Internet Governance Forum OPEN consultations Geneva 26 February 2008
Note: The following is the output of the real-time captioning taken during the Open Consultations of 26 February 2008.
(Gavel)
>>CO-CHAIR DESAI: Good morning. May I welcome you to Geneva for
these open consultations on the Internet Governance Forum. We have had a very
successful and, what most people thought, was a very useful meeting in Rio.
I’m not going to say anything right now to open the proceedings. Just welcome
what I would describe as the usual suspects plus the sprinkling of newcomers,
and I am very happy to see you all again. And I look forward to a day of good
discussions. There was an agenda circulated earlier. It is basically five
items. The first is taking stock of the 2007 meeting, and the idea was that
you would comment on what you think worked well, what you think did not work
as well, what lessons we can learn which we could take on board for the 2008
meeting. The second item was the advisory group. As part of its mandate, the
Advisory Group has been asked to make proposals on things such as rotation of
members, et cetera. And the idea was we would consult on this matter with the
people here before the Advisory Group meets tomorrow and day after. The third
item is the 2008 meeting. That’s now set, and the host country will make a
presentation on the arrangements that they are making, the facilities that
will be available there. And I’m sure you will have questions, which they, I
hope, will be able to respond to. Fourth is reports from related activities
from the dynamic coalitions and related events. People will have something to
report since our last meeting. And fifth, of course, is any other business. So
with your permission, I would take this as the agenda for the open
consultations. Taking stock of the 2007 meeting, the Advisory Group, 2008
meeting, reports from related activities and any other business. Good. Thank
you very much. What I propose to do to begin with is to — my co-chair,
Ambassador Vianna, will make a brief statement on his assessment of the Rio
meeting, and after that I will turn to Markus Kummer, who has prepared a
synthesis paper which covers the first two agenda items, taking stock of the
2007 meeting as well as Advisory Group, on the basis of the various online
comments received. And he will present the synthesis paper and then it will
be open for discussions. I would suggest that we take the two parts in
sequence, which is first we focus on the 2007 meeting in our discussion, and
then we move on to the Advisory Group, preferably before lunch so that — we
may not conclude by lunch on that matter, but we should start on that
discussion, certainly, before lunch so we have enough time for that
discussion. And then after lunch, we will continue our discussion of the
Advisory Group, have the presentation on 2008, and then find some time for a
report on related activities. If we agree this is the program in terms of time
disposition that I am proposing, to begin with the first item, try and see
whether we can do that by, say, 12:00 or so, move on to the Advisory Group
then, continue the discussion on the Advisory Group after lunch, maybe till
4:00. At 4:00 have the presentation by the host country on the 2008 meeting,
which probably will take a little time. And then after that, the reports on
related activities and any other business. Is that okay? Thank you very much.
If I may now turn to Ambassador Vianna.
>>CO-CHAIR VIANNA: Well, thank you
very much, co-chair, Desai. First of all, allow may to express my satisfaction
in being here again, meeting you, Mr. Kummer, the Secretariat, as well as the
colleagues, the members of the MAG and all those that have attended the Rio
meeting. Thank you very much for this opportunity to share with the colleagues
my impressions on what happened in Rio. Mr. Co-chair, the Brazilian people and
governments were proud to host the second meeting of the Internet Governance
Forum in Rio de Janeiro, from November the 12th to November the 15th, 2007. We
were honored with the presence of more than 2,100 registered attendants and an
audience of about 1,000 Webcasting visitors, including representatives of
governments, the civil society, the private sector, international
organizations, research institutions, and Internet users. As the
representative of the host country and co-chairman of the Multistakeholder
Advisory Group during the preparatory process for the second IGF, I would like
to take this opportunity to present the Brazilian views on Rio’s achievements
and on the challenges ahead. The second IGF took place in an atmosphere of
friendship and cooperation. In accordance with the IGF mandate, as contained
in the Tunis Agenda paragraphs 72 to 78, the second meeting offered a space
for debate on cross-cutting themes. It facilitated the dialogue between the
organizations in charge of complementary aspects of Internet governance, it
identified emerging issues and brought them to the attention of the public,
and allowed for the debate on public policy issues related to the a key
elements of Internet governance in order to foster the sustainability,
robustness, security, stability, and development of the Internet. The intense
debate and participation in main sessions, workshops, open and best-practice
fora, dynamic coalitions, and other meetings, confirmed the role of the IGF in
shaping the governance of the Internet with a view to contribute to the
building of a people-centered, development-oriented and inclusive Information
Society. The Rio meeting also confirmed that the multistakeholder format of
this forum is in the forefront of multilateral policy-making and may set
precedents for a renewed, upgraded style of multilateral conferences in an
open, inclusive and representative environment with the participation of all
stakeholders. From the Brazilian standpoint, it’s important to build upon the
experience achieved so far, with a view to exploring possible avenues for
strengthening the existing Internet governance mechanisms, adding to the
legitimacy to the international community and adequacy to the guiding
principles of the World Summit on the Information Society. The second IGF
meeting moved forward in the path towards the full implementation of its
mandate in terms of participation, scope, thematic agenda, organization of
work and possible results. In this sense, Rio proved to be Athens-plus. It
contributed to the incremental process that aims at accomplishing the
fulfillment of the forum’s mandate by 2010, at the end of the five-year period
initially established by the Tunis Agenda. In terms of substance, besides the
importance themes of access, diversity, openness and security, the Rio meeting
contributed to broaden the debate on Internet governance by devoting a main
session to the discussion on critical Internet resources and the improvement
of the global mechanisms in charge of their management. The main session on
critical Internet resources was the best attended amongst all second IGF
events. Its inclusion in the Rio meeting’s agenda was a sensitive response to
the interest of the international community in considering the conformity of
existing arrangements for the management of Internet physical and logical
infrastructure vis-a-vis the principles adopted by the World Summit on the
Information Society. In this regard, it is worthy recalling that the Tunis
Agenda paragraph 72(j) explicitly provides that the IGF should discuss inter
alia issues relate to go critical Internet resources. The Rio IGF is an
evidence that the international community is ready to discuss the subject in a
positive way within the United Nations system. Moreover, this background leads
us to expect deep and fruitful discussions on the matter in a second main
session in India. In terms of organization of work, another improvement
achieved in Rio was the sharing among different stakeholders of the
chairmanship of main sessions. One representative from civil society chaired
the main session on openness and another from the private sector chaired the
main session on security. As for possible results shall the presentation of
the chairman summary, efficiently crafted by the IGF Secretariat, at the end
of the closing ceremony added value to the main sessions’ transcripts which,
although comprehensive, are difficult to handle and consult. We also believe
that since the IGF exists within the U.N. environment, at least the chairman
summary could be translated into all U.N. languages in order to promote
worldwide awareness of the second IGF findings. There are certainly lessons to
be learned and improvements to be made for the next IGF meetings. In this
context, Brazil expects that, in the course of the five-year process, the IGF
manages to fulfill its mandate to provide a global multistakeholder forum to
address Internet-related public policy issues. We are convinced that if the
IGF does not keep evolving, the whole process risks becoming shallow and,
therefore, meaningless and irrelevant. Taking into account that the building
of a development-oriented Information Society is one of the founding
principles of the World Summit, we support the idea that the IGF should create
a space for exploring linkages between issues related to Internet governance
and to the development agenda. As for procedural improvements, Brazil believes
that there is a need for reviewing the IGF preparation process in order to law
for a broader, more balanced, and more representative participation from all
stakeholders, as well as from all regions of the world. It is important to
bring in to the process as much diversity of opinion as possible, taking also
into account gender balance. This overall balance should be a precondition to
legitimate the recommendations that the IGF is allowed to make. The criteria,
nomination, rotation, proceedings, and role of the Multistakeholder Advisory
Group or other possible body to be used as a supporting structure to prepare
and conduct the meeting could be improved. With a view to helping the next
host countries of the IGF to carry on their tasks, I would also like to take
the opportunity to share the Brazilian view on the role and responsibilities
as host of the IGF meeting in 2007. In order to meet the high quality
standards of conferences held under the auspices of the United Nations, the
IGF host country shall undertake a series of legal and financial obligations.
At the domestic level, these commitments and expenses must be understood as
legitimate and rewarding by the public in general. In this sense, we take the
United Nations Secretary-General to Brazil for co-chairing the second IGF
preparatory process as a recognition of the singular role and responsibilities
of the host country. I am personally convinced that the role I played as
co-chair was a very much valuable experience, crucial for the decisions Brazil
had to take as host country, and instrumental for the measures taken by the
organizers. The Brazilian people and government did their best not only to
offer adequate infrastructure and working conditions to all IGF participants,
a task that was carried out by the Brazilian Internet Steering Committee with
extreme competence, but also to stimulate the presence of a meaningful and
active Brazilian audience to the event. In this regard, it is worth noting
that the involvement of Brazilian high government officials and stakeholder
representatives in several activities, as shown by the participation of four
Brazilian ministers and a number of other authorities at the IGF events, was
facilitated by the new role played by chairmen in the main sessions. As it is
recalled, these authorities intervened in the debate and presented their
personal conclusions at the end of the session. The inclusion of the personal
remarks by the president of the second IGF, Minister Sérgio Rezende, in the
chairman summary deserves special mention in this regard. Finally, I would
like to thank Mr. Desai, the members of the MAG, the attendants of the open
consultation meetings, and the participants of the Rio meeting for their
personal contribution to the success of the second IGF. To our Indian
colleagues, we will be pleased to share lessons learned in hosting an IGF
meeting, and we are ready to make available the necessary data and
information. I am looking forward to see you all in a Rio-plus IGF in
Hyderabad. Thank you very much.
>>CO-CHAIR DESAI: Thank you very much,
Ambassador. Let me take this opportunity of thanking to you and through you
for your co-chairmanship of this process, and through you to thank the
government and people of Brazil for all that they laid on for the second IGF
in Rio. I see that Mr. Glaser is here. He was the one who was busy organizing
all of these things. (Saying name) is not here, but I’m sure I could take
this opportunity of thanking the Brazilian Internet Steering Committee also,
which really was responsible for getting all this organized. So thank you very
much on behalf of all the participants here. May I now turn to Markus Kummer.
