[governance] EC on IG

[Pranesh Prakash]

William Drake wrote:
> 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:
[...]
> 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."

I also believe that a few other implications of the document need to be
thought about.
(From Ars Technica, <http://bit.ly/TUxhB>):
> As the cliché goes, however, the Commission might want to be careful
> what it wishes for. In its effort to seem a bit less self-interested,
> the document is careful to phrase its call for additional oversight
> as suggesting that the input be International, and not EU-specific.
> One sentence in particular highlights some of the risks here: "The EU
> also believes that future internet governance arrangements should
> comply with key principles, in particular, the respect for human
> rights and freedom of expression as well as the need to preserve
> stability and security of the Internet."
> 
> Nations like China and Iran have recently demonstrated that their
> desire for "stability and security" winds up in pretty direct
> conflict with traditional European human rights values. The EU will
> have to pursue a careful balancing act if it hopes to obtain a level
> of oversight it finds acceptable without opening ICANN to being a
> vehicle for politically expedient limits.

While China and Iran may be easy targets, I believe many countries,
including those countries that have traditionally been seen as upholding
'traditional European human rights values' (whatever that means), such
as India, Germany, Italy, etc., also plump for 'stability and security'
in the sense that the article talks about.

Furthermore, I believe that "stability and security of the Internet"
must be distinguished from "stability and security" per se.

> "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...

That does seem to be the case.

-- 
Pranesh Prakash
Programme Manager
Centre for Internet and Society
W: http://cis-india.org | T: +91 80 40926283

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