[governance] Position by IT for Change and some other NGOs on enhanced cooperation

[Jean-Louis FULLSACK]

Dear Parminder and all

I agree in general to the terms of this covering letter to the UN Working Group on Enhanced Cooperation. I' d just suggest to complete the sentence



by adding China to the US, for instance as follows :

In a post-Snowden world, there is deep discomfort among almost all countries, other than the US and China to some extent, with the manner in which the global Internet is run and is evolving. . 

Best regards

Jean-Louios Fullsack



> Message du 28/08/13 12:53
> De : "parminder" 
> A : "governance at lists.igcaucus.org" , "irp at lists.internetrightsandprinciples.org" 
> Copie à : 
> Objet : [governance] Position by IT for Change and some other NGOs on enhanced cooperation
> 
>Dear All
> 
> IT for Change and some other NGOs plan to forward the following position to the UN Working Group on Enhanced Cooperation. Preceding the position statement is a covering letter seeking support. You are welcome to support this position any time before 12 noon GMT on 31st Aug. We are happy to provide any additional information/ clarification etc. Also happy to otherwise discuss this position, and its different elements. We are motivated by the need to come up with precise and clear institutional options at this stage. Politics of inertia and not doing anything just serves the status quo. These may not be the best institutional options, and we are ready to enter into discussion with other groups on what instead would be the better options. But, again, not doing anything is, in our opinion, would be detrimental to global public interest. 
> 
> The web link to this position is at http://www.itforchange.net/civil_society_input_to_the_UN_Working_Group_for_global_governance_of_the_Internet .
> 
> parminder 
> 
> 
> Covering letter / Background
> 
> In May 2012, more than 60 civil society organisations and several individuals participated in a campaign for 'democratising the global governance of the Internet'. A joint letter signed by the participants of this campaign inter alia asked for setting up a UN Working Group towards this objective. Such a Working Group was set up and has now asked for public inputs to formulate its recommendations. 
> 
> In our joint letter, we had proposed some outlines for reforming the current global governance architecture of the Internet. Time has come now to make more clear and specific recommendations of the actual institutional mechanism that we need. With most governments more worried about their narrow geopolitical interests and relationships with individual countries, it falls upon the civil society to be bold and forward looking and put precise proposals on the table that can then be taken forward by state actors. 
> 
> In a post-Snowden world, there is deep discomfort among almost all countries, other than the US, with the manner in which the global Internet is run and is evolving. The need for some global norms, principles, rules, and necessary governance mechanisms for the global Internet is being felt now as never before. The Internet can no longer remain anchored to the political and business interests of one country, or to serving global capital, as it is at present. As a global commons, it is our collective democratic right and responsibility to participate in the governance of the Internet, so that it can become a vehicle for greater prosperity, equity and social justice for all.
> 
> We seek your support to join us in proposing the enclosed document as an input to the Working Group on Enhanced Cooperation. The Working Group has sought public inputs through a questionnaire which can be seen at http://unctad.org/en/Pages/CSTD.aspx . The most important question is at number 8, which seeks input with regard to precise mechanism(s) that are required. Our response will mostly address this all-important question. (You are also encouraged to, separately, give a fuller response to the questionnaire on your behalf or on behalf of your organization.) We will also like to give wide media publicity to this civil society statement .
> 
> We will be glad if you can send your response to us before the 30th of August. We are of course happy to respond to any clarification or additional information that you may want to seek in the above regard. Please also circulate this to others who you think may want to participate in this initiative. The global Internet governance space seems to be dominated by those who push for neoliberal models of governance. We must therefore have as many voices heard as possible.
> 
> (The statement is cut pasted below this email and may also be seen here )
> 
> With best regard,
> 
> Parminder
> 
> 
> Parminder Jeet Singh
>

IT for Change
In special consultative status with the United Nations ECOSOC
> www.ITforChange.net 
> T: 00-91-80-26654134 | T: 00-91-80-26536890 | Fax: 00-91-80-41461055
> 
A civil society input to the UN Working Group looking at 
institutional mechanisms for global governance of the Internet 
(Please write to itfc at itforchange.net before 29th Aug if you will like to endorse this statement) 

