[governance] PrepCom 3 IG outcomes?

[lissjeffrey at sympatico.ca]

Reporting from our Witness 2 Wsis 2 project:
http://wsis.ecommons.ca
=============================================
The two key reports that we are drawing on for reports on Prep Com 3 IG 
results so far are:
Boell Report
< http://www.worldsummit2005.de/en/web/825.htm >

and
James Love: Notes from Tunis - the new Internet Goverance Forum
< 
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/james-love/notes-from-tunis-the-n_b_10698.html 
 >

Both reports are now up on our site.

Any comments?
Thanks
Liss Jeffrey, PhD
Director
eCommons/agora

----------------------------------------------------

James Love:

I’m in Tunis at the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), where 
the biggest debate is over the future of "Internet Governance." The final 
text for this was agreed upon about 30 minutes ago.

The two quick sounds bites are that
(1) the US and the US based Internet Corporation for Domain Names and 
Numbers (ICANN) retain, for now, control over the most important aspects of 
the global Internet Domain Name System (DNS), and
(2) the conversation over this issue and a surprisingly broader governance 
agenda is continuing, under the United Nations.The Tunis resolution will 
create a new "multi-stakeholder" Internet Governance Forum (IGF). This new 
entity will include governments, various UN agencies, businesses and civil 
society. It’s first meeting will be held in Athens sometime next year. Kofi 
Anan has been asked to make it happen, under a fairly complex but open-ended 
terms of reference.

Why IGF matters

The new IGF is, in my opinion, a pretty important development. It is 
supposed to provide a space where virtually any Internet governance issue 
can be discussed.
And while it is not supposed to be a body that has any binding authority, it 
will be influential.Businesses tried to set up their own such forums several 
times in the past seven years under such names as the Internet Law and 
Policy Forum, or the Global Business Dialogue on Electronic Commerce. These 
groups were pretty effective in lobbying governments and influencing global 
norms, but lacked real legitimacy, for obvious reasons.

US Press conference
Right after the final negotiation on the WSIS Internet Governance text 
ended, a few minutes ago, two top US officals held a press conference -- 
Ambassador David A Gross from the Department of State and Michael Gallagher 
from the US Department of Commerce. They were pumped up about retaining 
control over ICANN and the DNS, but then talked about the new IGF.They said 
it would be a place where people could talk about Spam, identify theft, 
consumer protection, and a million other things. At one point Gallagher 
mentioned the US had a treaty on spam with the UK, which was news to me. 
Then he said it was really a tri-lateral agreement on spam with Australia, 
the UK and the US.I asked Gallagher, would the US consider expanding the 
tri-lateral agreement on spam to a multilateral agreement with many more 
countries. He said, sure. It would be particularly useful to do so in 
countries that did not have good spam laws, he said. I then asked, what 
about Athens, could a such an agreement be discussed at Athens? He said yes, 
that would be a good example of what could be done in the IGF.This is just 
an example, but a telling one.
It would seem as though there is now a new place that is sort of a global 
town hall, with governments very much involved, but open to civil society 
too, where people are going to raise issues, and try to craft 
solutions.People are going to have to think about what this means, and where 
it will go.Right now I’m going to get some sleep.(I’m in Tunis Wednesday as 
well, with a local cell +216.22.023.857, and by email at 
james.love at cptech.org)


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