[governance] Internet Governance Debate (Silence and Fatigue)

Sun Apr 22 12:37:39 EDT 2007

Dear Wolfgang,

You are right that IG is no longer on the radars of governments worldwide
(if it ever was). There are many reasons for this. First--and the most
important--is that the world has changed substantially between 2003, when IG
was put on the WSIS agenda, and  2007. 

Back in 2003, the IG-debate was, to a large extent, "collateral damage" of
the Iraq war. Today, the situation has substantially changed. In the US,
there is strong political opposition to the Iraq war and a gradual move back
to multilateralism (even in the field of environment!). 

Beside the suspicion about the US foreign policy, the second reason for
initiating the IG-debate was the story that "a country can be removed from
the Internet by the US government." It was a powerful trigger and it created
concern among diplomats and policy-makers. It was the most frequent question
I was asked by diplomats in Geneva. The story led to a crisis (at least in
perception). 

After that... you know what has happened.... WGIG... discussion became
substantive... there was an extensive learning process.... Ultimately, it
became clear that the theoretical possibility of removing a country's domain
from the root zone file is not real possibility for various reasons,
including decentralized root-servers and the possibility of creating
parallel roots, etc. 

In fact, the power over the root server is an example of the paradox of
power. The possibility of removing a country from the Internet can hardly be
described as a power, since, effectively, it can never be used. The central
element of power is forcing another side to act in the way the holder of
power wants. The use of US power over the root could create a different
outcome--that countries and regions establish their own Internets. The US
would then be a bigger loser than the other players in a possible
disintegration of the Internet. The US would face the loss of the
predominance of US-promoted values on the Internet, English as the Internet
lingua franca, and the global market for US-based Internet companies
(Google, e-Bay, Yahoo,...).  

All in all, the two elements that shaped discussion back in 2003 do not
exist any more (strong suspicion about US foreign policy, misperception of
the possibility of removing countries from the Internet).

Today? It is not very likely that the IG-debate will gain momentum. The
reason is simple... there is no crisis. The Internet was created to survive
a major crisis (nuclear war). The potential major failure of the Internet,
which could trigger a strong policy reaction, is not likely to happen.
Moreover, in the most recent crises (9/11, London terrorist attack,
Tsunami), the Internet has proven itself the most reliable communication
structure. The latest example of Internet robustness was the cut of the
Asian telecom cable. While it slowed down Internet traffic and attracted a
bit journalistic attention at Christmas, it did not create a major crisis. 

Without a crisis-driven process (fertile context for simplifications and
stereotypes), ICANN and the US government have a unique chance to introduce
a new and innovative global governance model, which should address a few
open issues including involvement of other governments and internalization
of ICANNs status. They are no longer under "siege" as they were during the
WSIS. It should provide them with more space for creative and
forward-looking solutions.  A promising sign was ICANNs presidential debate
on the future of ICANN. A potential problem is that there is no external
pressure for reform.  This list and GIGANet should help in discussing and
proposing some policy solutions. In my batch-processing of latest
messages, I will also reflect on the Framework Convention and
Triangle/Variable Geometry of IG.

Best, Jovan  

-----Original Message-----
From: Kleinwächter, Wolfgang
[mailto:wolfgang.kleinwaechter at medienkomm.uni-halle.de] 
Sent: Saturday, April 21, 2007 09:03
To: governance at lists.cpsr.org; Alejandro Pisanty; Ian Peter
Cc: governance at lists.cpsr.org
Subject: AW: [governance] Framework convention

Alejandro:

Not to speak of the once-held idea that there are a large number of
organizations with a claim for relevance in Internet governance which do not
comply with the WSIS criteria about which no-one has even started a
discussion here.

Wolfgang:

The challenger in the WSIS process were members of the governmental
stakeholder group. The EU wanted to have a new cooperation model with
governments on the top ("on the level of principle"). Brazil wanted to have
an Internet Convention. South Africa, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Syria, India and
until PrepCom3 also the government of the Peoples Republic of China wanted
to have an "Intergovernmental Internet Council". The ITU wanted to overtake
some functions from ICANN and to play a greater (probably leading) role.
WIPO, UNESCO, WTO, UNCTAD, ILO and other IGOs which have a stake in IG in
its broader understanding (like multiligualism in UNESCO or IPR in WIPO) had
a wait and see position with no big ambitions. The USG, supported by a broad
range of private sector members and some civil society groups, opposed a
broader role for governments.

The result was the agreement to start a proces of enhanced cooperation (both
on the intergovernmental level as well as among governmnetal and
non-governmental stakeholders) but neither the form, the content, the
procedure nor the final objective of the process was defined. Janis
Karkelins, president of PrepCom of WSIS II and now the GAC chair, said three
weeks after Tunis during the ICANN meeting in Vancouver that he does not
understand what the governments (representing the heads of states of about
180 countries) decided in detail and he speculated that obviously even the
governments have no clue what they want to do. When Nitin Desai started
informal consultations on enhanced cooperation in May 2006, he told
governments (and others) that they have to come with ideas how to bring
butter to the sandwich. But nothing happend (in the public). There is
(public) silence.  

No initiative from the EU. The only word came from Madame Reding when she
applauded the JPA as a right step towards a new cooperation model. In May
2007 there is a meeting of the "High Level Internet Governace Working Group"
of the EU and there had been consultatitons with the USG under the German EU
presidency. But these meetings are closed shops. No agenda, no communique.

Brazil has given up obviously its idea of an Inernet Convention? Or do they
plan something for the Rio 2007 IGF? What about the supporters for the
"Intergovernmental Internet Council" (look into the WGIG report)? Silence
from South Africa to India to Iran. Did they give up? The Chinese government
was happy with the Tunis Agenda which recognized "national soveriegnty" of
the national domain name space. An own Internet root with TLD Root Zone
files with Chinese characters (where the authorization of the publication of
these zone files is done by the MII and not by the DOC) would obviously
qualify for "national domain name space". So why the Chinese government
should become active? They got what they wanted to have. They will also wait
and see. (BTW does somebody know whether ICANN will have its fall 2007
meeting in Taipeh and does somebody know what the position of the Chinese
government, which more or less ignores up today the GAC, is in this
question?)

The ITU has started just recently a consultatiton with its members on
enhanced coopweration according to reolsution 102 from Antalya. But the New
ITU SG has made clear in his very first statements that he will not continue
to push for ITU leadership in IG as Mr. Utsumi did. ITU under Toure wants to
become the leader in Cybersecurity and Infrastructure, two important
elements of IG in the broader understanding. And it will make contributions
to iDNS, NGNs, ENUM, IPv6 etc. but not in competition to ICANN. But Toure,
at the end of the day, is the voice of the member states. So lets wait and
see whether the cancellation of his planned visit to the ICANN meeting in
Lisbon in March 2007 was indeed for "technical reasons" only. WIPO, UNESCO,
WTO etc. did not change their mind. They are waitng. If somebody will ask
them to write a report what they have done in their field of competence for
IG they will write the report, probably not more than five to ten pages. If
nobody asks them, they will do nothing. But who has a mandate to ask for
such a report? 

What can we learn and conclude from this, in particular with regad to IGF
2007? Shjuld we support the silence? Is there space for discussion? Any
direction? 

Best regards

Wolfgang
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