[governance] Internet humbles UN telecoms agency

[Declan McCullagh]

Many of you here on the list know orders or magnitude more than I do 
about this topic and what happened in the behind-the-scenes 
negotiations. But as someone who's not an insider, it seems like this 
was a real missed opportunity (for some of the reasons that John listed).

If the ITU had kept references to the Internet out of the treaty (and 
meant it), they wouldn't have felt the need to add the human rights 
language that vexed China/Algeria/Malaysia/etc., and they would be 
declaring victory right now instead of wondering what just hit them. Is 
what happened here that the ITU et al badly misjudged the situation and 
tried to call a bluff -- which actually wasn't one?

-Declan


On 12/13/12 4:10 PM, John Curran wrote:
> On Dec 13, 2012, at 3:50 PM, Milton L Mueller<mueller at syr.edu>  wrote:
>
>> Agree with Declan here. It may be true that no new ITRs is the best available outcome. I don't agree with the idea that we are compelled to find an "agreement" when no principled basis for agreement exists.
>
> Fully agree.  It's very unfortunate that there was some principled basis for
> agreement (for example, with respect to enabling mobile roaming globally, and
> working to a globally coordinated emergency services number) but agreement in
> these areas will be lost due to insistence on Internet matters in the final
> ITR text by some governments which is in direct conflict with insistence that
> no Internet reference appear in the ITRs by some other governments.
>
> In most of the Internet institutions I'm aware of (IETF, RIRs), this would
> result in an final ratifying the areas common agreement, and the areas of
> significant disagreement being left out to be discussed at a further time.
>
> Alas, this is apparently not how governments handle these situations, or at
> least not in the plenary in Dubai.
>
> /John
>
> Disclaimers: My views alone.  Feel free to insert brackets around anything
> you disagree with in order to make your own version.
>
>
>
>

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