[governance] Carlos WGIG Paper

Thu Aug 18 07:22:48 EDT 2005

Dear Carlos,

congratulations for your paper. Well done.

With regard to the CS IG Caucus (your last chapter), YJ and I myself started this already before PrepCom2. I organized and moderated the first IG Round Table in the WSIS process on February, 21, 2005 in the ILO Building with high visibility for Civil Society. see: http://www.itu.int/wsis/docs/pc2/inf/workshop/flyer3.doc. The other week we constituted the Caucus. 

With regard to the Paris meeting, there was a long and controversial discussion within CS about the procedure who presents what. Finally we had two statements. The main statement (agreed by the members in the room) was given by me. Is is interesting ro read the text today. YJ made a statement the other day. And it is true that peoplke from other Caucus had critical remarks with reagard to the IG Caucus interventions. This was cleared in the Content&Themes process from PrepCom3 onwards so that the final text in the CS Declaration was agreed by everybody. Jeanette and Adam, as new co-chairs, have build on this. 

Looking backwards, it would probably make sense to write  the "history" of the Caucus. If you compare CS IG Caucus positions with the texts both in the Geneva declaration and the WGIG report, you can find how input has produced impact.  

It is interesting to read today the text of the intervention I gave in Paris, July 16, 2003.

Statement delivered by Wolfgang Kleinwächter 
July 16 plenary meeting of the Paris Intersessional Meeting 

Governance of Internet: 
Multistakeholder Approach and Bottom Up Policy Development

Madam chair, dear delegates,

My name is Wolfgang Kleinwaechter. I am a professor at the University of Aarhus and I am speaking on behalf of the Civil Society Internet Governance Caucus. The Civil Society Internet governance caucus would like to bring to your attention Item 44 of the Declaration of Principles and Item 33 of the Action Plan. Civil Society would like to propose more precise language to describe this issue. 

Governance issues related to the Internet, primarily the technical coordination of internet identifiers, protocols and root servers, is a complex challenge which needs a complex reaction and has to include all stakeholders - civil society, private industry and governments. No single body and no single stakeholder group is able to manage these challenges alone. 

This multistakeholder approach should be the guiding principle both for the technical coordination of the Internet as well as for broader public policy issues, related to cyberspace in general.

We recognize that the "Internet Tradition" of community decision-making, characterized by the IETF motto "rough consensus and running code", has involved bottom up processes since the inception of the Internet. 

The development of policies and frameworks in this context must continue to be a bottom-up process. This bottom up policy development process (PDP) should be as inclusive as possible, transparent and open for participation by all interested parties, in particular for civil society and individual Internet users. In every country, management of Internet resources and related public  policy should be built in the interest of and in conesensus with the  national Internet communities.

We see no need to for any inter-governmental organization to take responsibility for management of the domain names and the IP addresses, but we see a need for ongoing improvement of the existing structures and mechanisms. Regardless of achievements which has been reached so far, there is, to use the words of Jon Postel, the "Father of the Domain Name System",  "a lot to do in this interesting world, we live in". There is a need for more openness and transparency, for more participation in and democratization of decision making. There is a need for better coordination, consultation and communication. There is a need for more languages in the Internet and its Domain Name System. And there is a need to hand over the control of the Internet Root Server System to the Global Internet community. 

Additionally, civil society would welcome having organizations dealing with public policy issues of the Internet improve their cooperation and coordination and include all stakeholders, in particular civil society, in their policy development processes. 

In a broader context of ICT policy making and global governance, we invite the WSIS to consider launching a "Global Information Society Observation Council" which could serve as a meeting point for improved coordination, consultation and communication on ICT issues. Such a "Council" should be composed of representatives of governments, private industry and civil society.  It could promote the exchange of information, experiences and best practices on issues from privacy to free speech on the Internet, from IPR to eCommerce, from Ipv6 to ENUM. Listening to the good experiences of others is a cheap investment and could become a source of inspiration for innovative policy development in the 21st Century. 

We will provide the WSIS secretariat with a new proposed language for the Items 33 and 44. 

I thank you for your attention. 

Source: Civil Society Working Group on Content and Themes discussion list <http://mailman.greennet.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/ct>  (ct at wsis-cs.org)

Best

wolfgang

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