[governance] NY article expresses surprise at US walkout in Dubai

[parminder]

New York Times


  Message, if Murky, From U.S. to the World

  * /by/ ERIC PFANNER
  * Dec. 14, 2012

At the global treaty conference on telecommunications here, the United 
States got most of what it wanted. But then it refused to sign the 
document and left in a huff.

What was that all about? And what does it say about the future of the 
Internet — which was virtually invented by the United States but now has 
many more users in the rest of the world?

It may mean little about how the Internet will operate in the coming 
years. But it might mean everything about the United States’ refusal to 
acknowledge even symbolic global oversight of the network.

The American delegation, joined by a handful of Western allies, derided 
the treaty as a threat to Internet freedom. But most other nations 
signed it. And other participants in the two weeks of talks here were 
left wondering on Friday whether the Americans had been negotiating in 
good faith or had planned all along to engage in a public debate only to 
make a dramatic exit, as they did near midnight on Thursday as the 
signing deadline approached.

The head of the American delegation, Terry Kramer, announced that it was 
“with a heavy heart” that he could not “sign the agreement in its 
current form.” United States delegates said the pact could encourage 
censorship and undermine the existing, hands-off approach to Internet 
oversight and replace it with government control.

Anyone reading the treaty, though, might be puzzled by these assertions. 
“Internet” does not appear anywhere in the 10-page text, which deals 
mostly with matters like the fees that telecommunications networks 
should charge one another for connecting calls across borders. After 
being excised from the pact at United States insistence, the I-word was 
consigned to a soft-pedaled resolution that is attached to the treaty.

The first paragraph of the treaty states: “These regulations do not 
address the content-related aspects of telecommunications.” That 
convoluted phrasing was understood by all parties to refer to the 
Internet, delegates said, but without referring to it by name so no one 
could call it an Internet treaty.

A preamble to the treaty commits the signers to adopt the regulations 
“in a manner that respects and upholds their human rights obligations.”

Both of these provisions were added during the final days of haggling in 
Dubai, with the support of the United States. If anything, the new 
treaty appears to make it more intellectually challenging for 
governments like China and Iran to justify their current censorship of 
the Internet.

What’s more, two other proposals that raised objections from the United 
States were removed. One of those stated that treaty signers should 
share control over the Internet address-assignment system — a function 
now handled by an international group based in the United States. The 
other, also removed at the Americans’ behest, called for Internet 
companies like Google and Facebook to pay telecommunications networks 
for delivering material to users.

Given that the United States achieved many of its stated goals in the 
negotiations, why did it reject the treaty in an 11th-hour intervention 
that had clearly been coordinated with allies like Britain and Canada?

In a Dubai conference call with reporters early on Friday, Mr. Kramer 
cited a few remaining objections, like references to countering spam and 
to ensuring “the security and robustness of international 
telecommunications networks.” This wording, he argued, could be used by 
nefarious governments to justify crackdowns on free speech.

But even Mr. Kramer acknowledged that his real concerns were less 
tangible, saying it was the “normative” tone of the debate that had 
mattered most. The United States and its allies, in other words, saw a 
chance to use the treaty conference to make a strong statement about the 
importance of Internet freedom. But by refusing to sign the treaty and 
boycotting the closing ceremony, they made clear that even to talk about 
the appearance of global rules for cyberspace was a nonstarter.

It may have been grandstanding, but some United States allies in Europe 
were happy to go along, saying the strong American stand would underline 
the importance of keeping the Internet open.

“This could be a watershed moment in the discussion of Internet 
freedom,” said Jochem de Groot, senior policy officer for the Internet 
and human rights in the Foreign Ministry of the Netherlands, which 
joined the United States in opposition to the pact.

That the talks — convened by a United Nations agency, the International 
Telecommunication Union — took place in this economically liberal but 
socially and politically battened-down emirate underscored the symbolism 
of the United States boycott of the final treaty.

“There were a lot of messages being sent to countries around the world,” 
said Moez Chakchouk, chief executive of the Tunisian Internet Agency, in 
an interview. “It’s a good message to start the debate.”

Since the Arab Spring deposed the authoritarian government of President 
Zine el-Abidine Ben-Ali of Tunisia, that country has taken a strong 
stand in support of Internet freedom. Nonetheless, Mr. Chakchouk said 
his government would sign the telecommunications treaty because he was 
satisfied with the free-speech guarantees that had been written into it.

“It’s important for all of us to work together,” he said. “It’s not good 
when one country doesn’t understand the issues.”

Working together could become more challenging as the Internet — 
especially bandwidth-hungry video applications — accounts for an ever 
greater share of global telecommunications traffic, and as more people 
in developing countries go online.

According to Hamadoun Touré, secretary-general of the telecommunication 
union, the goal of the treaty was not to take control of the Internet — 
as critics had contended — but to narrow the digital divide.

While the United States was talking about the open Internet, Mr. Touré 
and developing countries were talking about opening the Internet to more 
of the 4.5 billion people around the world who remain offline.

Mr. Touré emphasized treaty proposals for stimulating investment in 
broadband networks, for reducing cellphone roaming costs and for 
extending Internet access to disabled people in developing countries. 
The goal was to expand broadband at an affordable cost, not to regulate 
the content that travels on the Internet, he said.

“What is the meaning of building cars if there are no highways for them 
to drive on?” Mr. Touré said at a news conference on Friday, where the 
telecommunication union tried to put a positive spin on the messy pileup 
of the previous evening.

As developing countries gain better access, the numbers game will 
continue to tilt against the United States and other developed countries 
that have championed the cause of an open Internet. The Internet 
population of China — 538 million as of June, according to the Chinese 
government — is already nearly double that of the United States.

Mr. Kramer said that as Internet use expands in developing countries, 
governments and citizens of these countries might also grow more 
tolerant of it.

“It is clear that the world community is a crossroads in its view of the 
Internet and its relationship to society in the coming century,” Mr. 
Kramer said.

By Friday evening, 89 of 144 countries that were eligible to vote had 
signed the document and about two dozen had indicated that they would 
not, Mr. Touré said, with the rest still undecided or undeclared. 
Holdouts could change their minds and sign later. Mr. Touré said he was 
hopeful that the United States would eventually do so, though Mr. Kramer 
said this was unlikely.

Otherwise, the events in Dubai raise the curious prospect of a treaty 
largely negotiated to suit the United States’ position and applying 
mostly to developing countries, many of which seemed perfectly happy 
with the outcome.

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