[governance] APC's response to NETmundial 2014 in Esp.

Thu May 1 15:08:02 EDT 2014

And here it is in Spanish - one of our members did a quick translation.

http://blog.pangea.org/2014/05/netmundial-2/

Anriette

On 30/04/2014 21:51, Anriette Esterhuysen wrote:
> Dear all
>
> Response from the Association for Communications on the outcome of
> NETMUndial 2014.
>
> Anriette
>
> http://www.apc.org/en/node/19224/
>
> By (APC)
> Johannesburg, April 2014
>
> NETmundial was a remarkable and historic event. To give it its due and
> build on it going forward, it is necessary to acknowledge its
> achievements as well as its flaws.
>
> *Affirming the “publicness” of the internet: Gains and gaps*
> The NETmundial Multistakeholder Statement
> <http://netmundial.br/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/NETmundial-Multistakeholder-Document.pdf>
> represents substantial progress towards public interest-driven
> internet governance. It recognises the internet as a common resource
> that should be managed in the public interest. “Public good”, or
> Neelie Kroes’ term
> <http://ec.europa.eu/commission_2010-2014/kroes/en/content/global-governance-global-common-public-resource>,
> “global, common, public resource”, would have been preferable, but
> this is nevertheless a powerful step towards protecting the
> “publicness” of the internet.
>
> Linked to this is affirmation of the value of openness and
> interoperability, of “permissionless innovation”, and the need to
> support public access to the internet (one of APC’s priorities). It is
> disappointing, however, that protection for intermediaries from
> liability was mentioned not as a precondition of protecting rights
> such as free expression and association, but as linked to “economic
> growth, innovation, creativity and free flow of information”. There
> can be little doubt that this text expresses the interest of the
> entertainment industry. APC believes this framing opens the door to
> requiring internet intermediaries to enforce intellectual property
> rights in ways that interfere with rights to free expression and
> access to knowledge.
>
> Consensus was not reached on network neutrality, or the principle of
> free flow of information, and non-discriminatory flow of data packets
> across the network. This was ironic, as this principle was enshrined
> in the Brazilian Marco Civil da Internet
> <http://www.senado.gov.br/atividade/materia/detalhes.asp?p_cod_mate=116682>
> (Civil Rights Framework for the Internet), enacted by President Dilma
> Rousseff during the opening of NETMundial. While not discounting the
> commercial interests at stake in avoiding inclusion of network
> neutrality as a principle, its discussion is also complicated by
> different definitions of what the concept means, and of how it applies
> in various contexts. We applaud that the NETmundial Statement roadmap
> identifies net neutrality as an area for further discussion and look
> forward to the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) taking this up in the
> near future.
>
> We would have liked to see more reference to development, social
> justice, the integration of the concerns of people from the developing
> world, and the role the internet can play to support a more just and
> sustainable world. Quoting from Nnenna Nwakanma’s inspiring opening
> speech <https://bestbits.net/nnenna-netmundial/> : “The Internet is
> fast becoming the dominant means for wealth creation. The ‘Right to
> Development’ needs to include social justice. It is not enough to do a
> superficial ‘capacity building’ for a few persons. We are looking at a
> mechanism that allows for the highest number of persons to be
> included, the largest number of voices to be heard, the widest extent
> of talents to access innovation, and the deepest creativity of the
> human minds to flourish. For these, we need to start considering the
> Internet as public commons.”
>
> *Human rights apply offline and online!*
> NETmundial identified fundamental human rights as key principles for
> internet governance and states that governments have specific
> accountability for upholding and protecting individual human rights on
> the internet. We applaud this, but believe that the roadmap section of
> the document needed to consider internet-specific aspects of human
> rights protection in greater detail ‒ in particular, rights which are
> needed to ensure free expression and association on the internet such
> as the right to anonymity and the right to use encryption.
>
> *Deepening democracy in multi-stakeholder internet governance*
> A further breakthrough in the document is recognition that internet
> governance needs to be democratic as well as multi-stakeholder, and
> that the former is not necessarily synonymous with the latter. It
> identified the need for mechanisms that ensure accountability, review
> and redress in internet governance, as well as for gender balance in
> discussions and decision making.
>
> The NETmundial Multistakeholder Statement builds positively on the
> Tunis Agenda <http://www.itu.int/wsis/docs2/tunis/off/6rev1.html> in
> its recognition that stakeholder groups do not always have fixed
> roles, but that these “respective roles and responsibilities of
> stakeholders should be interpreted in a flexible manner with reference
> to the issue under discussion.” This paves the way for constructive
> discussion of the specific roles of stakeholders in different parts of
> the internet governance ecosystem, with reference to the issue and
> process under discussion. In other words, rather than talk about
> whether governments should have a role or not, we can focus on what
> this role is and where and when it is most needed.
>
> *Mass surveillance: The elephant that left the room*
> Most disappointing is that mass surveillance was not condemned more
> strongly in the final version of the Statement, with some of the
> governmental participants insisting at the last minute that the phrase
> “mass surveillance is fundamentally inconsistent with the right to
> privacy and the principle of proportionality” be removed from the
> document.
>
> Considering that the event emerged from outrage following Edward
> Snowden’s revelations, and that mass surveillance was cited as a major
> concern in inputs received on the draft documents, this issue can best
> be described as the elephant which started out inside the room, but
> which was then lifted and carried out ‒ by suitably powerful forces ‒
> before the event’s conclusion.
