[governance] Internet Governance Debate (Silence and Fatigue)

Sun Apr 22 17:00:18 EDT 2007

Jovan:

Thank you for this very interesting analysis.

Raúl

At 01:37 p.m. 22/04/2007, Jovan Kurbalija wrote:
>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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