RES: [governance] A Group of ITU Members vs. the IGF
Vanda UOL
vanda at uol.com.br
Tue Oct 12 18:37:23 EDT 2010
There is no doubt about the intentions in those debates in ITU. Not to have
the government to decide is not acceptable for many states around the world.
However, I see no reason to agree with them or even accept any of these "
decisions" if they become decisions, which I really doubt since several
countries have a better understanding of the evolution of the society,
promoted by the internet itself, and recognizing their power as government
is stronger if came from a model where all stakeholder has a voice.
I like your examples...
All the best.
Vanda Scartezini
Polo Consultores Associados
IT Trend
Alameda Santos 1470 1407,8
01418-903 São Paulo,SP, Brasil
Tel + 5511 3266.6253
Mob + 55118181.1464
-----Mensagem original-----
De: "Kleinwächter, Wolfgang"
[mailto:wolfgang.kleinwaechter at medienkomm.uni-halle.de]
Enviada em: domingo, 10 de outubro de 2010 06:46
Para: governance at lists.cpsr.org; Norbert Klein; governance at lists.cpsr.org
Assunto: AW: [governance] A Group of ITU Members vs. the IGF
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/>
____________________________________________________________
You received this message as a subscriber on the list:
governance at lists.cpsr.org
To be removed from the list, send any message to:
governance-unsubscribe at lists.cpsr.org
For all list information and functions, see:
http://lists.cpsr.org/lists/info/governance
Translate this email: http://translate.google.com/translate_t
____________________________________________________________
You received this message as a subscriber on the list:
governance at lists.cpsr.org
To be removed from the list, send any message to:
governance-unsubscribe at lists.cpsr.org
For all list information and functions, see:
http://lists.cpsr.org/lists/info/governance
Translate this email: http://translate.google.com/translate_t=
____________________________________________________________
You received this message as a subscriber on the list:
governance at lists.cpsr.org
To be removed from the list, send any message to:
governance-unsubscribe at lists.cpsr.org
For all list information and functions, see:
http://lists.cpsr.org/lists/info/governance
Translate this email: http://translate.google.com/translate_t
More information about the Governance
mailing list