>>SECRETARY KUMMER: Thank you, Chairman. May I also start with addressing
my thanks to our Brazilian host. It was, indeed, a pleasure working with all
of you. In preparing for these consultations, we started with a call for
comments on our Web site. And paradoxically, the increased participation we
had in Rio, as compared to Athens, resulted in less comments. We ended up
with about two-thirds compared to last year. Last year we had 32
contributions. This year, 23. I don’t take this as a lack of interest. I
take it more as a sign that, overall, participants were satisfied with the
meeting and had no complaints to make. We produced a synthesis paper that
tries to give an overview of the comments we received. Not reflected in the
synthesis are oral comments that were addressed to us and, on the whole, these
oral comments had been extremely positive. Most of the written comments were
also favorable and supported the efforts to date. Many comments included
suggestions for improvement, while a few comments were more critical and
called for a radical re-thinking of the IGF. The comments, broadly speaking,
focused on the format of the meeting, on the preparatory process, and
particularly the Advisory Group, and also on the substance. It is not possible
to draw any conclusion from the comments we received. However, they point
towards certain alternatives we may be faced with when preparing the Hyderabad
meeting. As regards the sessions, again we had comments that felt that we had
just the right number of sessions, while others thought the program, the menu,
was too rich, we had too many sessions. Also, there were some comments who
felt that we should rethink the main session, maybe for newly introduced
topics or maybe also for a new format to allow for more reporting back into
the main sessions, as opposed to steering the main sessions from a panel. As
regards workshops, there are also two alternative views. There are those who
think we should follow the Rio format and allow for as many workshops as time
and space permit, whereas others think we ought to thin out the program and
limit the number of workshops. There were suggestions for greater coordination
and merging, more efforts made towards merging of workshops. On the whole,
there was a broad agreement that we should be more firm with ensuring that the
workshop organizes a report back, and I think this is one of the main lessons
learned and we will make sure, when we issue a call for workshops, that we
state that up front. One interesting suggestion related to the Village Square,
which was on the, overall, well received, that particular suggestion proposed
subdividing the space and create thematic clusters within the space for
openness, for diversity, for access, for critical resources, for security,
which would then allow like-minded organizations to group together. And
within this space, we could have posed the sessions and informal, ad hoc
meetings in small groups. As the conference program has to be adapted to the
space available, we may, indeed, be in a position in Hyderabad to make use of
this suggestion as we have the right space for a more generous Village Square,
which could be adapted to this suggestion. Other ideas related to dynamic
coalitions, it was functionality this they should be given more visibility.
And there was fairly strong support for regional IGF meetings and IGF meetings
also at the national level. On the logistical side, again there was a feeling
that maybe we should not use every minute available for meetings, but at least
have one hour free for a lunch break where people could interact and have
chances of networking. As regards the process, there were some comments on the
synthesis paper we had produced upstream in Rio. On the felt it was felt it
was useful, but again, more use should be made when preparing the main session
and they should be used as a basic input into the main sessions. Some
commentators wanted the Secretariat to produce more, also analysis papers on
thematic issues. And again the point was made that the IGF might benefit if
there were regional discussions that prepared it at the regional level. Also,
the point was made that the outcomes of the IGF should be made more visible in
other fora and venues. And again, to pick up on the statement made by
Ambassador Vianna, that the paper outcome should reflect the core views. I
think that’s what we had, in essence, in Rio. And also, the point was made by
several commentators that there was not a need for a consensus, but, on the
contrary, diverging views should be reflected in such a paper as we had in the
chairman’s summary. As regards the Advisory Group, there was, on the whole, a
broad agreement on the necessity to continue with a multistakeholder model.
However, one contribution held the view that the Advisory Group should be more
in line with traditional U.N. experts’ groups and follow traditional U.N.
rules of procedures. On the whole, the current size of the Advisory Group
seems to be generally accepted, while the composition, there seems to be
different views. Several contributions called for parity among the various
stakeholder groups. A general feeling seems to emerge that one-third of the
membership should rotate on a yearly basis, and the rotations should be used
to bring in new points of views and further multistakeholder representations.
Most comments supported a model that would be based on recommendations from
the various stakeholder groups, but leave the final selections to the U.N.
Secretariat. And also, as regards the timing, one suggestion made the point
that a new group should be appointed by the end of January and in place well
before the first consultations. There was a fairly broad agreement that
developing country participation ought to be strengthened, and that there was
a need to outreach for more participation from stakeholder groups. With regard
to the substance, again there was a broad understanding that development
should continue as the main theme for the IGF, and in this regard, the access
for the next billion was mentioned, and the billion after that. There were
also comments on the role of the Internet in economic development and the
importance of capacity building. And one of the new emerging issues seems to
be to put Internet governance in the broader context of sustainable
development, and for exploring linkages, as, for instance, linkage to climate
change, as the Internet, on the one hand, contributes to the problem by the
use of energy, but, on the other hand, it can contribute to awareness and to
finding solutions. Let me conclude by saying a few words on the logistics of
the meeting. Once again, we rely on the excellent services of our faithful
scribes, and we have again Webcasting of the meeting, and we allow for
comments on our Web site. They are monitored by Advisory Group member Adam
Peake. And for the first time, we make experimental use of a tool created by
the Brazilian Ministry of Culture. We tried to introduce it in Rio.
Unfortunately, we did not have the time for the logistics required to
integrate it fully, and we also did not have the time to advertise it, so the
response, then, was very limited. But we learned from that, that at least we
need one additional screen. We have that up here. And today, please see this
as an experiment, we experiment with the tool, and based on our experience we
are planning to integrate it into the plans for Hyderabad. Last word, finally
we have managed to put all the Webcasts up on our Web site. So for those who
complained there were too many meetings, they were not able to attend all the
meetings, they have now the leisure to visit all the meetings on our Web site
in retrospect. With that, I end my remarks. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
>>CO-CHAIR DESAI: The floor is open. May I invite comments. Initially
let’s focus on taking stock of the 2007 IGF in Rio. And please feel free to
comment. Raul. You start off. I’m sure others will come in.
>>RAUL
ECHEBERRIA: Thank you, Mr. Chair. I will be very short. Only for
congratulate our host of IGF 2007 for the excellent meeting, the excellent
organization, the high standard that they have fixed for the new IGF meetings.
I guess that the future hosts should be concerned about the logistics and how
to try to have a meeting with a similar quality that was held in Rio de
Janeiro. And my congratulations to the Secretariat and to both chairs for the
good job that they did last year and the good results of the meeting in Rio de
Janeiro. Thank you very much.
>>CO-CHAIR DESAI: Thank you. Can I turn to
Slovenia, speaking on behalf of the E.U.
>>EUROPEAN UNION: Thank you,
Chair. As you said, I have the honor to speak on behalf of the European
Union. We would like to thank you for convening these consultations which
constitute a welcome opportunity for an exchange of views on the Rio meeting
and on all our ways ahead. We would like to thank the government of Brazil for
having hosted a very successful meeting for the forum. Of course we are
particularly grateful to both you co-chairs, as the Secretary-General special
advisors for Internet governance, Mr. Desai, and to your Brazilian colleague,
Ambassador Vianna. And our thanks are aimed again to the Internet Governance
Forum Secretariat, headed by Mr. Markus Kummer. As to the first point of
today’s agenda, the stock-taking, we find that the second meeting of the IGF
in Rio demonstrated that this forum successfully established a broad and
inclusive platform for all relevant stakeholders to contribute to the
implementation of the Geneva Plan of Action and Tunis Agenda. The
multistakeholder basis of the IGF, with its members operating on equal
footing, allowing for sharing points of view and best practices among very
diverse groups, is the cornerstone for the success of the IGF and needs to be
maintained in the future as well. The European Union stands ready to engage in
exploring further developments of the forum on questions of format as well as
to the themes and the substance. Rio demonstrated that innovative approaches
like dynamic coalitions can bring added value to the IGF. The IGF should
continue to deal with the overall and cross-cutting theme of Internet
governance for development, which was so effectively addressed in Rio.
European Union would like to take this opportunity to thank the government of
India for having agreed to host the next IGF meeting. And for this upcoming
meeting in India, we believe that future-oriented themes should remain on the
agenda. In particular, we would welcome, for instance, the Internet of things
be addressed in the framework of this new forum. Sharing conclusions once
again, the European Union would like to express its continued support for the
IGF process as a forum and as a whole for multistakeholder, public policy
dialogue, and for our commitment to continue to cooperate with all
stakeholders to ensure the continuation of its success. Thank you, Chair, for
this opportunity to speak here, and we would like to ask for the floor in a
second for item two.
>>CO-CHAIR DESAI: Council of Europe and then China.
>>COUNCIL OF EUROPE: Thanks the Brazilian government and its people for the
good arrangements.
>>CHAIRMAN DESAI: Council of Europe. I request you to
start again, please.
>> Council of Europe, your microphone is not on.
>>COUNCIL OF EUROPE: On behalf of the Council of Europe, I would like to
thank the Brazilian authorities for having hosted the Internet Governance
Forum in Rio. The event was well organized, and in our view, it was conducive
to fulfilling the IGF objectives. In particular, as an international
organization, the Council of Europe was able to pursue and enhance its
interaction with industry and civil society actors as well as with other
international organizations. This relates to the interface function of the
IGF, which was very productive for us. Paraphrasing also the IGF mandate, the
attention of the Council of Europe was drawn to emerging issues, something
which has stimulated our Internet governance work. I will come back to how
this has come to effect and fruition since the IGF, under item 4 of the
program, from the angle of participation in the IGF, we are exploring the
possibility of facilitating a civil society or non-state actors platform, in
order for stakeholders who are not otherwise represented in the IGF also to be
heard. Still as regards participation, we think that the gender and youth
perspectives should also be strengthened at the IGF. Together with other
welcome initiatives, which can foster regional discussions, such as the
European IGF as proposed very recently by the European parliament or the U.K.
IGF, which has been proposed by some British M.P.s our proposed civil society
platform could contribute to widening participation in the IGF process.
