[governance] The WCIT End: Good or Bad?

[Koven Ronald]

Wolfgang --


That's a very useful analysis indeed, and as usual, balanced and nuanced.


Rony Koven



-----Original Message-----
From: "Kleinwächter, Wolf
 gang" <wolfgang.kleinwaechter at medienkomm.uni-halle.de>
To: governance <governance at lists.igcaucus.org>; Bertrand de La Chapelle <bdelachapelle at gmail.com>; parminder <parminder at itforchange.net>
Cc: governance <governance at lists.igcaucus.org>
Sent: Tue, Dec 18, 2012 4:52 pm
Subject: [governance] The WCIT End: Good or Bad?


Bertrand:
In any case, this is an outcome with no winners, rather a lose-lose-lose result 
given the amount of energy devoted to this.
 
Wolfgang:
I am not sure whether I could this subscribe. WCIT didn´t change anything and it 
is also not a "missed opportunity". The world can live with the old ITRs and 
countries which will  ratify the Dubai Treaty will use the new ITRs after 2015. 
This is good for issue like maritime communication, communication for disabled 
etc., but does not affect fundamentally neither international telecommunication 
nor the Internet. Dubai was a shadow boxing, it was a political test, the 
opening of a new debate on a higher level on the future of the Internet. Insofar 
Dubai was a good opportunity to get a better picture what is going on and where 
we will go in the years ahead. Here are my positive elements:
 
1. WCIT helped to push Internet Governance to a higher level in the political 
agenda. It is now a key issue as climate change, financial crises etc. This will 
help to strengthen IGF, the role of the UNCSTD EC WG and the WSIS 10+ process. 
And it will go to G8 and G 20 meetings.   
 
2. WCIT has helped to clarify the situation - at least among governments - who 
is where. We know now that there are two opposing concepts (the concept of 
national Internet segment and cybersovereignty/top down/ on the one hand and the 
concept of multistakeholder governance /bottom up/ on the other hand). It seems 
to me that efforts to bridge this conceptual gap is nearly impossible. This is a 
cold war scenario, however, even the cold war had different phases and included 
the Helsinki-process (as Matthias has us remembered recently). The traditional 
intergovernmental mechanism / treaty system has reached its limits and is unable 
to deliver what is needed to handle global problems.So the failure of an 
intergovernmental treaty making in Dubai should be seen as an encouragement to 
work towards an universal multistakeholder Framework of Commitments. 
 
3. WCIT has helped to understand that the so-called "swing states" (Brazil, 
India, Egypt, Kenia, Ghana etc.) will play a greater role. The interesting thing 
here is that developing countries with no or little CS involvement followed more 
or less Doc. 47-E while countries which had not only traditional PTT ministries 
in their delegations took a rather different approach. In all those countries we 
will see a growing national debate on how to position itself in the global 
dispute. As Indian´s minister Sibal has said in Baku: We (India) are for a free 
and open Internet, but we are want the respect of our Indian culture and its 
citizens and we are working for businesses headquartered in India. This will 
produce on the global level a number of interesting rainbow coalitions.
 
4. WCIT has strengthened the role of civil society. Probably CS is the big 
winner of WCIT. It  was well organized and played a crucial role in a number of 
delegations. Toure reserved 90 minutes for a dialogue with CS. Other governments 
did reach out to CS. It will be difficult for the ITU (and other IGOs) to go 
backwards. This is a big challenge for CS. Better access and broader recognition 
brings along more duties and higher responsibility. Will it be possible to 
revive the CS Plenary/Content & Themes from WSIS (2002 - 2005) in the 
forthcoming WSIS 10+ process? And can the IGC play a key coordination role?
 
So my summary is: Good news from Dubai, but a long way ahead of us. We know now 
better what works and what does not work and we have a clearer understanding of 
the various opposing concepts and positions of the various camps. 
 
Wolfgang


 
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