World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) - ongoing processes in the UN sphere Oslo,8 th November 2006 Emily Taylor Director of Legal and Policy
Outline of the session World Summit on the Information Society Geneva What happened at Tunis? Post-WSIS developments Internet Governance Forum The process towards enhanced cooperation
World Summit on the Information Society, Geneva 2003 Tunis 2005
Geneva Declaration of principles Enabling environment, digital divide, access to information and knowledge. Paragraph 48: Internet [..] governance should constitute a core issue of the Information Society agenda. The international management of the Internet should be multilateral, transparent and democratic, with the full involvement of governments, the private sector, civil society and international organizations.
Geneva Plan of Action Establishes Working Group on Internet Governance (WGIG) Define Internet governance Identify public policy issues Roles and responsibilities of different actors
What did everyone talk about? ICANN uk com co ac acme ibm bt sales sysa sysb
The power play US Government: 1 July 2005 The United States Government will maintain its historic role in authorizing changes or modifications to the authoritative root zone file. ICANN is the appropriate technical manager of the Internet DNS. WGIG report published 18 July 2005 4 options for the way forward on internet governance 3 suggest creation of an intergovernmental organisation No agreed recommendation for appropriate action Nominet advocates an incremental approach, building on existing models, and supports establishing a forum for dialogue
EU vs US EU statement September 2005 Supports a new cooperation model Highly inappropriate (David Gross, US Ambassador) Commissioner Reding predicts Internet meltdown The US is absolutely isolated and that is dangerous EU statement brought it enthusiastic applause from Tehran, Beijing and Havana (Carl Bildt, ex-prime Minister of Sweden).
What happened at Tunis?
The Tunis Agenda Creation of Internet Governance Forum a space for dialogue (para 72) No decision making powers Multi-stakeholder forum 5 year mandate We further recognise the need for enhanced cooperation in the future to enable governments, on an equal footing, to carry out their roles and responsibilities, in international public policy issues pertaining to the Internet, but not in the day-to-day technical and operational matters (para 69) The result of hard negotiations
Kofi Annan The United Nations does not want to "take over", police or otherwise control the Internet. Day-to-day management of the Internet must be left to technical institutions, not least to shield it from the heat of day-to-day politics.
Post-WSIS developments
Internet Governance Forum First meeting held in Athens, 30 October 2 November 2006 Main theme Internet Governance for Development Four panel sessions: Openness Freeflow of information, freedom of speech Security Spam, viruses, building trust and confidence Diversity Multilingualism, Internationalised Domain Names, local language content Access International connectivity costs, IXPs, building local networks
A giant experiment 1,600 attendees governments (97 countries), business, Internet industry (eg 24 cctlds), civil society recognition that the Internet is now the backbone infrastructure of the global information and knowledge society All participated on an equal footing: a true breakthrough in multistakeholder cooperation remote participation via blogs, chat rooms, and e-mail the UN servers crashed!
In conclusion Nitin Desai: In my country, when people get married, we have arranged marriages, and usually the first meeting between the boy and the girl, they are scoping each other out,...and the conversation tends to cover everything, you see. And at the second and the third meeting they start talking about more specific things, what are your tastes in this area or that area. And it is some time before they actually start holding hands.
The process towards enhanced cooperation What does it mean? Is it a process or a model? negotiations between governments on the enhanced cooperation model (EU Commissioner, Vivane Reding) Many of the critics of the current system of Internet Governance are not from developing countries, and they are extremely well-informed. Many of them are tired of hearing "you just don't understand." Many do fully understand, particularly after WSIS. (ITU Secretary General Utsumi) Or existing actors/institutions cooperating better? eg we call upon the organisations responsible for the essential tasks associated with the Internet to contribute to creating an environment that facilitates this development (Tunis Agenda, para 70)
What has happened so far? Nitin Desai appointed by UN Secretary General to write a report on enhanced cooperation (May 2006) United States Department of Commerce holds public consultation on transition of ICANN to private sector management (July 2006) ICANN/United States Government replace Memorandum of Understanding with Joint Partnership Agreement (September 2006)
Conclusion WSIS: the beginning of the end or the end of the beginning? Internet Governance Forum Successful first meeting 5 year process Enhanced cooperation Lack of clarity about what it entails Evolution or revolution? The real change is in process Multi-stakeholder dialogue now the norm