Looking forward towards Delhi 2008, we would like to propose already at this
early stage that attention be paid to three emerging challenges which have
not, so far, been explored sufficiently within the IGF framework. One concerns
the relationship between, on the one hand, the fundamental right to privacy
and its corollary data protection, and, on the other hand, cyber crime. On the
issue of cyber crime, in particular, enhanced cooperation and dialogue among
different international agencies — including, for example, Interpol and other
stakeholders such as Internet service providers — would be desirable. The
second challenge concerns Internet governance and health issues, with
particular emphasis, perhaps, on Internet pharmacies and the sale of
counterfeit medicines through the Internet. The third relates to the
possibility of establishing an advisory structure of relevant international
organizations in order to discuss and work out responses in respect of
Internet governance issues from the international law and the human rights
perspectives, and to provide advice to various entities which exercise some
form of authority on behalf of the Internet community globally. Inspired by
the 2006 IGF in Athens concerns the public value of the Internet. The Council
of Europe’s position on the public value of the Internet between Athens 2006
and Rio 2007, the suggestions from the participants suggests work should
continue on this subject, perhaps also in India. In the Council of Europe, we
continue to believe that Internet governance should seek to secure people’s
enjoyment of a maximum of rights and services subject to a minimum of
restrictions while, at the same time, seeking to ensure the level of security
that users are entitled to expect. The functioning of the Internet must also
be underpinned by democratic values that guarantee its openness and
accessibility. Openness and, mostly, access are, for many people — in fact,
for most of the world’s population — a legitimate aspiration linked to the
very prospect of democratic citizenship, enjoyment of fundamental rights and
development. As someone put it in Rio, now that the first billion have access,
what about the next, and the next, and…. Let me finish, Chairman, by saying
that the IGF process is very valuable for us in the Council of Europe as a
source of inspiration. For the collective policy-making of our 47 member
states, through discussions and exchanges of expertise, the IGF gives meaning
in an Internet context to our core values; namely, human rights, democracy,
and the rule of law. We look forward to this process continuing in Delhi.
Thank you very much.
>>CHAIRMAN DESAI: China followed by Egypt.
>>CO-CHAIR DESAI: China followed by Egypt. China.
>>CHINA: I would like
to express on behalf of China’s government our sincere thanks to the Brazilian
people and to the secretariat. The Chinese government believes the second IGF
was a success. The success was thanks to the meticulous arrangements made by
the government and people of Brazil. The success was also represented in the
fact that the critical Internet resources was included as a main theme for
discussion. Participants attached great importance to the management of
critical Internet resources, such as root domain servers, I.P. addresses.
Lively and full discussion were conducted during the meeting. This has proved
important to the parliamentary,democratic and transparent process of Internet
Governance. We believe that the third IGF to be held in India in December
will continue to be another success with the help of the Indian government. We
believe this year’s IGF should focus on the key issues in the views of
Internet Governance, especially on the discussion of management of critical
Internet resources such as root domain name servers and I.P. addresses so that
the amount of democratic and transparent process — principles established by
the summit will be implemented in reality. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
>>CO-CHAIR DESAI: Egypt.
>>EGYPT: Thank you, Chairman. First and
foremost, let me also as previous speakers have done thank the organizers for
the wonderful working conditions in which we are working in. There has been
very good corporation between all stakeholders which has led to the success of
the last meeting and this one. And the chairman’s report confirms the success
of our work and the other report on emerging issues was a very good idea.
That allowed us to build on the success of previous sessions. But we very
much hope that there will be more working groups to allow the participants to
profit from these workshops and for more space to be given for consultation
and for dialogue. To conclude, I wish the Internet administration every
success as they organize the next meeting. Thank you.
>>CO-CHAIR DESAI:
Canada.
>>CANADA: Thank you, Chair. The Canadian government would, first,
like to extend thanks to Brazil for hosting a successful second Internet
Governance Forum in Rio. We further look forward to participating in the IGF
to take place in India in December this year. Canada would also like to
extend its appreciation for the work of the IGF Secretariat and the ongoing
chair of the Advisory Group whose efforts have helped made the IGF such a
success. Canada continues to strongly support an IGF that is multistakeholder,
neutral, non-duplicative and non-binding in nature. Experiences now
demonstrated that this is a sound basis for meaningful policy discussions on
Internet Governance-related policy issues to occur, all for the benefit of
development and capacity-building. Consistent with previous submissions made
by Canada, we believe that the overall cross-cutting theme of
capacity-building and development to be the crucial underpinning of the IGF’s
activities. In this respect, we would like to offer our support for the
proposal made by the International Institute for Sustainable Development to
further explore the link between Internet Governance and sustainable
development. This is precisely the kind of innovation that the IGF is
designed to encourage and this area of work promises to generate a lasting
contribution to the field of Internet Governance. Participation from
developing countries remains a concern for the IGF, and we encourage all
stakeholders to identify ways to better address this issue going forward. I’m
pleased to report that Canada has, again, been able to provide funds to
support participation from developing countries. This 200,000 Canadian Dollar
Fellowship Fund will be administered by the International Telecommunication
Union. Canada looks forward to working further with the IGF and its
participants to ensure its continued success. We also have views on the
Advisory Group and might ask for the floor this afternoon. Thank you very
much.
>>CO-CHAIR DESAI: Thank you. May I just pose a question to you.
One question that has come up in terms of the organization of the meeting,
turning from some extent Athens, is the difference in the question of how many
workshops. There is a feeling on the part of some — the feeling on the part
of some that we had too many workshops, too many things going on. People felt
that they ought to be somewhere, in half a dozen places simultaneously. The
country view, however, was that in some ways the workshops do provide that
space for networking, which is what we also look forward to. And I would very
much welcome some reflections on that. I’m sorry, which group is that? I don’t
know which group that is. It just says NGO, please.
>> NGO: Hello, I’m here
representing the NSPCC which is a child protection organization in the U.K.
I’m also representing an emerging coalition of 14 NGOs in Europe who are
coming together to develop a shared platform and set of recommendations around
child protection. One of the positives — First of all, sorry, thank you for
this opportunity to feed in to this process. One of the positives of Rio for
us that was noted in the synthesis paper is the emergence of child protection
as an issue and the acceptance of a dynamic coalition on this theme, and of
which we’re a member and we hope to work with and through that dynamic
coalition. One of the feedbacks that we have around Rio was that the formal
child protection discussions were not well-structured and were not
particularly representative in terms of the speakers and the issues. And I
think that was widely felt among a range of stakeholders. So, for example, two
of the key sessions on child protection were run simultaneously so that
stakeholders were split between two session that is they were very interested
in. It was also noticeable that often there was the same speaker speaking
several times on a number of panels, despite the fact in Rio there were a wide
range of expertise that could have also been called on to discuss the issues.
There was also an issue that there was perhaps a limited opportunity for
debate and discussion from the floor and for interchange between those
representing child protection issues and those talking about freedom of
expression and privacy. So we would have liked greater — a greater number of
forums really to discuss with other interests. I think that’s what I would
like to highlight. We want to work with and through the dynamic coalition and
hope to have a greater input into what is said and chose child protection
discussions in Hyderabad.
>>CO-CHAIR DESAI: I’m sure the details of your
reflections, the organizers would very much recognize them because the point
you raise is an important one. And I think it is important that we take
cognizance and reflect it in our future organization. The point that you made,
the idea does allow communication across groups who otherwise meet separately
is, I think, something which we should exploit. Privacy groups meeting
somewhere, child protection groups meeting somewhere. The advantage you have
in IGF is they can both be there and, therefore, there can be a conversation
on the issue. That should be something we should recognize and see how we can
promote that. I have now a few more speakers. I have got Khaled Fattal, Emily
Taylor, Milton Mueller and ICC/BASIS.
>>KHALED FATTAL: Good morning,
Chairman. My name is Khaled Fattal. I am the chairman CEO of Live
Multilingual Translator. And I am also the chairman and CEO of MINC, the
Multilingual Internet Names Consortium. I would like to, first, pay tribute to
the Brazilian for hosting the IGF. From personal experience from what I have
seen and their ability to respond last minute and making last-minute changes
and implementations was commendable. I think that sets the bar for the next
meeting in India. I would also like to take note of many of the observations
and the comments that have been stated by the previous speakers and would also
ask you to perhaps work with me to take a step back. In 2003 the WSIS out of
Geneva in December, I recall, a declaration of principle and action plan was
agreed. We’re now almost four years later and the many references in the past
that we’ve heard from the many speakers about the current 1 billion Internet
users — well, guess what? We’re still around the 1 billion Internet users.
That’s not to say that we have not made some significant advances. On the
contrary, I think we have done some significant work ahead. But factoring
into this formula emerging issues, I think, unless we keep our eye on the ball
and push the envelope, as they say, and live up to the challenges ahead of us,
we may end up not living up to the expectations or perhaps failing those next
billion or next billion as well. I would like to point out that one of the
significant issues that we need to really look at at IGF — and I am always
reminded of the wise words of our friend Markus — that this is a
non-negotiating, non-binding forum. The next 18 months should be focused to
try and provide a new transition to the JPA as we all have been aware of so
that a void does not exist. I am very pleased by the statement of the new
chairman of ICANN going ahead and working to see how ICANN can move forward
without a single government oversight and I think this is positive. We also
need to help them and the international community needs to help them and this
is where the leadership will need to come in so that the transition can be
created so that we all can work together and take it to the next level.
Otherwise, we’re going to fail the next billion, and at the same time we will
still be stuck on the current 1 billion. So if I may interject, I think,
perhaps, the focus and the leadership that this forum can actually provide
through yourselves and the organizations and different events that should take
place should help focus on how to create the transition and who the
participation should come from and then help take it to the next level. And I
think if we can do that, Mr. Chairman — and I am saying we will not succeed
in 18 months — but if we can at least give it our best good-faith effort, we
cannot lose. That’s my closing remark. Thank you very much.
>>CO-CHAIR
DESAI: Emily Taylor from Nominet.
>>EMILY TAYLOR: Thank you, Mr.
