are agreeable to. Chair, I just wanted to reemphasize two points that have already been raised, particularly for developing countries and more specifically least-developed countries. For them to be -- this relates to capacity building as well including their existing mechanisms within, basically national as well as regional mechanisms that are in place.
And lastly, Chair, the point that you raised about the school you went to, seeing that Durbin is also very close to my country, the issue about digital divide that -- that has been raised by other colleagues here already, that it is very important that we -- it is very much captured.
And lastly, Chair, I just want to thank all the -- the various speakers that have made their various recommendations and we look forward to going through those in preparation for the February meeting. Thank you, Chair.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you, Lesotho. Brazil.
>>BRAZIL: Thank you, Mr. Chair. I -- my first comment is that was what was originally proposed by Marilyn Cade and supported by you but we should have a platform that would allow us internationally to feed into some other draft recommendations that will enable us at the beginning of next meeting to have a set of formulations we can work on. I think this would be very helpful from the point of view of efficiency of how we work. And then we, of course, also benefit from having the mapping exercise, I think we'll have tools that will assist us in our further work.
One thing about making these proposals, and I have insisted in exercising the aspect that these are initial and they do not, I think, address correctly the vision and do not adequately encompass the mandate we are given. And if I can quote a thought from my compatriot, Carlos Afonso, we are discussing yesterday and he's been in this process for many years and he was just recalling that much of what we have been doing here has in some way already been addressed. So we run the risk in the end of just repeating formulations that have been already known. And so if we want to move ahead and make a contribution, real contribution, we must make a very good effort to go beyond that. I think the mapping exercise will be a tool for that. I think if we can have those formulation can think about these and try to put more substance. I think certainly we need to go beyond the mere identification of the issues and making a call because these are things that are already there.
One proposal we are not -- but I'd like to indicate in line with what we have been saying, and Saudi Arabia has also made a proposal in regard to Groups 1 and 2 and 3. And one thing that is independent from this mapping is our assessment that we would like a platform but to enable for holistic integrated discussion. So this is something that we can, I think of as of now, we will in the next few days or so forward a proposal for that. But look something like operationalizing enhanced cooperation requires that we should maybe say multistakeholder platform through each government an equal footing could engage in the discussion and possible policymaking of international public-related issues, or something in that direction. And we think it's not pre-judging the outcome of the mapping exercise because we think this is something that is needed. And then I think we'll have to discuss, in our next meeting, whether we can -- there's enough consensus where that should be located, what to be formed. I think that will be relevant discussion. I think on the basis of the proposals from Saudi Arabia, Iran, and others, maybe we can have enough substance of discussion and try to frame some way to address this. And of course, the specific recommendations relating to the mapping exercise of more specific issues.
So I'm very glad that we have come to this. I was a bit concerned that we would come out of the meeting without something more concrete. This is not yet -- I repeat, that does not affect the foundation of the (indiscernible) but it is a step in the direction of building something that I think in the interest of calling us to go beyond what we have already have on the table. And as Carlos Afonso has reminded me, and I'm very thankful for him to recall this, not to give impression that we are just, let's say, rephrasing and giving better wording for things that are already there, even in the Tunis Agenda. I think we must go beyond that, and we have this opportunity and I think the moment is right to do so. Thank you.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you, Brazil. I can promise you we will go beyond. I have no doubt. And Parminder, you want to take the floor? Okay. So I think this is a time to -- Oh, India.