>
> The document does state that “mass and arbitrary surveillance
> undermines trust in the Internet and trust in the Internet governance
> ecosystem” and cooperation – forced or voluntary – between states and
> business is addressed by the requirement that the “collection and
> processing of personal data by state and non-state actors should be
> conducted in accordance with international human rights law,” but this
> does not address the protection of individual rights that are violated
> on an extraterritorial basis.
>
> Also included is a renewed call upon states from the 2013 UN General
> Assembly Resolution
> <http://www.un.org/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=A/C.3/68/L.45/Rev.1>
> for the review of “their procedures, practices and legislation
> regarding the surveillance of communications, their interception and
> collection of personal data, including mass surveillance, interception
> and collection,.with a view to upholding the right to privacy by
> ensuring the full and effective implementation of all their
> obligations under international human rights law.” This provides an
> opening for follow-up action which rights activists should pursue with
> vigour.
>
> *IANA accountability*
> We are encouraged that the issue of Internet Assigned Numbers
> Authority (IANA) accountability will be an integral part of the
> discussions on the National Telecommunications and Information
> Administration (NTIA) transition. We look forward to the continuation
> of the process once the terms of the accountability process are
> published. We rely on the unfolding of a neutral process to review the
> accountable transition of IANA stewardship with the full participation
> of all global stakeholders and with due consideration given to the
> importance of structural separation between policy and operational levels.
>
> *What was avoided?*
> The most striking absence at NETmundial, in spite of several
> submissions raising this as a concern, is a call to put a stop to the
> increasing militarisation of the internet. Clearly this is an issue
> that should be taken up through the IGF process.
>
> *NETmundial as a process: Leaps, lessons and let-downs*
> We want to express our appreciation for the hard work that the
> organising team put into the NETmundial process, in particular CGI.br
> and the event chairperson, Virgilio A. F. Almeida, Secretary for
> Information Technology Policy of the Ministry of Science, Technology
> and Innovation of Brazil.
>
> NETmundial represents great leaps forward for multi-stakeholder
> decision making, building on inclusive, multi-stakeholder habits
> developed during eight editions of the IGF, and providing useful
> lessons for the future. More time and better planning was needed to
> integrate inputs – received through an excellent online platform –
> into the final outcome documents. It would also have been good to use
> the face-to-face event for more discussion rather than for
> open-microphone sessions in which most of what had been said online
> already was repeated. Drafting of the outcome document could also have
> been done in a more systematic manner, ensuring that people with the
> necessary area knowledge were available to the chairs of the two
> drafting groups (Principles and Roadmap).
>
> The let-down was that at the end, when the pre-final text was being
> presented to the High Level Multistakeholder Committee, the process
> suddenly felt quite familiar, as, at the last minute, a few
> governments insisted on changes to the text, demanding either
> deletions or modifications to statements that they were not
> comfortable with. We understand that government representatives are
> constrained by instructions from their capitals or by existing
> agreements; but if we are to deepen democracy in global internet
> governance, we do need to find ways to move beyond these constraints
> when finalising such a non-binding document, as they serve to limit
> more balanced stakeholder input and influence.
>
> If powerful governments, whose views often coincide with those of some
> parts of internet industry, can still exercise a veto – even if
> informally – at the last minute, we have quite a way to go towards
> fully inclusive and democratic internet governance. Intergovernmental
> processes are often criticised for producing lower common denominator
> consensus agreements. Democratic, multi-stakeholder decision-making
> processes must strive to avoid this.
>
> *What next?*
> There is much to celebrate. A group of very diverse stakeholders
> worked together to produce a document which has the potential to
> create a more robust and human rights- and public interest-oriented
> approach to internet policy and management. The Government of Brazil
> showed grace, leadership and deep commitment to inclusive processes by
> being willing to concede on a range of issues, most particularly
> network neutrality.
>
> The question now is: What next? How do we follow through to implement
> the good in the NETmundial document and how do we strengthen the
> existing IGF to play a role in this? Surveillance is the obvious place
> to start, with governments heeding the call to review all collection,
> processing and surveillance of personal data to ensure that these
> processes comply with human rights standards, such as the ones stated
> in the Necessary and Proportionate principles
> <https://en.necessaryandproportionate.org/>. Promoting awareness of
> the issues behind the network neutrality debate are also a ripe area
> for focus, as they provide a valuable entry point into a number of
> basic challenges in dealing with conflict of interest around private
> enterprise and promoting the publicness of the internet.
>
> And of course we cannot rest until, as the declaration states, we have
> “universal, equal opportunity, affordable and high quality Internet
> access”, so that we can all participate more equally in the debate.
>
>
> -- 
> ------------------------------------------------------
> anriette esterhuysen anriette at apc.org
> executive director, association for progressive communications
> www.apc.org
> po box 29755, melville 2109
> south africa
> tel/fax +27 11 726 1692

-- 
------------------------------------------------------
anriette esterhuysen anriette at apc.org
executive director, association for progressive communications
www.apc.org
po box 29755, melville 2109
south africa
tel/fax +27 11 726 1692

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