> Why global governance of the Internet?
Internet governance is seen largely in terms of national sovereignty and security or as pertaining to free speech and privacy. We are of the view that there exist many other equally important issues for global Internet governance that arise from the whole gamut of rights and aspirations of people – social, economic, cultural, political and developmental. The relationship of the global Internet to cultural diversity is one example. The Internet increasingly determines not only the global flows of information but also of cultures, and their commodification. No social process is exempt from the influence of the Internet – from education to health and governance. Social systems at national and local levels are being transformed under the influence of the global Internet.
Instead of decentralizing power, the current structure of the global Internet tends to centralize control in the hands of a small number of companies. Some of these companies have near-monopoly power over key areas of economic and social significance. Therefore, regulation of global Internet business through pertinent competition law, consumer law, open interoperability standards, etc, is becoming a pressing need. Increasing statist controls need to be similarly resisted. With the emergent paradigm of cloud computing presenting the looming prospect of remote management of our digital lives from different 'power centres' across the world, it is inconceivable that we can do without appropriate democratic governance of the global Internet. Post-Snowden, as many countries have begun to contemplate and even embark upon measures for 'digital sovereignty', the only way to preserve a global Internet is through formulating appropriate global norms, principles and rules that will underpin its governance.
Background of this civil society input
A group of over 60 civil society organizations and several individuals, made a statement on 'Democratizing the global governance of the Internet' to the open consultations on 'enhanced cooperation'1 called by the Chair of the UN Commission on Science and Technology for Development (CSTD) on May 18th, 2012, in Geneva. The statement inter alia sought the setting up of a CSTD Working Group to address this issue. We are happy to note that such a Working Group has been set up and has now called for public inputs to make its recommendations. This document is an input to the Working Group on Enhanced Cooperation (WGEC) on the behalf of the undersigned .
In the aforementioned statement of May 2012, the civil society signatories had called for the following institutional developments to take place in the global Internet governance architecture:
Our demands with respect to 'global' Internet Governance espouse a simple and obvious democratic logic. On the technical governance side, the oversight of the Internet's critical technical and logical infrastructure, at present with the US government, should be transferred to an appropriate, democratic and participative, multi-lateral body, without disturbing the existing distributed architecture of technical governance of the Internet in any significant way. (However, improvements in the technical governance systems are certainly needed.) On the side of larger Internet related public policy-making on global social, economic, cultural and political issues, the OECD-based model of global policy making, as well as the default application of US laws, should be replaced by a new UN-based democratic mechanism. Any such new arrangement should be based on the principle of subsidiarity, and be innovative in terms of its mandate, structure, and functions, to be adequate to the unique requirements of global Internet governance. It must be fully participative of all stakeholders, promoting the democratic and innovative potential of the Internet. 
As the WGEC deliberates on concrete ways to move forward, the time is ripe to propose clear and specific institutional mechanisms for democratizing the global governance of the Internet. We have, therefore, expanded the above demands into specific mechanisms that should be set in place for this purpose.
New global governance mechanisms are needed
We are of the view that it would be useful to have two distinct mechanisms – one that looks at the global Internet-related public policy issues in various social, economic, cultural and political domains, and another that should undertake oversight of the technical and operational functions related to the Internet (basically, replacing the current unilateral oversight of the ICANN2 by the US government). This will require setting up appropriate new global governance bodies as well as a framework of international law to facilitate their work, as follows.
A new UN body for Internet-related public policy issues: An anchor global institution for taking up and addressing various public policy issues pertaining to the Internet in an ongoing manner is urgently required. It can be a committee attached to the UN General Assembly or a more elaborate and relatively autonomous set up linked loosely to the UN (as a specialized UN body). It should have a very strong and institutionalized public consultative mechanism, in the form of stakeholder advisory groups that are selected through formal processes by different stakeholder constituencies, ensuring adequate representativeness. (OECD's Committee on Computer, Information and Communication Policy and India's recent proposal for a UNCommittee on Internet-related Policiesare two useful, and somewhat similar, models that can be looked at.)
This 'new body' will stay abreast of global Internet-related issues; where necessary, develop international level public policies in the concerned areas; seek appropriate harmonization of national level policies, and; facilitate required treaties, conventions and agreements. It will also have the necessary means to undertake studies and present analyses in different policy areas.
Most Internet-related public policy issues are of a cross-cutting nature, and involve overlaps with mandates of other existing global governance bodies, like WIPO, UNESCO, WTO, UNDP, UNCTAD, ITU and so on. Due to this reason, the proposed new 'body' will establish appropriate relationships with all these other existing bodies, including directing relevant public policy issues to them, receiving their inputs and comments, and itself contributing specific Internet-related perspectives to issues under the purview of these other bodies.

