AW: [governance] A Group of ITU Members vs. the IGF
Janna Anderson
andersj at elon.edu
Sun Oct 10 15:21:16 EDT 2010
An excellent IGC-sponsored session on governance that ties into this
discussion of multistakeholderism was led by Jeremy at IGF in Vilnius. It
was a two-Wolfgang session (maybe we should print T-shirts ;) that featured
many other important voices. The full video can be found here by looking for
the Workshop #55 (with WSIS in its name) under the list of workshops for
Sept. 17 at the following location:
http://webcast.intgovforum.org/ondemand/?media=workshops
And a brief write-up with photos and video clips can be found here:
http://www.elon.edu/e-web/predictions/igf_2010/looking_to_WSIS.xhtml
Janna
On 10/10/10 5:45 AM, "Kleinwächter, Wolfgang"
<wolfgang.kleinwaechter at medienkomm.uni-halle.de> wrote:
> Hi Bill and others
>
> thanks for pointing to the IGF part of the Russian speech. Both together (the
> attack aginst ICANN & the IGF) look like an integrated strategy where the key
> idea is to bring the Internet under an intergovernmental mechanism and to kill
> the concept of "multistakeholderism". In the "Russian model" non-governmental
> stakeholders will be "invited" only under certain circumstances, which are
> defined and controlled by governments. This is the old hierarchical top down
> policy model. This is how the ITU works. This is how the ITU organized its
> "World Telecommunication Policy Forum" (WTPF).
>
> Here is my personal story from the WTPF 2009 in Lisbon. There was no free
> access to the WTPF. As an individual (or NGO) you had to write an application,
> explaining why you want to participate. This application was checked by an
> unknown third party. I applied and after a couple of days I got the permission
> for registration. The three day Forum was organized in a way that the whole
> first day was filled with official speeches by governmental delegations. There
> was no debate. There was a speaking order, reserved for governmental speakers
> only on Day 1. People like me with a NGO-badge had to find a chair in the back
> of the room. There was a clear seperation between the governmental and the
> non-governmental rows. On Day 2, when working sessions started, I wanted to
> make a comment to one of the speeches. But the Chair (my friend Abdullah from
> Saudi-Arabia who was also member of the WGIG) apologized with friendly words
> and explained to me that according to the rules of procedures I am not allowed
> to speak. Non-govenmental speakers could speak only if they are "invited" or
> of they are "private sector members of the ITU". As a private sector member
> you have to pay a membership fee of about 20.000.00 Swiss Francs annualy. I
> said that as an indivdual I can not afford to pay such a price for a three
> minute statement. He proposed that I should write down my intervention and
> promised that this will be published on the open part of the ITU website (you
> know that 80 per cent of ITU documents are not available to the public).
>
> Another example was the preparatory meeting for the WSIS 2010 Forum, which
> took place at the ITU Montbrillant building in Geneva in February 2010. The
> podium which explained the planned programme for the WSIS Forum was filled
> with representatives of intergovernmental organizations only. It was chaired
> by Houlin Zhao the now re-elected Deputy Secretary General of the ITU. When I
> asked him in the public debate about the principle of multistakeholderism and
> why no representatives of civil society and private sector are on the podium
> he replied, that UNESCO (which was on the podium) has hundreds of NGOs
> accredited and ITU has hundreds of private sector members. This is enough to
> meet the criteria of multistakeholderism. Wow!
>
> Lisbon April 2009 and Geneva February 2010 rememberd my at the painful
> discussions on the "Rules of Procedures" during PrepCom1 at WSIS in June 2002.
> There was a general impression that with WSIS I, WGIG, WSIS II and the IGF we
> moved forward towards a truly multistakeholder dialogue, inspired by the
> Internet Governance definition, as a guiding principle accepted even by the
> Heads of State. However obviously some governments do not (and/or will not)
> remember what they signed and secondly they have a special interpretation of
> the agreed texts.
>
> On the one hand one could argue that the Russian speech is just one point of
> view of one ITU member state. Personally I do not see that this position has a
> chance to get consensus by the whole Plenipotentiary Conference, where all
> governments have to agree. On the other hand the statement makes clear that
> the battle of 2005 is not over but has just restarted.
>
> One scenario could be that the ITU discussion is used by some governments to
> test out how far they can go in the UNGA discussion on continuation and
> improvement of the IGF. The "improvement" debate is for 2011 and the decision
> will be made by the UNGA in November 2011. With other words, a WSIS Forum in
> May 2011 in New York (is the site already decided?) and an IGF in September
> 2011 in Nairobi would compete against each other, evaluated then by the
> governments of the UN member states in November 2011.
>
> Another target of the Russian initiative could be to prepare the ground for a
> third WSIS in 2015. The deal in Guadalajara could be that the ITU gives up
> (for the moment) to becomne a RIR but would get a mandate to organize a 3rd
> WSIS. Under a WSIS umbrella governments would get another opportunity to work
> towards a model, where ICANN is pushed into an intergovenrmental framewok. If
> people are interested into the various ideas they should go back to "model 3"
> and "model 4" of the WGIG report from 2005. BTW, remember the ITU
> Plenipotentiary Conference 1998 in Minneapolis, when ITU gave up (for the
> moment) its intention to get the hand over the DNS and IP addresses via the
> IAHC but got as a compensation the mandate to start the WSIS process.