>>INDIA: Thank you, Chair. I couldn't but make this one last comment before we conclude. This is on the lines the distinguished ambassador from Brazil has mentioned of the various stakeholders. One idea which I'm just throwing it up here which we could pursue it in our future intersession as well as during the next debate, there are obviously few models which -- wherein governments have taken certain initiatives in some regions on how to prepare those Internet -- principles on Internet. One I can certainly recall is the OECD which has been referred to by some of the colleagues. And there are distinct areas where I think there is -- there is a felt need to have active role of governments, of course with the involvement through various processes of all other stakeholders. To just to name some of them, which I'm interested in reading, going through some of the documents that have been adopted by this body, and there is a call to see how it can be made applicable, replicate such things in a global manner. Whether it is cybersecurity, whether it is consumer rights, whether it is children online, whether it is international cooperation Internet governance, cross-border enforcement cooperation. There are some areas I think where we would eventually be required to make a comment on. And I think it will be another important contribution from our point of view, that where such areas -- again, the least possible, what we call friction, these are areas I'm sure all stakeholders are involved but there's a certain lead that the governments will need to take. Just a very indicative list. Which have been acknowledge and which are a part of the established documents which are being already followed by a few governments by virtue of a certain regional engagement. I don't think we will be out of place to reflect on some such areas and how we can see that such a mechanism or a fora, better way you can call where governments can actually take an active role (indiscernible) in our discussions in future. Thank you, Chair.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Thank you, India.
I believe this is the time to conclude. I won't be long. Japan, you want to take the floor.
>>JAPAN: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just one question. To submit contributions and a comment, can you tell us the deadline to submit the contribution and the comments to the contributions and how to submit such kind of contribution? Thank you.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Probably the best way to submit your contribution is to the secretariat. The secretariat will post it on the Web site. As for the deadline, probably it will be the beginning of our next meeting. But all of us would prefer to have the comments, contributions, much before. But even during the meeting, you can contribute. We have no deadline. But please set yourself a deadline to do it considering what you would like to have from others.
Parminder.
>>PARMINDER JEET SINGH: Thank you, Chair. Again for clarification, I propose, that if the groups are submitting proposals and for the purpose of the consideration of other members of the group, to submit them on the list because then everybody immediately knows that there is a proposal because you never know how often to keep on going to the Web site. Just a proposal. People have different Web or Internet behavior.
When the group gets it, they kind of respond to it immediately. So that's the whole idea so that probably it would be good in addition, of course, to putting it on the Web.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: I think this is a good way forward, yeah. Okay.
So please make your submissions in any way.
So, ladies and gentlemen, we have come to the end of this meeting. I really want to congratulate you on the good cooperation you have shown. I think all of you contributed in a very, very good way. And it helped us, all of us, to have a better understanding of the issues which are ahead of us.
We managed to go through the contributions. We analyzed the questions. We decided to set up a correspondence group. We decided on the terms of references for the correspondence group. We had a submission about the possible framework for all recommendations. But last, but not least, we had quite a lot of submissions, proposals, for recommendations.
So I'm really pleased with the result we had up to now. And I'm also optimistic about the future meeting we are going to have in February.
There is a great work waiting for us. I would encourage you to contribute to the best of your knowledge to the work of the correspondence group and to the work of the working group itself in forms of submissions, of recommendations.
And please be prepared that for the next meeting, we are going to have a very, very hard task. We have to finish our work by providing recommendations in the sense the Ambassador of Brazil reminded us, that we should go beyond what has been done up till now. That is the reason we are here.
And last, but not least, I would like to thank -- well, not last, I would like to thank, first of all, the secretariat for the excellent work they provided for us. And I would like to thank the scribes who have followed us. They did a great job. So I want to give a hand to them.
[ Applause ]
Thank you for your presence here, for your contributions. And I wish you a good journey back home.
Saudi Arabia.
>>SAUDI ARABIA: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. But we cannot conclude without also thanking you for your able leadership and you deserve applaud and a hand from us all.
[ Applause ]
Thank you.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Virat?
>>VIRAT BHATIA: Chairman, just one last point. I think for the last meeting, since we are timing it very carefully next to the MAG meeting and I suppose a lot more observers and especially from the civil society would want to participate, if we can be explicit about the date and the timing and the process for their participation as observers well in advance, it will help them to be here because they will be planning their visit to attend both meetings, including the weekend, so that will be helpful for them. Thank you.
>>CHAIR MAJOR: Right.
(Meeting has concluded.)
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