[bestbits] APC's response to NETmundial 2014

Wed Apr 30 15:51:05 EDT 2014

Dear all

Response from the Association for Communications on the outcome of
NETMUndial 2014.

Anriette

http://www.apc.org/en/node/19224/

By (APC)
Johannesburg, April 2014

NETmundial was a remarkable and historic event. To give it its due and
build on it going forward, it is necessary to acknowledge its
achievements as well as its flaws.

*Affirming the “publicness” of the internet: Gains and gaps*
The NETmundial Multistakeholder Statement
<http://netmundial.br/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/NETmundial-Multistakeholder-Document.pdf>
represents substantial progress towards public interest-driven internet
governance. It recognises the internet as a common resource that should
be managed in the public interest. “Public good”, or Neelie Kroes’ term
<http://ec.europa.eu/commission_2010-2014/kroes/en/content/global-governance-global-common-public-resource>,
“global, common, public resource”, would have been preferable, but this
is nevertheless a powerful step towards protecting the “publicness” of
the internet.

Linked to this is affirmation of the value of openness and
interoperability, of “permissionless innovation”, and the need to
support public access to the internet (one of APC’s priorities). It is
disappointing, however, that protection for intermediaries from
liability was mentioned not as a precondition of protecting rights such
as free expression and association, but as linked to “economic growth,
innovation, creativity and free flow of information”. There can be
little doubt that this text expresses the interest of the entertainment
industry. APC believes this framing opens the door to requiring internet
intermediaries to enforce intellectual property rights in ways that
interfere with rights to free expression and access to knowledge.

Consensus was not reached on network neutrality, or the principle of
free flow of information, and non-discriminatory flow of data packets
across the network. This was ironic, as this principle was enshrined in
the Brazilian Marco Civil da Internet
<http://www.senado.gov.br/atividade/materia/detalhes.asp?p_cod_mate=116682>
(Civil Rights Framework for the Internet), enacted by President Dilma
Rousseff during the opening of NETMundial. While not discounting the
commercial interests at stake in avoiding inclusion of network
neutrality as a principle, its discussion is also complicated by
different definitions of what the concept means, and of how it applies
in various contexts. We applaud that the NETmundial Statement roadmap
identifies net neutrality as an area for further discussion and look
forward to the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) taking this up in the
near future.

We would have liked to see more reference to development, social
justice, the integration of the concerns of people from the developing
world, and the role the internet can play to support a more just and
sustainable world. Quoting from Nnenna Nwakanma’s inspiring opening
speech <https://bestbits.net/nnenna-netmundial/> : “The Internet is fast
becoming the dominant means for wealth creation. The ‘Right to
Development’ needs to include social justice. It is not enough to do a
superficial ‘capacity building’ for a few persons. We are looking at a
mechanism that allows for the highest number of persons to be included,
the largest number of voices to be heard, the widest extent of talents
to access innovation, and the deepest creativity of the human minds to
flourish. For these, we need to start considering the Internet as public
commons.”

*Human rights apply offline and online!*
NETmundial identified fundamental human rights as key principles for
internet governance and states that governments have specific
accountability for upholding and protecting individual human rights on
the internet. We applaud this, but believe that the roadmap section of
the document needed to consider internet-specific aspects of human
rights protection in greater detail ‒ in particular, rights which are
needed to ensure free expression and association on the internet such as
the right to anonymity and the right to use encryption.

*Deepening democracy in multi-stakeholder internet governance*
A further breakthrough in the document is recognition that internet
governance needs to be democratic as well as multi-stakeholder, and that
the former is not necessarily synonymous with the latter. It identified
the need for mechanisms that ensure accountability, review and redress
in internet governance, as well as for gender balance in discussions and
decision making.

The NETmundial Multistakeholder Statement builds positively on the Tunis
Agenda <http://www.itu.int/wsis/docs2/tunis/off/6rev1.html> in its
recognition that stakeholder groups do not always have fixed roles, but
that these “respective roles and responsibilities of stakeholders should
be interpreted in a flexible manner with reference to the issue under
discussion.” This paves the way for constructive discussion of the
specific roles of stakeholders in different parts of the internet
governance ecosystem, with reference to the issue and process under
discussion. In other words, rather than talk about whether governments
should have a role or not, we can focus on what this role is and where
and when it is most needed.

*Mass surveillance: The elephant that left the room*
Most disappointing is that mass surveillance was not condemned more
strongly in the final version of the Statement, with some of the
governmental participants insisting at the last minute that the phrase
“mass surveillance is fundamentally inconsistent with the right to
privacy and the principle of proportionality” be removed from the document.