>
> No new arguments, no new ideas. Old wine in new bottles. But 2010 is not 2005
> and not 1998. We have one billion more Internet users and dozens of more
> problems (CC, IOT, SN etc.) which have only little to do with the DNS. They
> call for more multistakeholder dialog and bottom up PDP in an open and
> transparent environment and not for less. As it was said hundred times in
> 2005: The political challenges of the 21st century can not be settled with
> the diplomatic instruments of the 20th century. We have to be innovative and
> have to create something which is able to manage these challenges. ICANN and
> IGF is not the end of history. In contrary it is the beginning of a new
> historical phase. But we have to look and move forward, not backwards.
>
> What could be done?
>
> 1. IGC members, in particular from developing countries, should try to contact
> their national representatives participating in Guadalajara (and in the
> forthcoming UNGA discussion in the 2nd Committee) to explain them the
> background of the battle to enhanced their knowledge and understanding of the
> various dimensions of the issue
>
> 2. The IGC should work on a broader document on the future of Internet
> Governance with special parts on "improvement" of ICANN and the IGF. A first
> version could be presented at the forthcoming November IGF/MAG consultations
> in Geneva.
>
> Best wishes
>
> wolfgang
>
>
> Wolfgang
> ________________________________
>
> Von: Norbert Klein im Auftrag von Norbert Klein
> Gesendet: Sa 09.10.2010 19:23
> An: governance at lists.cpsr.org
> Betreff: Re: [governance] A Group of ITU Members vs. the IGF
>
>
>
> On 10/09/2010 12:40 PM, Fouad Bajwa wrote:
>> Dear Bill,
>>
>> You are definitely pointing a major concern that should have IGC take
>> a strong position against as well as raise this issue in the upcoming
>> open consultation as well as the CSTD IGF improvements working group.
>> Do you deem it feasible that we use this thread to develop a position
>> statement from IGC to both the IGF and CSTD against the issue?
>>
> I really hope something like this will start.
>
>
> Norbert
>
>>
>>
>> On Sat, Oct 9, 2010 at 3:20 PM, William Drake
>> <william.drake at graduateinstitute.ch> wrote:
>>
>>> Hi,
>>>
>>> This is related to the message I just sent concerning the ITU/GAC proposal,
>>> but it merits a different thread. The list discussion has all been building
>>> off the Kevin Murphy piece Wolfgang circulated. Alas, the article being
>>> ICANN-oriented did not bother to take note of another part of the RCC
>>> proposal that should be of some concern here. The Russian text includes a
>>> section on The Future of the Internet Governance Forum that says, inter
>>> alia,
>>>
>>> "The WSIS Forum 2010 was held in May 2010 in Geneva, and the venue for the
>>> next one, in 2011, is the United Nations headquarters in New York. The
>>> question of Internet governance is just one of the many questions raised by
>>> WSIS, and it would appear logical that IGF should in future be held as part
>>> of the WSIS Forum in order for there to be a common platform for all
>>> stakeholders seeking to implement WSIS outcomes. This will serve to broaden
>>> the audience, particularly within developing countries, and reduce costs for
>>> organizers and participants alike. Proposal: To consider IGF as a part of
>>> the WSIS Forum in the interests of combining efforts, facilitating
>>> participation, especially for developing-country representatives, reducing
>>> costs and avoiding duplication of effort."
>>>
>>> So voila. This isn't exactly news either, I had ITU staffers tell me in
>>> Tunis when the IGF was endorsed that "we'll be running this thing in five
>>> years." There's always been a contingent of governments, generally the
>>> same ones supporting ITU uber ICANN, arguing that ITU should have the IGF;
>>> indeed, the Russians said this in Tunis, and insisted on the inclusion in
>>> the mandate of those provisions about ITU competence etc. And Toure et al
>>> have in the past held up the WTPF, the WSIS Forum, etc as evidence that the
>>> ITU does this sort of thing better. All of which harks back to our earlier
>>> debate on the WSIS Forum and whether it would be a swell idea to hold it in
>>> NYC where UN GA reps could see what a proper UN forum looks like, etc.
>>>
>>> Best,
>>>
>>> Bill
>>>
>>>
>>> ***********************************************************
>>> 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
>>> www.linkedin.com/in/williamjdrake
>>> ***********************************************************
>>>
>
>
> --
> If you want to know what is going on in Cambodia, please visit
> The Mirror, a regular review of the Cambodian language press in English.
>
> This is the latest weekly editorial of The Mirror:
>
> The Influence of the Internet on Cambodia
> Sunday, 3.10.2010
>
> http://tinyurl.com/32suhs5
> (to read it, click on the line above.)
>
> And here is something new from time to time - at least every weekend:
> The NEW ADDRESS of The Mirror:
>
> http://www.cambodiamirror.org <http://www.cambodiamirror.org/>
>
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--
Janna Quitney Anderson
Director of Imagining the Internet
www.imaginingtheinternet.org
Associate Professor of Communications
Director of Internet Projects
School of Communications
Elon University
andersj at elon.edu
(336) 278-5733 (o)
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