[governance] Fwd: The real work starts after WCIT-12

[parminder]

http://www.buddeblog.com.au/frompaulsdesk/the-real-work-starts-after-wcit12/

Interesting blog on WCIT, and I agree.....

The real work comes afterwards, and much of what happens at the WCIT 
should set up the context of, what the authors puts as, and I quote...

    Like it or not, this debate has brought a large number of important
    issues to the fore and they will need to be confronted.  What the
    WCIT has to do upfront is untangle the various issues and clearly
    separate them from each other. The next step will then be to clearly
    define what can be solved on a national level and what needs to be
    addressed internationally -- and, if there are issues that need
    international attention, who are the best parties to address those
    issues.

    The most important issue at the WCIT will be how the international
    community will manage the current debate so as to move towards a
    manageable future.

    Most likely what this will mean is that the various international
    stakeholders will have to create a (new) platform that can be used
    to address these issues, and existing internet bodies such as ICANN,
    ISOC and IGF, as well as the UN  and some of its organisations such
    as the ITU and others of course, will all need to be part of this.


The full blog is below.....


    The real work starts after WCIT12
    <http://www.buddeblog.com.au/frompaulsdesk/the-real-work-starts-after-wcit12/>

The really important part of the World Conference on IT (WCIT) is not 
the internet battles that have caught the interest of the press -- it is 
what will happen after the conference has ended.

Membership of WCIT is on a per-country basis and currently 193 countries 
will be participating in this international event. Each country is free 
to make up its own delegation and these delegations can therefore 
represent a large variety of social, economic, business, legal, 
technical and other interests -- as large and as wide as each country 
decides its delegation will be. The responsibility for organising the 
WCIT rests with the ITU, which is the oldest UN organisation (1865).

The current media frenzy about the internet, and the false rumours that 
the UN or any other organisation is going to take over its governance is 
just that -- a media beat-up.

As in any international meeting, countries are welcome to bring their 
plans, proposals, opinions and views to the conference and to take the 
opportunity to present these to the international audience. However 
proposals from the USA, or Russia, or China, or the European countries, 
or the Arab countries are not automatically accepted simply because they 
are presented at the conference. That is not the case in any 
international conference -- and certainly not at the WCIT, which has a 
reputation for consensus-building.

The media frenzy seems to be based on the incorrect assumption that any 
of the proposals that have been circulated or rumoured could be, or even 
will be, accepted. It is true that some of these proposals and rumours 
contain elements that will be unacceptable to other members of the 
international communities, and vested interests involved in the debate 
have used the well-known FUD strategy (spread fear, uncertainty and 
doubt) to fuel the media frenzy.

On the positive side, the interest in WCIT has now moved well beyond the 
traditional ICT industry. It has gained an enormous amount of attention 
and has brought the internet governance issue to the notice of 
mainstream society. This, of course, is a positive development and it 
also indicates how important the internet has become for everybody, with 
non-technical people starting to take a serious interest in its future.

One of the problems of the internet has been that while it has been 
growing into that wider context the governing bodies have not kept up 
with the growth of these wider interests and concerns, and there is now 
a range of social and economic issues, as well as the technical issues 
that need to be addressed. In the current debate, however, all these 
issues have been thrown into one pool.

Like it or not, this debate has brought a large number of important 
issues to the fore and they will need to be confronted.  What the WCIT 
has to do upfront is untangle the various issues and clearly separate 
them from each other. The next step will then be to clearly define what 
can be solved on a national level and what needs to be addressed 
internationally -- and, if there are issues that need international 
attention, who are the best parties to address those issues.

The most important issue at the WCIT will be how the international 
community will manage the current debate so as to move towards a 
manageable future.

Most likely what this will mean is that the various international 
stakeholders will have to create a (new) platform that can be used to 
address these issues, and existing internet bodies such as ICANN, ISOC 
and IGF, as well as the UN  and some of its organisations such as the 
ITU and others of course, will all need to be part of this.

The internet is there for all. It is an enormous social and economic 
enabler and should be used to advance our global society. It clearly has 
the potential to do this and it is the responsibility of all involved to 
make that happen. WCIT 12 has the enormous opportunity, as a 
representation of global society, to play a leadership role in guiding 
the future of the internet for the benefit of all.

The new platform that should be the result of this needs to be truly 
international, independent; and it needs to be well-funded, so that it 
can properly address the issues at hand.

It is, therefore, most unlikely that -- apart from some of the purely 
technical matters -- any of the more contentious issues that are being 
addressed in the press will be solved at WCIT. Nor should that be the 
case, because WCIT is probably the wrong place to address these issues. 
Nevertheless WCIT can be the catalyst and the facilitator to kick-start 
the process.

Paul Budde





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