Chairman. Like others, I would like to thank the Brazilian host and
organizers for a meeting that built on the success of the Athens meeting and
was very, very well-organized. In preparation for this meeting and for our
work in the coming year, we asked those U.K. stakeholders who attended the Rio
meeting to give us their feedback on what they liked and disliked about the
meeting. We got feedback from parliamentarians, the government, business,
Internet industry and civil society. And these are some of the messages that
have emerged. We’ve produced a booklet which I will be very happy to send to
the secretariat. So some of the messages were that the IGF is an exciting and
innovative process and general commitment to creating national processes which
some of the speakers have referred to. The emergence of child protection as an
issue was highlighted by several of our contributors, as was the role of
Internet exchange points in development. One writer highlighted that many
developing countries were interested in the experiences and what Internet
exchange points could bring in their countries. There was also encourage —
people were encouraged by the interest in good practice and exchanges of best
practice, and others were just simply interested to meet new people who were
interested in their work. From our own perspective, the Village Square was a
great success and one, I think, that can be built on further in the next
meeting. We found it very useful as a space to meet people who were
interested in our exhibits, and we were also, of course, very pleased to see
the inclusion of best practices in the central agenda and would like to see
that continuing. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
>>CO-CHAIR DESAI: Milton
Mueller.
>> MILTON MUELLER: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Can you hear me?
>>CO-CHAIR DESAI: Yes.
>>MILTON MUELLER: I want to address very
specifically your question of were there too many workshops. From my point of
view — I am with a civil society organization, the Internet Governance
Project, University-based research and policy analysis consortium, and we have
contributed to the workshops. We organized two in both the Athens and the Rio
sessions. In my opinion, the problem is not the number of workshops. It
should not be conceived as cutting down or expanding the number of workshops.
The problem was the relationship between the workshops and the main sessions.
They were going on at the same time. This created a de facto competition
between people’s time and attention between workshops and main sessions.
Generally, with the exception of the critical Internet resources main session,
the main sessions lost that competition and that was because most plenaries
were too generic in focus and the process of selecting speakers probably too
political, and many of them did not have a true governance angle. Nothing
substantive was at stake and, therefore, why should people come to listen to
opinions about general Internet matters. The other problem with the workshops
was already alluded to by the speaker by the child protection organization.
Workshop speakers were completely segregated by ideology and perspective.
Freedom expression advocates were in one workshop talking to each other.
Advocates of stricter controls on content in the name of child protection were
in another panel. Those people need to talk to each other, not past each
other. And, perhaps, this provides some ability to consolidate panels or
workshops. Basically, the problem is you need to construct a way to have a
more constructive and complementary relationship between workshops and main
sessions rather than thinking of it solely in terms of reducing the number of
workshops. Thank you.
>>CO-CHAIR DESAI: Thank you. I turn to ICC/BASIS.
>> ICC/BASIS: Thank you, Chair. On behalf of the International Chamber of
Commerce and its members of its initiatives business action to support the
Information Society, I would join others in thanking the host country of
Brazil as well as all the organizers involved in the IGF and Rio. ICC-basis
members believe that IGF built upon the success in Athens in 2006 and provided
an open and informative forum among all stakeholders. We believe that
continued multistakeholder participation on an equal footing in all aspects of
the IGF is essential to its future success. I don’t want to go through the
nine pages of very detailed input that the ICC/BASIS members have contributed.
It is on the ICC/BASIS Web site as well as the IGF Web site as well in the
back of the room. I would just like to respond to your question and also
highlight a few of our points in terms of improvements as we all look forward
to the IGF in India later this year. On the main sessions, ICC/BASIS supports
the continued inclusion of main sessions but encourages an involved format
that would make the discussions more meaningful. Many people who were
involved in the Rio main sessions came away with, perhaps, less than they
could and in building towards India, thinking about the format of the main
sessions to ensure that there is more attendance. Few considerations to
having fewer or no parallel events to make the main sessions more of a focal
point in the schedule, to focus the discussions in the main sessions on
specific topics within the broad themes that have been put forward, to ensure
that a range of viewpoints on those specific topics are brought out in the
main session discussions and that there is more interaction. We’ve expressed
in our contribution that the emerging issue session worked very well in Rio
and encouraging more in-depth discussion on specific issues allowing people to
make a connection to workshop topics that have been explored and to get
detailed input and interaction with the audience should be a part of the
consideration of how the main sessions are formatted going forward. In
addition, we’ve suggested that descriptions of the main session should be
simplified and confirming the main sessions earlier. Overall shaping the
program earlier will help to increase the value-add for participants of the
main sessions. In general, ICC/BASIS members would encourage the planning for
the IGF in India to really look at the topic areas in both the main sessions
and the workshops to ensure that these sessions really add value for people
who are there. In that respect, we do support a focus at the IGF in India on
the capacity-building cross-cutting theme, focusing on the development agenda
issues and human and institutional capacity-building measures. In terms of the
workshops, there were several formats for workshops and open forums and best
practice sessions, et cetera. I would highlight a few points. We believe
that the best practices, or practices in general, are an extremely important
part of what participants take away from the IGF and would encourage practices
to be a part of the discussions in the main sessions and the workshops and
integrated on the issues. To pick up on what a few of the other speakers have
mentioned about workshops, we did feel that there were too many competing
events, whether they were workshops or open forums or best practice sessions
or meetings, et cetera and an overall look at the program to ensure that there
is real networking time. Many of our members have felt that the take-away for
them has been the informal interactions that have led to very concrete
initiatives or partnerships or discussions after the IGF. We’ve made a couple
of specific suggestions in our contribution. For instance, in keeping the
lunchtime free to facilitate that kind of action and create opportunities for
people to meet each other. As others have said, the IGF is a unique space
where many people who never see each other in other forums get an opportunity
to interact in a very important exchange of information and experience which
we believe should be continued priority in the planning of the IGF in India.
We’ve given specific comments on the dynamic coalitions and the reporting
sessions. I would really not like to go through all the bullet points at this
stage, but I would ask that Advisory Group members and participants note those
suggestions and consider them as ways to address some of the improvements that
many have stated need to be considered for the IGF going forward. For the IGF
in India, we have put forward the idea which is reflected and echoed in the
input from other stakeholders as well in ensuring that we valorize the
take-aways that people really are getting from the IGF. One of those is that
there are many partnerships and alliances that could be showcased at the IGF
in India, perhaps having a session to allow people to announce their
commitments and the actual outcomes they’re feeling at the national or
regional level on these issues would be helpful. And, lastly, I wanted to
highlight the fact that we’ve put forward the fact that innovation is a very
important area and we would consider a session or a stream of discussion on
how to promote innovation as being a complement to the development agenda
issues that others have also emphasized and a way to allow participants to
have, again, a discussion on practices — best practices, the challenges faced
on Internet Governance issues to continue to promote innovation in this area.
With that, I will close. Thank you, chair.
>>CO-CHAIR DESAI: I have
Senegal followed by Japan and Heather Creech from IISD and then ETNO and then
GICC. Senegal followed by Japan and then IISD.
>>SENEGAL: Thank you,
Chairman. As previous speakers I, too, wish to congratulate the organizers of
the Rio forum. I would like to congratulate the chair of the forum and the
secretariat, in particular Mr. Markus Kummer and all of his team who
accomplished some remarkable work during the second forum. Now, I would like
to make two comments and then a suggestion. The first comment is on the
plenary sessions. As we feel that issues relating to access, openness and
security were quite broadly debated at the WSIS and at the Athens and Rio
forum. And we believe that there is no point in dealing with these issues in
New Delhi. So we will suggest to the organizers of the third forum to
envision a different format for the discussion groups during the plenary
sessions. Then the second comment I have is on the workshops. We believe that
if they cannot be organized within the time limits from 8:00 to 10:00, there
is no point in having them later because our experience in Rio demonstrated
that any workshops organized after 6:00 p.m. attracted very few people because
everyone was tired. There was the presentation of best practices, in
particular for developing countries such as Kenya, Tunisia and Senegal. Those
workshops did not see many participants at all because they were organized
after 1800 hours. So we think that, perhaps, the organization of these
workshops should be reviewed. If you can reduce the number, that’s fine. But
if not, they should at least be programmed within the time limits between 8:00
a.m. and 1800 hours. And then on the suggestion I have. We believe that on
the important topic of Internet Governance, we believe there should be further
work carried out. Thank you.
>>CO-CHAIR DESAI: Thank you. I have Japan.
>>JAPAN: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We would like to join our colleagues in
thanking both the Brazilian government and the IGF Secretariat for the
hospitality and effort. I have several comments to make. First of all, as for
the question you asked, Mr. Chairman, we think it was successful to have
several sessions in order to cover many issues to be talked. We believe that
one of the main purposes of IGF is to reflect validity of new points as much
as possible. So this kind of structure should be maintained at the next
meeting in India as much as possible, with possible improvements, reflecting
some comments we have today. With regard to the opening ceremony, we
appreciated to have high government officials and CEOs to address their
overall views on the issues related to Internet Governance. To get their
involvement in the IGF process will help us very much to disseminate and
understand the concept and contents of the discussion at the IGF. Finally, we
would like to have a finalized agenda and program a little earlier in order to
prepare ourselves enough in order to be able to participate to maximum
capacity. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
>>CO-CHAIR DESAI: Thank you. Can I
turn to IISD.
>> IISD: Thank you, Mr. Chair, I wish, too, wish to
congratulate Brazil and the chair and the secretariat for a wonderful meeting
in Rio which we all gained a great deal of knowledge and new partnerships
from. I was particularly pleased that the emerging issue of sustainable
development was recognized during the closing plenary session. IISD has been
working on the connections between Internet Governance and sustainable
development for several years now. And we have recognized that outside of the
Internet Governance Forum there has been a growing recognition, particularly
the environmental impacts of these technologies. The OECD will be reviewing
this this year in 2008. It has its own internal working groups looking at the
connection between ICTs and environmental impacts. The World Business Council
on Sustainable Development within two weeks is going to be raising the
environmental footprint considerations for the Internet sector and the ICT
sector, and the ITU is also beginning to look at issues of greening this
particular community. But sustainable development is not only about the
environment. And we also want to recognize that the development agenda is
very much a part of sustainable development. The Brundtland Commission when
it defined “sustainable development” 21 years ago said this was about
development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the
ability of future generations to meet their needs. And the “needs” issue is
very much a central part of sustainable development. But what many have
forgotten perhaps in reviewing the Brundtland definition is it goes on to talk
about limitations. And the limitations posed by the environment by the state
of technology and social organization. That was 21 years ago and technology,
in particular communications technology, has radically transformed
organization and that’s where I think that the sustainable development
connection is with Internet Governance. How is communications technology
really allowing us to transform how we organize our trading systems, how we
organize our meetings, how we organize our partnerships. Everything is
changing as a result of the power of communications technology. And how we
choose collectively to share responsibility for managing this is central to
Internet governance. We would suggest that any group, like the forum, that a
committed to good governance should be thinking not only about what we do now
in the present, but how we should be planning for the future. And so we would
encourage, therefore, that sustainable development be given some space within
the next meeting of the forum as a major theme for discussion. It will allow
us to explore some of these linkages more thoroughly. Thank you.
