[governance] On WSIS+10 (was Re: Why?)

Sat May 23 09:57:04 EDT 2015

Dear all

Wolfgang likes to tell us history and this is generally a good point. We need to contextualize the issues we deal with. But sometimes, Wolfgang misses -unwillingly I suppose- some important facts or interpretes them in a rather personal manner. This is the case i.a. with the private sector's membership. Private sector members existed in the ITU in the early XXth century for obvious reasons : in the USA telcos were all private, and so were a lot of international telcos/carriers. But Wolfgang fails to demonstrate the "multistakeholder feature" of the ITU, i.e. the presence of CS members besides the private sector members (there a some 600) with more or less "equal rights" for taking part at "equel footing" in the ITU debates.

Whereas only a few CS participants in the early Prepcoms raised the question of ITU's openness to CS, I was the only CS member -on behalf of CSDPTT- who asked strongly for such an openness which IMHO was a precondition for ITU to chair the WSIS process. I didn't see any of the MSH adepts on these lists support my requests even in CS plenaries, not to mention in Intergovernmental meetings when I's given three minutes do advocate this cause ! For the sake of clarity, I'd like to recall the answer of Hamadoun Touré, then Director of the ITU Development Bureau and future SG, to the question of the need for ITU to open itself to CS. "We are open to NGOs, perfectly willing  to work with them. Simply, in our opinion, they needn't being formal sector members for that. What we do refuse is a politicization (sic) of the ITU. We make development (sic) and not policy." (in Annuaire suisse de politique de développement 2003, page 120). In other terms CS = policy, Private sector = development.    

Unlike Wolfgang I spent some time inside the ITU during more than twenty years, with over one year at its HQ in Geneva, in field surveys and project coordination/leading (Africa, Albania) and in standardizing Study Groups (SG-15, GAS-7), therefore we may have a differentiated view on some aspects of ITU policy making and capabilities to devise such policies. In this field there were two completely different periods in the ITU history and policy making : before and after deregulation. And Tarjanne was the pivotal figure in this change, strongly supported, as Wolfgang mentions, by the US governmement but also by the UK's one. From that time on the ITU was a neoliberal chapel which zealously applied the Washington Consensus doxa with its questionable Structural Adjustment Plans in its domain, deregulating the telecom sector in DCs without any consideration on its consequencies. This doxa is still prevailing in the WSIS follw-up process. Did you ever see a Dan Schiller or any neocon-critical analyst at WSIS "high level" discussions? 

Best

Jean-Louis

> Message du 23/05/15 13:17
> De : ""Kleinwächter, Wolfgang"" 
> A : governance at lists.igcaucus.org, "Mawaki Chango" , "Parminder" 
, "Internet Governance" 
> Copie à : jlfullsack at wanadoo.fr, "michael gurstein" 
> Objet : AW: [governance] On WSIS+10 (was Re: Why?)
> 
> Hi
> 
> this history is more complex and goes back to the ITU Kyodo Plenipot (1994) and Jon Postels idea to have an IAHC under (his) control via IANA but with WIPO, INTA and ITU participation (1995). The ITU (under Butler and Pekka Tarjanne)realized in the early 1990s, that the end of UNESCO´s NWICO debate (with the Windhoek Declaration in 1991) created an empty space. The "technical" ITU became surprinsingly a champion for the "Right to Communicate" (RTC). Pekka Tarjanne came to the PTC Conference in Honolulu and addressed the MacBride Round Table in Global Communication in 1993 (alongside with Johan Galtung, Cees Hamelink, Kaarle Nordenstreng and others) to support the RTC. In Kyodo in 1994, ITU became a pioneer by opening the door of an intergovernmental organisation to non-governmental stakeholders, so-called private sector members. Those members got a voice (but no vote) and it was a first step into a direction which is called today "multistakeholder". BTW, the fee for private sector membership was so high that it excluded any NGO, academic or civil society organisation. 
> 
> But while Tarjanne was succesful in opening the door to private sector members (with the support of the USG), he failed to get a green light for a "World Communication Conference". This was watered down in Kyodo (1994)to what later became the "World Telecommunication Policy Forum" (WTPF) which took place since that sporadicly every four or five years (the last one was in Geneva in May 2013). And indeed it was the USG who was behind this watering down. They feared a reopening of the UNESCO-NWICO debate under the ITU umbrella. 
> 
> But when Jon Postel and others signed the IAHC new gTLD MoU in May 1997 the constellation was different when ITU had its next Plenipot in Minneapolis in 1998. For the USG to keep the DNS management outside of the UN System was more important than to block another "talking shop". The outcome is known: The IAHC new gTLD MoU was not ratified by the Minneapolis PP. The resolutions 101 and 102 reduced the ITU role in DNS Management drastically. But in another resolution the Minneapolis PP opened the door for a feasability study with regard to a "world conference". This was the start for what later became WSIS. The study recommended in 1999 to have the proposed conference under the UN. The UNGA adopted a resolution in 2001 and did invite the ITU to do the practical work. ITU was happy about the additional functions. It was fighting with budget problems and was looking for an extended mandate and new business. So it worked for the ITU. The ITU (under Utsumi) presented itself as the real "masters of the WSIS game". UNGIS was established only later. The WSIS PrepCom Badges had always the ITU Logo. The main subject for WSIS was bridging the digital divide. But the ITU used the regional PrepComs between PrepCom1 (2002) and PrepCom2 (June 2003) to include Internet Governance into the list of issues with the aim get back what they "lost" in Minneapolis. We know the rest of the story: WGIG, IGF, Enhanced Cooperation, WSIS 10+? 
> 
> BTW, four weeks before the Minneapolis conference Jon Postel defended the draft of the ICANN bylaws in the US congress and he distanced himself from the IAHC. And ICANN was formally established ten days after the end of the Minneapolis conference in Cambridge. Postel died in November 1998. ICANN 1 took place in February 1999.
> 
> Wolfgang
> 
> 
> On May 23, 2015 7:53 AM, "parminder" 
wrote:
> >
> >
> >
> > On Friday 22 May 2015 08:01 PM, jlfullsack at wanadoo.fr wrote:
> >>
> >> Dear Michael and all
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> The "original sin" of WSIS was the decision of UNGA (or UN-ECOSOC?) to
> entrust the ITU the management/oordination of a "society centered" high
> level and global event. ITU hasn't got any capacity in societal issues and
> this was fairly known by all (except the UN HQ ? :-)
> >
> >
> >
> > Of course it was known to everyone. It was the US that insisted it be the
> ITU and not UNESCO, which due to its social expertise in info issues was a
> natural contender. You can read about this bit of history in Sean O
> Siochru's 'Will the real WSIS please stand up?'
> http://gaz.sagepub.com/content/66/3-4/203.abstract .
> >
> > Why, because US was still cut up with UNESCO over NWICO issues and did
> not want WSIS to begin stirring up those fires again - basically, not bring
> up issues like communication rights and stuff....
> 
> Ha! I only vaguely suspected that the whole setup had something to do with
> the after-NWICO universe, that the drama that subsequently played out
> (around communication rights and then Internet governance) wasn't just an
> afterthought, an unforeseen collateral effect. Well, good to know now.
> 
> Mawaki
> >
> 
>
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