[governance] ITU vs. ICANN

[Milton L Mueller]

Very astute observations, Parminder. But what prevents such a globally centralized process from being hijacked by states, or a typical state-business coalition such as that formed around copyright protection?

More substantially, I remain of the firm view, expressed often here, that our best bet is a new global IG policy and supervisory dispensation, which inter alia replaces US's supervision over the ICANN ( with ICANN continuing to do all the technical functions it does at present ), and which is more more open, with multistakeholder participation - a new age body. I  am also of the view that such a body (with the characteristics we want it to have, or close about ) was more likely at WSIS, more likely in the 2007 than today, still more likely today then it will be the next year, and its likelihood will keep coming down as time passes and more and more governments understand the Internet and how to control it.... There may just still be time.

The alternatives to what I propose is an emerging IG regime, which is shaping up right now in front of our eyes, with the following compoments - greater ITU role, plus ACTA kind of plurilateral treaties undemocratically imposed on less powerful governments, plus national governments doing arbitrary and ad hoc controls and regulation over the Internet plus ad hoc GAC's interventions, without then being based on an clear principles, plus of course US being able to do anything it wants to the global critical Internet resources whenever it wants to (see discussions on COICA Bill in the US).

The best way forward for  civil society is to support a global process of developing general principles for Internet policies, along with new institutional mechanism to overlook the implementation of these principles and policies. And it will be best if civil society takes lead in this. That would our best best way to get as much foot in as possible..... I just keep hoping one day we will wake up to this imperative :) Parminder


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