>>CO-CHAIR
DESAI: Of course I would naturally welcome that since sustainable
development has been my main line of business. And I actually wrote the
chapter that you were quoting from. So I would be more than delighted to
bring all that in. I have ETNO and then Mr. Fujisaki speaking on behalf of
GIIC.
>>ETNO: Thank you, Chair, and good morning to all. I speak on behalf
of ETNO, which is the association of European telecommunication network
operators. We are the providers of network in Europe, but the activities of
our 41 members from 34 countries expand in many other parts of the world.
ETNO and its members are fully committed to the IGF process and we would like
to contribute to the preparations of the third IGF. But before we do that, we
are in the regretful situation to comment on the synthesis paper prepared for
this meeting. ETNO was one of the few organizations that respected the
deadline put and submitted comments in writing. However, we felt our views
were not fully considered for the synthesis paper, and for that we express our
great disappointment. As a matter of fact, being used to a certain quality of
the documents prepared by the IGF Secretariat, we regret to say that this
synthesis paper, in our view, actually lacks full balance, and we have
difficulty in considering it as the sole preparatory reference document for
this meeting. For us this is quite important considering this paper is what
all parties who want to know about this meeting look first. We understand that
the Secretariat has extremely limited resources. However, we hope in the
future more attention will be given to the synthesis paper. Also the fact that
very few stakeholders responded to the call for written contributions should
be a major concern. We agree that broader participation in the submission of
comments is of high priority, and we intend to continue to work with our broad
membership to encourage participation in the consultation process. Coming out
of the taking stock of the Rio meeting, we would like first of all to thank
the peoples of Brazil for their hospitality and arrangements and to highlight
certain issues referring to the program, schedule, and themes which could be
useful to the preparation of the India IGF. Good organization and good
programming are fundamental. After two IGFs, it is essential that the rough
program and schedule — and by that we mean themes, specific topics, format
and framework of discussions, as well as timetable of the preparatory process
for the India meeting — become available before the second open consultation
and that they are finalized by September 2008. As regards the program and the
types of meeting, ETNO acknowledges that most of the main sessions in the Rio
IGF were not well attended. In our view, this is due to the fact that there
were too many parallel events but also due to the structure of the session.
And by that we mean general discussion, repeated views, too many remarks from
the panelists, not enough discussion from the floor. We believe that the main
sessions are the most important meetings of the IGF and that special attention
must be given to them in the schedule. We think it is best to have fewer
events held in parallel domain sessions but with better quality. The two
hours’ duration of the main sessions worked well. However, discussion many
times lacked focus. It is worth examining the idea that one of the panelists
act as a keynote speaker to stimulate discussion rather than having the
moderator trying to do that. The number of panelists also worked well, and
should be kept to a maximum of four to five people. However, panelists,
besides representations, should limit their remarks so that there are more
views presented from the floor. As for the idea of discussants, we believe
that it did not add anything and that it should not be repeated. Regarding
workshops, the resources must be optimized. The Rio experience proved that
there should be less workshops and a strong effort to merge similar ones,
which is very much needed. And a recall would help in this direction. Also
the titles must reflect the content and, most importantly, the description
must be clearly announced and followed. We believe that one of the main calls
of the workshop should be to fuel discussions in the main sessions. Also, we
found the number of best practice forums in Rio outstanding, while many did
not justify why they fit it under this type of meeting. We strongly believe
that a discussion about best practices or, rather, lessons learned fits better
within main sessions or workshops. ETNO believes that there should be more
restructuring regarding the format of the next IGF by using criteria such as
simplicity and efficacy. ETNO proposes that there is a core IGF program
consisting only of main sessions and selected workshops closely related to the
main sessions, integrating best practices in both types of meeting, and the
parallel program consisting of open forums, dynamic coalition meetings, any
other workshop as well as any other event. More specifically, ETNO suggests
that there is a core meeting for which the Advisory Group in conjunction with
the IGF Secretariat taking into account the open consultations take the
responsibility for organizing, or at least selecting in the case of workshops.
All other events could be freely organized providing that their linkage to
the IGF is justified and that there is enough information about them. This
way, all participants will have a clear view of the IGF and additionally, the
organization of the IGF will also be easier and simpler. I do have a couple
more comments. The next one would be regarding the themes of the next IGF, and
we suggest that the five broad themes are kept. However, they should not be
resided with yet another general discussion. Instead, there should be more
specific topics within each theme according to time lines announced well in
advance. These specific topics must be chosen after wide agreement. This way,
participants may explore them better and provide added value to the
discussions, rather than repeating the same general positions. Regarding the
synthesis paper, finally translated in all U.N. languages, ETNO believes this
is very much useful. In our view, the synthesis paper must set the scene and
it must be the starting reference of the IGF meeting, and the tool to boost
the debate and maintain a tempo. It can be a critical review of the situation
over the previous year, not heavy on statistics, and/or the contributions
received after a specific call. If the synthesis paper is just an overview of
the contributions received, then an introductory report could also be
considered as a means to stimulate discussions and work in conjunction with
the synthesis paper. This introductory report could be prepared by the IGF
Secretariat or by an individual commissioned by it. In the latter case,
prepared by an individual, the report should be spherical, neutral and not
reflect the particular views of any individual person or organization. It
should be clear that we are not suggesting that the introductory report
replaces the synthesis paper. Rather, it should work in conjunction with it.
Mr. Chair, time does not allow me to go through all the issues that ETNO would
like to comment. For that reason, I ask those interested to consult our
contribution which is posted in the IGF site, but also in our site which is
www.etno.b. Thank you.
>>CO-CHAIR DESAI: I now have Mr. Sogo Fujisaki of
Fujitsu speaking on behalf of GIIC.
>>GIIC: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Today
I represent Fujitsu Limited and would like to make a summary statement on
behalf of Global Information Infrastructure Commission, GIIC, based on its
written comment to the IGF. In addition, we are also closely working with
other business group, like Nippon Keidanren, with ICC/BASIS. Let me start by
saying that the GIIC appreciates the hard work by Ambassador Vianna, Nitin
Desai, Markus Kummer, and the Brazilian host for their support for the
successful IGF Rio. The most important thing business regions can do to
contribute to the IGF is to familiarize all multistakeholders about the
realities that come from business firms. Therefore, we are pleased to see
that the private sector provided 15% of the participants at the IGF Rio, up
from 13% at the IGF Athens. Fujitsu chairman, currently the GIIC chairman,
addressed the opening session in Rio. He spoke of the growing need to
consider the impact of the Internet on the environment. And for businesses to
have top management that take into account the viability and the safety of the
Internet. GIIC thinks that the current structure of the IGF program works well
and supports the four key themes complemented by additional issues as agreed
by the broader community during the IGF events. We thought discussions on
critical internet resources and emerging issues to be useful and informative.
I won’t say what is the appropriate number for the workshops, but we observed
that attendance at the main session was limited due to the conflict with the
main workshops. It would be better to manage the main stations with as few
conflicts as feasible.
One solution might be to devote time during the plenary sessions to have one
representative from each workshop join a plenary session panel for further
discussion on specific topics. In addition, as an emerging issue, as many
people mentioned we note that there is a growing need to consider the impact
of the ICT and the Internet on the environment and sustainable development. We
should explore further how best these topics might be incorporated into the
IGF program. The GIIC will hold its annual conference in Tokyo on April 25,
inviting a number of CEOs, government leaders, heads of international
organizations. Also, we will hold a joint event with Nippon Keidanren on the
day before. The theme of the (inaudible) event will be the impact of the ICT
and the Internet on the environment. We are happy to provide the summary of
the discussion in May. Finally, the GIIC would like to express its thanks to
you, Mr. Markus Kummer and Chairman Desai and Ambassador Vianna for your
continued support. The GIIC is ready to work with you to ensure the success of
the IGF in Hyderabad. Thank you very much.
>>CO-CHAIR DESAI: I have five
speakers on my list. I will just read the names. Chris Disspain, Wolfgang
Kleinwächter, Bill Graham, — yeah, I don’t have — and then ITU. Can I have
Chris, please. And then Bertrand De La Chapelle.
>>CHRIS DISSPAIN: Thank
you, Mr. Chair. Just a couple of points. First of all, I would like to echo
Milton Mueller’s comments on the workshops. There were too many competing
events. And I also agree with the gentleman from Senegal about the timing of
workshops. It really is quite hard to expect people to attend a workshop at
6:00, sometime between 6:00 and 8:00 in the evening having spent a full day
attending other workshops or the main sessions. My other comments in respect
to the main sessions and the main panels, in Greece — after Greece, after
Athens, the Advisory Group agreed, and the general feeling amongst the open
session was that there were too many panelists. In Rio, we agreed to cut the
number of panelists, and we did this by creating a new category called
discussants. As someone who facilitated one of the main sessions in Rio, let
me assure you they might as well have been panelists. It really made
absolutely no difference whatsoever, and effectively meant that we had the
same, or in some cases more, panelists in Rio at certain sessions than we did
at Athens. The panels must be smaller. The topic for the main session panels
does need to be more specific, and the moderator or facilitator does, in my
view, need to create a more dynamic environment evolving a significant
increase in audience participation. And as an example of how that can be done
and was, in fact, successfully done in Rio, one only needs to look at the
emerging issues session which was interesting, lively, and evolving for all
those in the room. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
>>CO-CHAIR DESAI: Thank you,
Chris. I have Wolfgang Kleinwächter, Bill Graham, Louis Pouzin and ITU.
