[governance] History of the IGF

Sun Aug 1 05:00:02 EDT 2010

Hi Avri, Milton, Bill & Co.

With regard to our Meissen discussion on the history of the IGF I found in my archives two statements long before Tunis which I made on behalf of the Civil Society Internet Governance Caucus and where "forum function" and "multistakeholderism" were key points. In the Paris Statement (July 2003) we called it the "Global Information Society Observation Council" (GISOC). The GISOC proposal more or less outlined functions which later reflected in the Tunis mandate for the IGF. The more formal proposal from the CS was drafted by Bill and me on behalf of the CS Internet Governance Caucus at PrepCom3 in September 2003 in Geneva, long before the WGIG was created and proposed the launch of the IGF. 

The whole IG discussion within WSIS was kick started during PrepCom2 in June 2003 in Geneva when we had, inter alia, a Workshop "Civil Society and WSIS" in the official programme of PrepCom2 organized (and moderated) by Bertrand and me.  (21 February, 10:00-13:00 - ILO building - Workshop lll: CIVIL SOCIETY AND WSIS. see flyer >> 27 kB [English <http://www.itu.int/wsis/docs/pc2/inf/workshop/flyer3.doc> ] ). http://www.itu.int/wsis/preparatory/prepcom/pc2/inf/index.html   After the workshop we moved to the ILO rerstaurant where we discussed the need to establish an institutionalized platform which we called "CS Internet Governance Caucus" (IGC). Originally, Internet Governance was not a main issue in the WSIS. First priority for WSIS was bridging the digital divide, however the ITU was very interested to bring the IG debate under the WSIS umbrella as a counterplatform to ICANN, which as established in 1998 as an alternative to ITU efforts to get the control over the DNS and the A Root Server. 

The IG debate within WSIS was triggered by the the "Beirut Declaration" (February 2003), the regional ministerial conference for West Asia which includes the following paragraph "Securing national domain names: The responsibility for root directories and domain names should rest with a suitable international organization and should take multilingualism into consideration. Countries' top-level-domain-names and Internet Protocol (IP) address assignment should be the sovereign right of countries. The sovereignty of each nation should be protected and respected. Internet governance should be multilateral, democratic and transparent and should take into account the needs of the public and private sectors as well as those of the civil society." 

The rumor says that the ITU was not satisfied with the outcome of the other four regional ministerial conferences, where Internet Governance was sidelined. To get a "mandate" for IG, the Beirut conference was the last chance for the ITU to include it into the WSIS agenda as a high priority issue. I myself did not participate in the Beirut conference, but I was told that YJ Pak from Korea made the relevant statement which then was reflected in the "Beirut Declaration". If you compare the "Beirut Statenment" with the "Paris/Geneva statements" you see a difference. Insofar - looking backwards - it was not a surprise, that when YJ and I co-chaired the IGC in the first WSIS phase until December 2003, we had some internal disputes and it was not easy to reach consensus within the IGC from the very early day ;-(((.  However, the net result - seven years later - is that we avoided to bring DNS etc. under an intergovernmental control/oversight mechanism and we were able to launch a multistakeholder IGF. Nice history, isn´t it? 

Do other people have more documents in their archives? Probably it would make sense to write a short history of the IGF. Too late for the UN GA in 2010, but probably helpful for the forthcoming deeper IGF evalution forseen for 2011.   

Wolfgang

Here is the key part of the Paris statement

" In a broader context of ICT policy making and global governance, we invite the WSIS to consider launching a "Global

Information Society Observation Council" which could serve as a meeting point for improved coordination, consultation

and communication on ICT issues. Such a "Council" should be composed of representatives of governments, private

industry and civil society. It could promote the exchange of information, experiences and best practices on issues from

privacy to free speech on the Internet, from IPR to eCommerce, from Ipv6 to ENUM. Listening to the good experiences

of others is a cheap investment and could become a source of inspiration for innovative policy development in the 21st

Century. We will provide the WSIS secretariat with a new proposed language for the Items 33 and 44.

WSIS Interesessional, Paris, July 2003
http://www.itu.int/wsis/docs/pcip/plenary/internet_governance_group.pdf

Here is another Statement I made a year later in the GFC meeting on Multistakeholderism

WSIS Group of the Friends of the Chair, Geneva, September 2004
http://www.worldsummit2005.de/downloa d_en/Speech-Geneva-2004-10-Kleinwaechter.pdf

Wolfgang
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