[governance] Civil Society Declaration on Internet Governance

[Jeanette Hofmann]

Hi, please find below the text on Internet Governance of the Civil 
Society declaration as circulated by Karen this afternoon on the CT list.

Comments?
Jeanette

C. Internet Governance

Civil society is pleased with the decision to adopt its proposal for the 
creation an Internet governance Forum (IGF). We are also satisfied that 
it will have sufficient scope to deal with the issues that we believe 
need to be dealt with.

We are concerned, however, about the absence of details on how this 
forum will be created and on how it will be funded.  We insist that the 
modalities of the forum be determined in full cooperation with civil. 
We would like to emphasize that the success of the IGF, as in most areas 
of Internet governance, will be impossible without the full 
participation of civil society. By full participation we mean not merely 
playing an advisory role, or being present, but in setting agendas and 
influencing outcomes.

The Tunis Agenda addressed the issue of political oversight of critical 
Internet resources. This, in itself, is an achievement.  It is also 
important that governments realized the need for the development of a 
set of public policy principles that would frame political oversight of 
Internet resources. These public policy principles must respect, protect 
and promote international human rights treaties (HR caucus)


It was important that governments realized that developing these 
principles should be a shared responsibility.  It is, however, very 
unfortunate, that the Tunis Agenda suggests that governments are only 
willing to share this role and responsibility among themselves, in 
cooperation with international organisations.  Civil society persists in 
its demand that public policy is not public if civil society is not 
involved in its formulation.

With regard to Paragraph 40 we are disappointed that there is no mention 
that efforts to combat cybercrime need to be excercised in the context 
of checks and balances provided by fundamental human rights, 
particularly freedom of expression and privacy.

To ensure that Internet governance and development take place in the 
public interest, it is necessary for people who use the Internet 
understand how the DNS is functioning, how IP addresses are allocated, 
what basic legal instruments exist in fields like cyber-crime, 
Intellectual Property Rights, eCommerce, e-government, and human rights. 
  Therefore the ongoing creation of public awareness is the 
responsibility of everyone involved in the governance and development of 
the Internet and emerging information and communication platforms.


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