[governance] introduction to our contribution

[Adam Peake]

Civil society produced its own declaration for the Geneva summit, 
it's still pretty good.

There was text on Internet governance, we would like opinions on 
whether this would make a good introduction to the contribution we 
will send later today.

Intent is to frame the issues again from our perspective.  Text would be:

[2.4.7 Global Governance of ICT and Communications]

International "rules of the game" play an increasingly central role 
in the global information economy.  In recent years, governments have 
liberalised traditional international regulatory regimes for 
telecommunications, radio frequency spectrum, and satellite services, 
and have created new multilateral arrangements for international 
trade in services, intellectual property, "information security," and 
electronic commerce.   At the same time, business groups have 
established a variety of "self-regulatory" arrangements concerning 
Internet identifiers (names and numbers), infrastructure, and content.

It is not acceptable for these and related global governance 
frameworks to be designed by and for small groups of powerful 
governments and companies and then exported to the world as faits 
accomplis.  Instead, they must reflect the diverse views and 
interests of the international community as a whole.  This 
overarching principle has both procedural and substantive dimensions.

Procedurally, decision-making processes must be based on such values 
as inclusive participation, transparency, and democratic 
accountability.  In particular, institutional reforms are needed to 
facilitate the full and effective participation of marginalized 
stakeholders like developing and transitional countries, global civil 
society organisations, small and medium-sized enterprises, and 
individual users.

Substantively, global governance frameworks must promote a more 
equitable distribution of benefits across nations and social groups. 
To do so, they must strike a better balance between commercial 
considerations and other legitimate social objectives.  For example, 
existing international arrangements should be reformed to promote: 
efficient management of network interconnections and traffic revenue 
distribution, subject to the mutual agreement of corresponding 
operators; equitable allocations of radio frequency spectrum and 
satellite orbital slots that fully support developmental and 
non-commercial applications; fair trade in electronic goods and 
services, taking into account the developing countries' need for 
special and differential treatment; an open public domain of 
information resources and ideas; and the protection of human rights, 
consumer safety, and personal privacy.  In parallel, new diverse 
international arrangements are needed to promote: financial support 
for sustainable e-development, especially but not only in less 
affluent nations; linguistic, cultural, and informational diversity; 
and the curtailment of concentrated market power in ICT and mass 
media industries.

END


Comments please, use it, yes or no?

Thanks,

Adam
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