[governance] BRICS

Mon Jul 13 11:11:40 EDT 2015

Dear Keith

In the case of both India and Brazil, and also of South Africa,
commitment to multistakeholder processes and multilateralism should not
be seen as mutually exclusive. I did feel that India's statements at the
Buenos Aires ICANN meeting was being rather 'over-interpreted'.

They believe in both multistakeholderism multilateralism and want both.
This is actually not all that new. They (and we) just rarely get to talk
about the detail which is where the devil lies.

What is interesting in this statement is that it affirms
multistakeholder participation but with the 'respective roles and
responsibilities' language of the Tunis Agenda.

This is not bad in itself, but it can result in a very limited space for
particularly civil society inclusion.

What is also interesting is that they specify that equal footing is
among governments. This is a longstanding demand and it is one that will
not go away. They are making the legitimate demand in my view that a
'global resource' be developed and managed in a global way, with all
governments having equal voice. Nongovernmental actors should not be
intimidated by this. Whether more equal footing among 'old empire' and
'new empire' will be good for a fair and open internet and inclusive
internet governance is the real question.

But assuming that the existing status quo is necessarily better for
nongovernmental stakeholder participation just because Europe/US are so
much more explicit about their support for multistakeholderism is not
enough.

I think that having a global agreement on security that is transparent
and with enforcement being in the public domain is not necessarily a bad
thing as it could be easier to insist on adherence to human rights than
with secret, bilateral deals.  On the other hand, reaching such an
agreement will be very difficult. What is significant is that they are
not proposing a comprehensive internet treaty.

That they say the the UN should play a "facilitating role in setting up
international policies pertaining to the Internet" is not a bad thing
and could be interpreted as including the IGF. I think this is far, far
better than the previous CIRP proposal of the UN setting a new body to
make internet policy which was simply not feasible in my view and would
have produced a bottleneck stopping progress such as what we have seen
in, for example, the Human Rights Council.

In practice the UN is already facilitating several internet-related
policies, e.g. the Human Rights Council's resolutions on internet
freedom of expression and the General Assembly resolution on privacy.

ICANN internationalisation remains a concern and I think it is
definitely there 'between the lines'. I think that the IANA transition
is just one part of this which is probably why, Wolfgang, they did not
mention it.

But while I am not convinced by the 'human rights' bits (this would be
real progress if South Africa really believed this - as recently as June
2015 they questioned the notion that rights that apply offline also
apply online in a statement to the Human Rights Council) I don't think
we should see this as a rejection of multistakeholder internet
governance or the 'evolution of the internet governance ecosystem'.
(This, and the internet as a public resource does come out of the
NETmundial statement).

I think it simply means that they are not letting go of wanting a more
equal distribution of power and influence over internet policy and
regulation among governments.

And, a secondary layer to this is of course having a more equal
distribution of opportunity for internet-related business and industry.

What I would have liked to see, and I think we should ask for it, is for
BRICS to adopt the NETmundial principles for internet governance.

Anriette

On 13/07/2015 14:23, Keith Davidson wrote:
> Does this means the ICANN "breakthroughs" of having Brazil and India
> pledging allegiance to multistakeholderism is now meaningless, as the
> heads of state of BRICS have reaffirmed their commitment to
> multilateralism?
> 
> Cheers
> 
> Keith
> 
> On 10/07/2015 5:42 a.m., "Kleinwächter, Wolfgang" wrote:
>>
>>
>> Hi,
>>
>> the heads of states of the five BRICS Countries have just finished
>> their summit in the Russian City of Ufa.
>>
>> They adopted a 50 pages declaration which includes (as the Forteleza
>> Declaration in Brazil in 2014) also two long paragraphs related to
>> Internet. There are more good than bad news in the document. And
>> pobably one have to read the document by recognizing what is NOT in
>> the adopted language: There is only little use of terminology like
>> "Internet Governance" or "multistakeholderism". They do not mention
>> ICANN or IANA or the IGF or the NetMundial conference. The used
>> terminology is "ICT", the main subject is "security".
>>
>> The key Internet paras 33.4 - 33.6 say:
>>
>> 33.4 We consider that the Internet is a global resource and that
>> states should participate on equal footing in its evaluation and
>> funtioning, taking into account the need to involve relevant
>> stakeholders in their respective roles and responsibilities." And they
>> add in the sama para: "We are in favour of an open, non-fragmented and
>> secure Internet. We uphold the roles and responsibilities of national
>> governments in regard to regulation anf security of the ntwork."
>>
>> 33.5 acknolwledges the need "to promote, among others, the principles
>> of multilateralism, democracy, transparency and mutual trust and stand
>> for the universally agreed rules of conduct with regard to the
>> network. It is necessary to ensure that the UN plays a fascilitating
>> role in setting up international policies pertaining to the Internet.
>>
>> 33.5 We support the evolution of the Internet governance ecosystem,
>> which should be based on an open and democratic process, free from the
>> influence of any unilateral considerations."
>>
>> The other para 35 deals mainly with security questions. In 35.1 the
>> heads of state recognize "the need for a universal regulatory binding
>> instrument on combating the criminal use of ICTs under the UN auspieces.
>>
>> In 35.2  they reaffirm the "key role of the UN" in adressing Internet
>> related security issues.
>>
>> The have also re-established the BRICS Working Group of experts on
>> security in the use of ICTs. This Group will enhance cooperation among
>> BRICS countries, including collaboration among existing CSIRTS.
>>
>> Would be good to know why they did not mention IANA Transition, IGF
>> and WSIS 10+
>>
>> Wolfgang
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
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> 
> 
> 
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-- 
-----------------------------------------
Anriette Esterhuysen
Executive Director
Association for Progressive Communications
anriette at apc.org
www.apc.org
IM: ae_apc

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