>>IGC: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My name is Wolfgang Kleinwächter. I am a
professor at University of Aarhus, but I am here speaking on behalf of the
Civil Society Internet Governance Caucus. The civil society Internet
Governance Caucus is chaired now by Parminder from India, and we were able to
prepare three statements for this meeting, so this is the result of a long
discussion process we had within our group, which includes various different
groups representing the civil society from all over the world. My statement
refers to the format of the IGF and is a little bit looking forward to
Hyderabad. The IGF Hyderabad marks the halfway point in the IGF’s mandate. It
is, therefore, central that the meeting addresses all aspects of the IGF
mandate. We should use the two years of IGF experiences to assess how well
IGF is fulfilling its Tunis Agenda mandate and make improvements, as
necessary, to the format and processes of IGF. It will be appropriate to use
the stock-taking and way forward session at Hyderabad as a midterm review of
the whole IGF process, considering that the IGF process is supposed to be
completely reviewed at the end of the five-year period. This main session
should be intensively prepared for by a working group. The IGC, that means the
government caucus, would like to repeat its successful Rio workshop on the
theme of the role and the mandate of the IGF at Hyderabad to feed into such a
main session. We are of the opinion that the IGF mandate and functions can be
put into two broad categories. One is of providing an open space for
discussing any and all public policy issues regarding the Internet for all
stakeholders. Therefore, inter alia, encouraging closer interaction between
stakeholders and groups who often do not often talk to each other. The second
set of mandates and functions can be clumped into a category of providing some
relatively clear directions and possibilities in the area of global public
policy. And for this purpose, block the gaps in terms of ideas,
possibilities, interactions in the global institution and framework for
Internet governance. The structure of the IGF meeting should be adequate to
meet both of these purposes. The first purpose listed above is largely being
achieved, and the IGF is now recognized for its characteristic of a town hall
meeting, where anyone can come and voice own opinions and concerns. However,
the requirements for the purpose 2 listed above, that of some clear
contribution to the global public-policy arena, may require us to explore some
structural improvements for the Hyderabad IGF meeting without taking away its
open town hall meeting character. In fulfilling this aspect of its mandate, as
we mentioned, we think that the IGF is making good progress. We should
continue to allow as many open workshops at IGF as possible, subject only to
the limitations of the logistics. In fact, we should encourage connected
events on the sidelines of the IGF as well, some of which were held around IGF
in Rio. The process of selection of open workshops should, inter alia, involve
the criteria of, one, sponsor’s readiness to structure the workshop as a space
for an open dialogue and not just one-sided advocacy is I. The
multistakeholder criteria should be seen more in terms of a demonstrated
willingness of the sponsor to invite different stakeholders, and those with
different points of view to participate as panelists rather than in terms of
sponsorship of the workshops. The later criterion leads to the possibility of
some stakeholders, especially those with a relatively tightly organized and
relatively monolithic structure and policy political approach to veto some
subjects. In any case, the variety sought should be in terms of more different
points of view rather than just different stakeholders, because it’s possible
to gather a panel of different stakeholders with a narrow range of views on a
particular subject. So pluralism is important here. Workshop themes staying
as closely as possible within the IGF’s broad mandate of dealing with
specifically IG issues that are global and have some relation to public-policy
arena. Specific overall thematic emphasis for each IGF meeting may also be
indicated. There is a general impression that more can be done to ensure that
the Internet Governance Forum fulfill its mandate of providing directions to
global public policy on Internet, as indicated by many parts of its Tunis
Agenda mandate. The main sessions should be spaces for fulfilling this set of
objectives. Many of those who attended Athens and Rio meetings felt that the
main sessions could be made more compelling and productive. We did see
attendance at these meetings shriveling off from Athens to Rio and within Rio
from day one onwards. We think the main session should be focused on specific
issues regarding the content of Internet governance per se, rather than on
more broad issues pertaining to the Internet and environment generally. These
specific issues should be framed and prepared for well in advance. The main
sessions can be made more productive and fruitful by having a couple of
thematic workshops connected with and feeding into each of the main sessions.
There should be a limited number of such thematic workshops with a vigorous
effort to merge proposals for workshops in a manner that preserved diversities
of clear politics, special interest and different viewpoints, but retains the
clear purpose to increase effectiveness of the main sessions. Not having
thematic workshops run at the same time as the main sessions is also
important. And using working groups to intensively prepare for each of these
main sessions and the connected workshops. These working groups should also
synthesis some kind of outcome documents on each theme, taking from the
discussion, the domain sessions and connected workshops. These working groups
could consist of members of the Membership Advisory Committee plus some other
experts and stakeholders. Dynamic coalitions, too, have a great potential to
increase effectiveness of the Internet Governance Forum. There should be
greater clarity on the format in the creation of dynamic coalitions into the
overall structure. Dynamic coalition pertaining to the theme of our main
session should be involved in the preparations of the sessions. They must
also be able to report back on the activities in the main session. To enable
proper preparation for Hyderabad, a call for workshops should be given out as
soon as possible, since this will also require early decisions on main session
themes, postponing these crucial activities will leave us with inadequate time
to make all the needed preparations for Hyderabad. This will hinder the
possibilities of our moving ahead on achieving the full potential of the IGF
that we all desire to do. A final point on participation at the IGF. We should
further explore innovative message within the IGF to improve the active
participation in the IGF proceedings of all those who attend the IGF. It is
also important to improve the participation of currently excluded and
underrepresented groups in both the IGF’s public consultations and the annual
meetings. Adequate financial support should be provided to potential
participants from developing and least-developed countries. There’s also a lot
of scope for improving participation through online means, which should be
fully explored. However, improvement in online participation cannot fill in
for creative face-to-face participation of currently underrepresented groups.
As the IGF goes to south Asia region, which is home to more than half the
world’s poor, special focus needs to be given to realizing the vision of an
Internet for everyone. The first of all requires obtaining the participation
of disadvantaged group and communities in the governance of the Internet.
Hyderabad should take all possible measures to make outreach to and include
those groups in the IGF meeting. This can be done by galvanizing the local
civil society around the Hyderabad meeting, and we welcome the call given by
our chair, Nitin Desai, to do so in the recent ICANN meeting in New Delhi.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
>>CO-CHAIR DESAI: Thank you. I have Bill Graham,
followed by Louis Pouzin, and then ITU, Bertrand De La Chapelle, and Marilyn
Cade.
>>ISOC: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am speaking here on behalf of the
Internet Society. First we would like to add our voice to those which have
already congratulated Brazil for the conduct of the meeting in Rio. We feel
that the Internet Governance Forum’s cross-cutting themes of capacity building
and development plus the original four focus areas have continued to provide a
foundation for the work that was done in Rio. The decision to build on the
successful discussions of those themes and the positive interaction among
stakeholders at the first IGF led to the addition of the topic of critical
internet resources. That decision was clearly justified by stakeholders’
confidence in the able of the IGF to address various difficult topics. We
think the success of the IGF precisely depends on the fact that the IGF
remains multilateral, multistakeholder, democratic and transparent, and that
it is neutral, nonduplicative and nonbinding consistent with the WSIS
guidelines. ISOC believes it is essential to retain those characteristics in
all future IGF meetings, but we must find ways for the IGF to become more
practical and more useful to those interested in the practice of Internet
governance. We believe it’s time now for the IGF to really draw out the
concrete work and the concrete developments that have happened as a result of
its work, and I speak here of all stakeholders’ experiences. I am not talking
about concrete conclusions in typical United Nations terms, but in terms of
the work that’s being done by various stakeholders and various communities.
This work has not yet been adequately captured, and I think we don’t yet have
a good picture of how successful the IGF has been to this point. We would
also, therefore, recommend that moving forward to India, the IGF focus more on
fostering contributions to Internet governance at the appropriate national,
regional, and international levels. Successful multistakeholder Internet
governance discussions at the local level are essential to progressing
Internet governance at the global level, and this was recognized in Rio. There
really is much to be done at the local level, and all stakeholders should
contribute to encouraging the creation of suitable and sustainable local
multistakeholder structures, including the technical and regulatory capacity
building programs that are necessary here. Looking forward to the third IGF,
ISOC would recommend that we really build on opportunities to expand the work
by dynamic coalitions and others who are working together in formal and
informal gatherings organized to progress that work. The increased interest in
the workshops that we saw going into Rio, and the potential of those workshops
for producing collaboration should be major goals for the third IGF. This can
be facilitated by reducing the number of formal main sessions. We in ISOC
believe the main sessions on the four major themes have really almost served
their purpose now, and there should be fewer main sessions in Delhi. Perhaps
only three, one on each day. Speakers in the opening session should be
selected for their ability to focus attention on the urgent need to show real
results from the meeting in terms of promoting access, security, diversity and
openness. But concentrating on the needs of developing countries and capacity
building. And I speak here of capacity building for Internet governance, not
more generally on ICTs for development. The second main session should
concentrate on a major new theme for the 2008 forum. ISOC recommends this
session, and much of the work of the IGF going forward concentrate on the
overarching issue of connecting the next billion and the billions after that.
As we heard in Rio, getting the next billion online highlights many, many
challenges for governance of the Internet itself, and not least among these
are scalability and sustainability issues. Taking this very practical focus
will allow us to include many facets of the themes discussed so far. It also
will have direct and important linkages to development and capacity building.
Focusing on the next billion gained prominence in Rio, and we believe it’s now
time to better understand and to address the challenges that will face getting
the next billion online. This is something the IGF is uniquely positioned to
contribute to. Learning and collaboration are essential to identifying the
challenges and highlighting the solutions of Internet governance. The Internet
Governance Forum should serve primarily as a facilitator, providing
opportunities for action oriented, formal and informal workshops and meetings.
Thus in our contribution, which is on the Internet Governance Forum Web site,
we outline that we believe that New Delhi should really — or, sorry, the
India session should really provide a large networking and display space for
all stakeholder groups to present their real-world experiences and their
efforts to make Internet governance happen locally, nationally, regionally,
and internationally. This space should be structured around the IGF themes.