Considering that the event emerged from outrage following Edward
Snowden’s revelations, and that mass surveillance was cited as a major
concern in inputs received on the draft documents, this issue can best
be described as the elephant which started out inside the room, but
which was then lifted and carried out ‒ by suitably powerful forces ‒
before the event’s conclusion.

The document does state that “mass and arbitrary surveillance undermines
trust in the Internet and trust in the Internet governance ecosystem”
and cooperation – forced or voluntary – between states and business is
addressed by the requirement that the “collection and processing of
personal data by state and non-state actors should be conducted in
accordance with international human rights law,” but this does not
address the protection of individual rights that are violated on an
extraterritorial basis.

Also included is a renewed call upon states from the 2013 UN General
Assembly Resolution
<http://www.un.org/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=A/C.3/68/L.45/Rev.1>
for the review of “their procedures, practices and legislation regarding
the surveillance of communications, their interception and collection of
personal data, including mass surveillance, interception and
collection,.with a view to upholding the right to privacy by ensuring
the full and effective implementation of all their obligations under
international human rights law.” This provides an opening for follow-up
action which rights activists should pursue with vigour.

*IANA accountability*
We are encouraged that the issue of Internet Assigned Numbers Authority
(IANA) accountability will be an integral part of the discussions on the
National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA)
transition. We look forward to the continuation of the process once the
terms of the accountability process are published. We rely on the
unfolding of a neutral process to review the accountable transition of
IANA stewardship with the full participation of all global stakeholders
and with due consideration given to the importance of structural
separation between policy and operational levels.

*What was avoided?*
The most striking absence at NETmundial, in spite of several submissions
raising this as a concern, is a call to put a stop to the increasing
militarisation of the internet. Clearly this is an issue that should be
taken up through the IGF process.

*NETmundial as a process: Leaps, lessons and let-downs*
We want to express our appreciation for the hard work that the
organising team put into the NETmundial process, in particular CGI.br
and the event chairperson, Virgilio A. F. Almeida, Secretary for
Information Technology Policy of the Ministry of Science, Technology and
Innovation of Brazil.

NETmundial represents great leaps forward for multi-stakeholder decision
making, building on inclusive, multi-stakeholder habits developed during
eight editions of the IGF, and providing useful lessons for the future.
More time and better planning was needed to integrate inputs – received
through an excellent online platform – into the final outcome documents.
It would also have been good to use the face-to-face event for more
discussion rather than for open-microphone sessions in which most of
what had been said online already was repeated. Drafting of the outcome
document could also have been done in a more systematic manner, ensuring
that people with the necessary area knowledge were available to the
chairs of the two drafting groups (Principles and Roadmap).

The let-down was that at the end, when the pre-final text was being
presented to the High Level Multistakeholder Committee, the process
suddenly felt quite familiar, as, at the last minute, a few governments
insisted on changes to the text, demanding either deletions or
modifications to statements that they were not comfortable with. We
understand that government representatives are constrained by
instructions from their capitals or by existing agreements; but if we
are to deepen democracy in global internet governance, we do need to
find ways to move beyond these constraints when finalising such a
non-binding document, as they serve to limit more balanced stakeholder
input and influence.

If powerful governments, whose views often coincide with those of some
parts of internet industry, can still exercise a veto – even if
informally – at the last minute, we have quite a way to go towards fully
inclusive and democratic internet governance. Intergovernmental
processes are often criticised for producing lower common denominator
consensus agreements. Democratic, multi-stakeholder decision-making
processes must strive to avoid this.

*What next?*
There is much to celebrate. A group of very diverse stakeholders worked
together to produce a document which has the potential to create a more
robust and human rights- and public interest-oriented approach to
internet policy and management. The Government of Brazil showed grace,
leadership and deep commitment to inclusive processes by being willing
to concede on a range of issues, most particularly network neutrality.

The question now is: What next? How do we follow through to implement
the good in the NETmundial document and how do we strengthen the
existing IGF to play a role in this? Surveillance is the obvious place
to start, with governments heeding the call to review all collection,
processing and surveillance of personal data to ensure that these
processes comply with human rights standards, such as the ones stated in
the Necessary and Proportionate principles
<https://en.necessaryandproportionate.org/>. Promoting awareness of the
issues behind the network neutrality debate are also a ripe area for
focus, as they provide a valuable entry point into a number of basic
challenges in dealing with conflict of interest around private
enterprise and promoting the publicness of the internet.

And of course we cannot rest until, as the declaration states, we have
“universal, equal opportunity, affordable and high quality Internet
access”, so that we can all participate more equally in the debate.

-- 
------------------------------------------------------
anriette esterhuysen anriette at apc.org
executive director, association for progressive communications
www.apc.org
po box 29755, melville 2109
south africa
tel/fax +27 11 726 1692

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.igcaucus.org/pipermail/bestbits/attachments/20140430/0dad6bbd/attachment.htm>