[governance] EC on IG

[William Drake]

Hi,

There's a Communications from the EC today that may be of interest.

Internet governance: the next steps
http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/policy/internet_gov/docs/communication/comm2009_277_fin_en.pdf

Two notable bits:

First, the EC refers to the JPA as if it's ending and that's a done  
deal.  Whether that's due to private assurance, disregard for the  
positions of various DC actors, strategic discourse, or whatever, who  
knows.  In any event, so moving on, it's time to talk about IANA:

"The indication by the US government in 2006 that the current  
agreement should be the last
such agreement with ICANN was largely welcomed by the international  
community
(including the EU). At the same time, the US government has  
consistently indicated that it
will maintain effective control of the coordination of key global  
naming and addressing
functions and this is likely to mean that the problem regarding the  
‘unilateral oversight’ of
such resources will remain unresolved."

Second, multistakeholderism is a nice thing that should be  
"encouraged" in discussion forums like the IGF.  ICANN, in contrast,  
involves "private-sector leadership," which "must be maintained."  And  
public policy and ICANN's external accountability are for governments  
to deal with:

"As regards external accountability, the current arrangements for  
unilateral oversight in regard to ICANN and IANA need to be replaced  
with an alternative mechanism to ensure that ICANN has multilateral  
accountability."

"At the same time, public policies for key global Internet resources  
(especially those that require global coordination) need to be based  
on multilateral intergovernmental cooperation."

So unless I'm missing something, the civil society kids are invited to  
chat and enjoy in the back seat and leave the driving to the adults in  
the front.  One big happy family, all in our respective roles and  
responsibilities...

Cheers,

Bill

PS: The EC also released a communication on the Internet of the things.










***********************************************************
William J. Drake
Senior Associate
Centre for International Governance
Graduate Institute of International and
   Development Studies
Geneva, Switzerland
william.drake at graduateinstitute.ch
www.graduateinstitute.ch/cig/drake.html
***********************************************************

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