It should encourage dialogue and synergy among practitioners, and it really
must include meeting areas for small and medium sized groups to get together,
exchange experiences and plan future work. So in concluding, Mr. Chairman, we
believe it’s time for the IGF to become a forum promoting action on the entire
range of themes outlined in its mandates. Singly and in combination. The
focus should be on capacity building for Internet governance. And we believe
that the IGF has now established a degree of trust among its participants that
should make that possible. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
>>CO-CHAIR DESAI:
Thank you. Mr. Louis Pouzin.
>>EUROLINC: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My name
is Louis Pouzin, and I am speaking for Eurolinc, a nonprofit association
promoting the use of native languages in the Internet. We are a member of the
MAYA network. About Rio, a number of our colleagues have already expressed
their great satisfaction and at the same time they have also made a flurry of
recommendations in order to improve the organization of the next IGF annual
meeting. We agree with many of those recommendations. The crux of the matter
is that the IGF is not putting into practice, or at least very little, the
mandate assigned to it by the Tunis Agenda. Without a bureau, without
transparent financing and without tangible objectives, IGF annual meetings do
not provide to participants the quality of information on critical issues
expected from professional conferences. The European countries have little
opportunity to partake in IGF meetings. Travel and accommodation costs are
too expensive. Translation is only done for main sessions, not always the
most relevant ones. Speaker slots are hard to get without lobbying capacities.
The IGF meeting is a large conference. There is no reason why it should not
be organized in a way usually adopted for such events. A year ago we made a
proposal for a structure including an international Program Committee. This
is still eventuality. This is in no way a criticism of the people in charge of
the IGF organization. We know they have been extremely dedicated and
efficient. The difficulties result from the inadequate structure of the IGF
organizational structures as I’ve said already. At this stage, it is not clear
that the IGF meeting format could change substantially due to the tendency of
established structures to ensure their continuity. In addition, at a world
level, the amount of issues to be studied is probably too large. We think
that regional IGF meetings would be more productive, easier to attend by
people from developing countries, more focused on their specific needs such as
native languages, and much easier to organize. Reports from the regional
meetings would be presented at annual IGF meetings. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
>>CO-CHAIR DESAI: Can I turn to Mr. Michael Johnson from ITU.
>> ITU:
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Good afternoon, everybody. ITU congratulates the
host country and all those involved in making the Rio event such a success.
We appreciate the efforts undertaken in the organization of the meeting and
support the approach followed in providing several mechanisms of dialogue and
cooperation. ITU has made use of this platform in collaboration of other U.N.
agencies, especially UNESCO and other relevant stakeholders such as ICANN in
implementing the Tunis Agenda for the information society. We generally feel
that the organization program and the agenda in Rio was successful and needs
little change. However, we do believe that the proposal mentioned by Markus
in his introduction of creating a thematic space for networking would greatly
facilitate follow-up collaborative actions between the different stakeholders.
As a concrete follow-up to the second IGF meeting, we have discussed with
several stakeholders who participated in discussions in Rio on the
establishment of a dynamic coalition on accessibility and disability. This is
an area of activity that ITU is particularly active in and which we’re willing
to offer our resources to support. We have a paper available on this proposal
in the back of the room and we will be happy to discuss this further under
Item 4 of our agenda this afternoon. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
>>CO-CHAIR DESAI: Thank you very much, Mr. Johnson. May I turn to Mr. La
Chapelle and then Marilyn Cade.
>>FRANCE: Thank you, Mr. Chair, on behalf
of France I would like to thank the host of the second IGF for the quality of
the meeting. To be as concrete as possible right now, a few suggestions
regarding the next meeting and the lessons from the Rio meeting. We’re of the
view that an ideal format would be to turn the main sessions into reporting
sessions for the workshops dealing with the corresponding themes. One-slide
format for people who would be designated by the corresponding workshops would
allow to launch the discussion in a very short and concise manner so that the
participation and the people in the room can fully participate in an
interactive manner. This would in addition alleviate the burden of the
advisory group in terms of choosing the panelists because the panelists would
be somehow self-selected by the workshop organizers. In that context, no other
session should be held in parallel with the main sessions — main reporting
session. The second element is that actually we’re toying with different
workshop formats or smaller session formats. One interesting feature of Rio
was the opportunity for a certain number of organizations to actually hold
open forums which were reporting sessions on their activities of the year.
This was very beneficial. Sessions by ITU, by ICANN, by the Council of Europe
and few others have allowed a broader range of actors to understand what those
organizations are doing, and this is a format that should be encouraged. The
present workshop format initiated bottom-up has to be kept because this is one
of the major features of the IGF because proposals can emerge from various
actors. In order to keep the number of workshops relatively limited, there is
a need for criteria and some of the criteria is that actors could not or
should not be allowed to organize a workshop if they organized a workshop the
previous year and did not produce a report. The second thing is, as was
mentioned earlier, the important pluralistic dimension is the plurality of
viewpoints and not so much the plurality of stakeholders. You can, indeed,
have a very nice panel with stakeholders that are pushing exactly the same
position. Then this is not a workshop. It is a advocacy group. In this
context, the purpose of the workshop is to provide a space for discussion
among participants and not only for presentation by panelists so that the
dialogue is nurtured by the IGF. But I would like to suggest, following a
remark that was made in particular by Milton Mueller before, that another
category of workshop or session that could be called a “debate session” could
allow a number of actors who organized the previous year parallel workshops
with different viewpoints to get together when an issue is particularly
contentious. I think the IGF shouldn’t — we think the IGF shouldn’t shy away
from addressing contentious issues. Quite on the contrary, it has proven in
Rio that the critical Internet resources issue could be addressed in a fair
manner, even if people disagreed on substance. So a third dimension or a third
format would bring together actors who do not share the same position but
would be able to debate. Finally, we suggest that a call for themes of
workshops be issued as early as possible, even without any information on how
the participants of the panelists could be chosen, just the themes, to get an
aggregate view of the perspective. Organizers of workshops should be
encouraged to produce issue papers before in order to frame — help frame the
issues they’re addressing and the various workshops could have or should have
the possibility to produce propositions to the IGF that would be presented as
an outcome of the workshop, providing that the signatories and the
participants are clearly identified and this is not confused with an IGF
proposition. Workshops or dynamic coalitions could have the possibility to do
this. A final remark is that we are very keen on promoting — or exploring the
idea of an European IGF preparatory meeting, and we’ll certainly have this in
mind when we get into the presidency of the European Union in the second half
of this year. We have also launched at the national level a consultation
mechanism on the multistakeholder basis, and we’ll be very happy and have
already conducted consultations with the U.K. and Finland on the perspective
of organizing a workshop in India on national multistakeholder consultation
processes in the framework of the IGF. And we’re welcoming any other actor who
would be willing, in particularly Brazil, that would be willing to join in
this perspective. Thank you.
>>CO-CHAIR DESAI: Marilyn Cade.
>>ITAA:
Thank you. My comments this morning are as the chair of the global public
policy committee of ITAA. ITAA is an industry association with membership
ranging from very small companies to very large companies. We have also a
sister relationship with the World IT Services Alliance, an organization
representing close to 70 associations, the majority of whom are from
developing countries. We thank the — we welcome the opportunity to thank the
chair and the supporters of the Internet Governance Forum for this public
consultation and repeat earlier statements we have made about the value of the
public consultation, both online and face-to-face. We also wish to recognize
the work of the executive secretariat, the chair, the co-chair of IGF Brazil
and the government of Brazil and the NGOs of Brazil for their efforts to
ensure a well-attended and successful IGF 2007. ITAA remains committed to the
IGF as a unique multistakeholder forum with equal participation by all and to
maintaining the IGF as a unique venue where ideas, experiences, expertise,
challenges and problems can be discussed in an open manner. We believe it is
very important to maintain the multistakeholder approach on an equal footing.
And here we pause to say, we think that means that all parties, governments,
IGOs, individuals, businesses, civil society NGOs, all parties must respect
that in this fora we operate on an equal footing. We think that that is unique
and incredibly valuable. We also believe that the early establishment of the
consultation process should be continued and that it should become rootinized
or formalized so that on an annual basis we know roughly which week, which
month the public consultations will take place and we know that there will be
three so people can plan ahead in order to participate. Informed by our
relationship with WITSA, we believe it is incredibly important that all of us
to find ways to increase the participation of the stakeholders from developing
countries in the consultation process and in being able to attend and
participate the IGF itself. We continue to support the reflection of the four
themes but we also support the concept that more concrete learning should
become more visible and that we should find ways to take more concrete
learning and experiences and share them. We think this can be done without
moving to a conclusionary or a negotiating status. ITAA’s members and WITSA’s
members have long been concerned about the issues of access, of deepening and
broadening access for all users. And as such, we find ourselves intrigued by
the concept of the theme “connecting the next billion” which is to us an
extension of the access theme. We also believe that it is very important that
we maintain a consistent focus in the IGF on the broad definition of Internet
Governance and that we not become captive or captured by any particular debate
but remain open to the consideration of the broad set of issues and concerns
and that we remain focused on the concerns and interests of the developing
countries. We have a number of additional observations, and we will hold those
for the afternoon. Thank you for the opportunity to speak today.
>>CO-CHAIR
DESAI: Thank you very much. It has been very helpful, these comments.
Before we move on to the next item which is on the Advisory Group, I thought I
would just try and draw a few strands together. May I say first that in many
ways the way the IGF as actually operated in Rio and in Athens and possible
how it can operate in Hyderabad onwards is possibly quite different from what
people thought it would be like when the decision was taken to set up an IGF.