A new 'Internet Technical Oversight and Advisory Board': This board will replace the US government's current oversight role over the technical and operational functions performed by ICANN. The membership of this oversight board can be of a techno-political nature, i.e. consisting of people with specialized expertise but who also have appropriate political backing, ascertained through a democratic process. For instance, the board can be made of 10/15 members, with 2/3 members each from five geographic regions (as understood in the UN system). These members can perhaps be selected through an appropriate process by the relevant technical standards bodies and/or country domain name bodies of all the countries of the respective region. (Other mechanisms for constituting the techno-political membership of this board can also be considered.)
The Internet technical oversight and advisory board will seek to ensure that the various technical and operational functions related to the global Internet are undertaken by the relevant organizations as per international law and public policy principles developed by the concerned international bodies. With regard to ICANN, the role of this board will more or less be exactly the same as exercised by the US government in its oversight over ICANN. As for the decentralized Internet standards development mechanisms, like the Internet Engineering Task Force, these self organizing systems based on voluntary adoption of standards will continue to work as at present. The new board will have a very light touch and non-binding role with regard to them. It will bring in imperatives from, and advise these technical standards bodies on, international public policies, international law and norms being developed by various relevant bodies.
For this board to be able to fulfill its oversight mandate, ICANN must become an international organization, without changing its existing multistakeholder character in any substantial manner. It would enter into a host country agreement with the US government (if ICANN has to continue to be headquartered in the US). It would have full immunity from US law and executive authority, and be guided solely by international law, and be incorporated under it. Supervision of the authoritative root zone server must also be transferred to this oversight broad. The board will exercise this role with the help of an internationalized ICANN.
This board will also advise the afore-mentioned new public policy body on technical matters pertaining to the Internet policy making, as well as take public policy inputs from it.
Framework Convention on the Internet: An appropriate international legal framework will be required sooner than later for the above bodies to function properly. Accordingly, one of the early tasks of the proposed 'new body' dealing with Internet-related public policy issues, discussed above, will be to help negotiate a 'Framework Convention on the Internet' (somewhat like the Framework Convention on Climate Change). Governance of the Internet concerns different kinds of issues that are ever-evolving. It is, therefore, preferable to formulate an enabling legal structure as a 'framework convention' rather than as a specific treaty or convention that addresses only a bounded set of issues. It may also be easier to initially agree to a series of principles, protocols and processes that can then frame further agreements, treaties etc on more specific issues.
Such a Framework Convention will thus enable appropriate and ongoing global policy responses to various opportunities and challenges that the fast-evolving phenomenon of the Internet throws up. It will also formalize the basic architecture of the global governance of the Internet; inter alia recognizing and legitimizing the existing role and functions of the various bodies currently involved with managing the technical and logical infrastructure of the Internet, including the ICANN, Regional Internet Registries, Internet technical standards bodies and so on.
Appropriate mechanisms for crisis response and dispute resolution in relation to the global Internet, and the social activity dependent on it, will also be required to be set up.
Relationship with the IGF
The UN Internet Governance Forum (IGF) was established as a multistakeholder 'policy dialogue forum' by the World Summit on the Information Society. The proposed global Internet policy mechanism, especially the new UN based body, will maintain a close relationship with the IGF. IGF affords a very new kind of participative mechanism for policy making, whereby the participation realm is institutionalized, and relatively independent of the policy making structures. The IGF should preferably pre-discuss issues that are taken up by this new policy body and present diverse perspectives for its consideration. A good part of the agenda for this new body can emerge from the IGF. Whenever possible, draft proposals to be adopted by this new body should be shared with the IGF.
To perform such a participation enhancing role, the IGF must be adequately strengthened and reformed, especially to address the dominance of Northern corporatist interests in its current working. It must be supported with public funds, and insulated from any funding system that can bring in perverse influences on its agenda and outcomes. Other required processes must also be put in place to ensure that the IGF indeed brings in constituencies that are typically under-represented, rather than provide further political clout to the already dominant.
A participative body is only as good as the policy making mechanisms that feed off it. To that extent, the meaningfulness and effectiveness of the IGF itself requires a strong policy development mechanism, as suggested in this document, to be linked to it. Investing in the IGF is useful only if its outputs and contributions lead to something concrete.
Funding
An innovative way to fund the proposed new global Internet policy mechanisms, and also the IGF, is to tap into the collections made by the relevant bodies from allocation of names and numbers resources pertaining to the global Internet (like the fee that ICANN collects annually from each domain name owner). These accruals now run into millions of dollars every year and could be adequate to fund a large part of the needed mechanisms for democratic governance of the global Internet.
In the end, we may add that there is nothing really very novel in the above proposal for setting up new mechanisms for global governance of the Internet. Similar models, for instance, were proposed in the report of the Working Group on Internet Governance that was set up during the World Summit on the Information Society, back in 2004.
We hope that the Working Group on Enhanced Cooperation will fulfill its high mandate to lead the world towards the path of democratic governance of the global commons of the Internet.
> 
>
1The outcome documents of the World Summit on the Information Society, held in 2005, employed this as a placeholder term giving the mandate for further exploration of the necessary mechanisms for global governance of the Internet. 
2Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, the US based non-profit that manages much of technical and logical infrastructural functions related to the Internet. 



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