Do remember that the origins of the IGF lie in a political compromise in
Tunis. And the idea was to create a — I think when it was done, people
didn’t have a very clear idea as to what exactly was wanted out of this
proposed thing that they had. And in a way, the IGF has made its own identity
by the way in which it has operated. One key feature has been the way in
which the multistakeholder character has been maintained. It does operate
very differently from a classical government, intergovernmental U.N.-type
meeting where you do have people from outside participating but they do remain
people from outside. I believe this particular feature of IGF, it is true
multistakeholder character, not just in a generalized sense that everybody
sits in the same room but it really does operate in a way where compromises
are being made by everybody. And this is most important. The governments
make compromises because they’re accepting procedures and modalities which are
very different from a normal intergovernmental negotiating meeting. I think
NGOs have to made the compromises because they are used to operating in
intergovernmental meeting as advocacy groups. They have to now start
operating as partners. The corporate sector, the technical community, I think
everybody has to make cultural adjustments. And what I find very positive is
that over two meetings these adjustments are taking place. People are
adjusting to different ways of connecting. I’m not going to try to summarize
or try and conclude, I will just and try of think of a few things that struck
me. I’m sure the members of the Advisory Group, you are here, you will take
away maybe very different lessons from this discussion. But, first, it struck
me that — one that struck me is that almost everybody seems to be agreed that
we really do need to look more closely at the main sessions. Nobody said so
explicitly, but my feeling is that people felt a little disappointed that it
didn’t quite work out the way they were meant to work out. And there were
many suggestions made, one very compact one that came from Chris, make the
panels smaller, and instruct the moderator to ensure interaction. Three key
points that were raised. This is one thing that we can look at. Another
suggestion which came was to connect it with certain workshops, use them more
as a way of reporting in of things which are discussed in greater detail in
workshops. I don’t see a contradiction, incidentally, between these two
approaches. In a way this ties in a little with a thought which I thought was
implicit in what ETNO had said, is the idea that there are certain workshops
that so to speak are consciously promoted in order to feed into the main
sessions and that these are, in a sense, distinct from the sort of more
free-for-all workshops that are being held. We will make a more conscious
effort to do that. And as part of that same sort of idea of maybe a more
conscious effort at designing certain workshops to feed into the same session,
one could also take on board the question which arose earlier when people from
the child protection group was speaking in which (inaudible) was referred to
later. The idea of consciously proposing debates rather than closed meetings
of groups. And that would take some decision saying, yes, this is an area
where we have people with perfectly legitimate views but different views,
let’s try and see whether we can organize a debate on this. These are some of
the ideas which I think have emerged. What it, basically, amounts to is a
closer look at the organization of the main sessions, how do we make them more
specific, more interactive, more interesting. Probably a closer look at the
way the workshops are being organized. Do we start thinking in terms of
certain workshops which are more consciously promoted that are distinct from
others that are a little more of a free for all. I am not coming to any
conclusion on this. I am simply raising this as something that arises from
the discussion which I would urge the Advisory Group to look at it. There
were, of course, many suggestions that came about the logistic call issues
about the workshops, holding them at night, were similar workshops being held
simultaneously. I’m not entirely sure it’s possible to have — logistically
possible to say there will be no workshops when a main session is being held.
But we may need to look at how suggestions are on at any given time, given the
number of people who are there. If I have 1,000 people on average present and
if I have events, each one of which requires ten events, each one of which
requires 500 people to be there, it doesn’t work. You only got 1,000 people
in a place and you can’t obtain 500 people for each event. If you would like
the audience to change, something will have to be done so we don’t come up
with absurd propositions where we create space for 5,000 people to attend when
there are only 1,000 there. There are things like that we may have to look at
in terms of the way in which we structure and organize the main sessions and
workshops. I’m not entirely sure it will be possible to have a rule by which
you cannot have workshops during main sessions. That may be logistically very
tough. But given that, I think — I certainly hear the message from many
people here that we do need time during the day where there are no meetings.
Maybe it is only an hour, but there are some time in the course of the day
when there is nothing happening so there is time for informal interaction.
There were many positive statements made about the Village Square.
Fortunately the place we are going to be in Hyderabad at least has excellent
facilities which would allow us to do more on that front. And I’m sure the
Advisory Group would take note of that and see how that can be done. Two or
three other broader issues which came up which we need to look at is that one
was the question of connecting the Internet better with other areas of policy
concern. There were several references, couple of references, to connecting
the governance issues with governmental-type issues, sustainable-type
development issues. This is, of course, as I said something I have been more
involved with than the Internet, so I would be host happy with that. And we
could certainly see. I’m not sure how it will fit in, into our mandate in
terms of reference and work. Perhaps, there is a space that we can create
which would allow us to connect Internet governance to other areas of global
governance, like environmental governance, sustainable development and so on.
One other area I failed we need to explore is economic issues; economics of
competition, for instance. There is no space where these get discussed. But
Internet does affect competition policy. But there is no space where these
things are being talked about right now, I can assure you, as somebody who is
involved in economic governance matters. And maybe we have to put our thinking
caps on and see how we create a window, a space where these types of issues
can be discussed. Finally, I think there is a feeling that we need to focus
more sharply on issues of capacity, on issues of development and one theme
that seems to be coming up is an Internet — the next billion. In fact, I can
tell you one thing that in India there is actually an interest in exploring
the implications not just of the next billion but of the universalization of
the Internet. What does it mean? What are the implications for management
for governance of the Internet? It connects with the issues about the
inclusive Internet which people have talked about which could subsume
questions of multilingualism, question about disability which was mentioned,
the question about low-cost access, questions about gender, about youth, about
old people. Maybe these are things that we could explore. Because some of the
sort of, if you like, signals, messages I get none of this in the nature of a
conclusion. It is simply what I am taking away from here. I suspect there
are members of the Advisory Group, they may take away other different, more
nuance messages which I am sure we will look at as well. Okay. This is what I
thought we could conclude, stop on as far as the review of the past is
concerned. We need to have a more focused discussion on the Advisory Group.
There have been a few references to this already. And I’m just going to hand
over — it is 12:30. I think we can start the discussion now and then
continue — stop at 1:00 and then continue after lunch. I know quite a few of
you have comments on this. At this point I will ask my could he chair to
share the burden — my co-chair to shared the burden of managing this these
questions.
>>CO-CHAIR VIANNA: Thank you very much, Chairman Desai. I would
like to thank you all the kind words that were addressed to Brazil as host of
the second IGF. With regard to all the contributions that were made, I must
tell you I see them more — very much positive and constructive. I have the
impression that we are on the right way as far as the fulfillment of the
mandate of IGF. I’m also very happy to notice that the Rio meeting has
contributed to the situation. I think that the more important thing is to
recognize that a confidence-building process has been established and we have
to take into account that Rio was just the second step in the five-year period
time frame that was established in Tunis. We have three more steps to
strengthen this confidence-building process and to be sure that we are very
much able to discuss issues that we not necessarily agree on, but it’s
possible to discuss and explore them in a very fair and open way. For this I
think that the work of the multistakeholder Advisory Group is fundamental.
That’s why I would like to open the floor for comments on the MAG, on its
roles, on issues that have to do directly with its functioning. Please those
who intend to take the floor, please do now. Thank you. Slovenia, please.
>>SLOVENIA: Thank you, chair, again for giving us the opportunity to speak
on behalf of the European Union. European Union stands ready to start a
proposal for rotation schemes and renewal of membership as they may emerge
from the Advisory Group. Let me add that while rotation is a good idea as
such, we should trade carefully in order to safeguard (inaudible) and
innovation into the work of the Advisory Group. Now, what makes Advisory Group
such an effective mechanism is its multistakeholder composition. The
secretary-general has managed to serve in their capacity and chosen from the
governments, private sector, civil society including the academic communities
within the stakeholder groups, such representing all regions. This balanced
composition needs to be remained. The Advisory Group has been instrumental in
moving the IGF forward. It is, therefore, of crucial importance that the
Advisory Group starts the preparation of the next IGF meeting in India as well
as others in the next years as soon as possible. Thank you, chair.
>>CO-CHAIR VIANNA: Thank you very much, Slovenia, on behalf of EU. I would
like to call on the representative of IGC.
>> IGC: Thank you, chair. I
Parminder Singh on behalf of the Civil Society Internet Governance Caucus. At
the outset, I would like to appear to all stakeholders that we should use the
full term multistakeholder, Advisory Group or a very convenient acronym MAG as
for purposes as Chairman Desai just described multistakeholderism as the most
important feature of the IGF. And I’m happy that Chairman Desai also just now
used the full term multistakeholder Advisory Group. Multistakeholder Advisory
Group or MAG is the driving seat of the IGF and restructuring MAG is basic to
making IGF more effective and productive. We very much appreciate the new
measures of transparency which had been taken with respect to MAG’s working
and we are of the view the Advisory Group should work through two (inaudible),
one open, others closed since the Advisory Group discusses issues of public
importance. Normally discussions should be open to public scrutiny. However,
we do understand there can be circumstances that require closed discussions.
All discussions taken to the closed list should be listed and summaries of
them provided as appropriate. By the same rule, transcripts should be provided
for all face-to-face meetings of the Multistakeholder Advisory Group, unless
some topics are expressly chosen to be dealt in a closed manner, in which case
such topics should be listed, and summary of discussions provided as
appropriate. I will now make a couple of comments on the membership of the
Advisory Group. The MAG should be large enough so that its members bring in
the required balance of stakeholder interests, diversity and experience, but
not so large as to cause the group to be ineffective. In the present
circumstances, the caucus thinks that 40 is a good number for the group’s
membership. One third of the members should be rotated every year. In
interest of transparency and understanding the responsibilities of the
Advisory Group members, when making appointments to the group we request that
Secretary-General explain what interested group that person is associated
with. The rules of membership of the group should be clearly established and
made open along with the justifications. Civil society, in our opinion, has
been underrepresented in the group, which was appointed in 2006, and
reconfirmed in 2007. This anomaly should be corrected in this round of
rotation and a fair balance of members among all stakeholders assured. Fair
civil society representation is necessary to ensure legitimacy for this
experiment — new experiment in global governance. We agree that organizations
having an important role in Internet administration and development of
Internet-related technical standards should continue to be represented in the
Multistakeholder Advisory Group. However, their representation should not be
at the expense of civil society participation. Stakeholder representatives
should be chosen based on appropriate process of self-selection by stakeholder
groups. However, we do appreciate that it is difficult to recognize any one
stakeholder entity, or even a given set of them as completely representing the
whole of that particular stakeholder group. This complicates the process of
selection, especially in case of civil society and business sectors, and
provides scope for the final selecting authority exercising a degree of
judgment. However, this should be done in a completely transparent manner and
deviations from the self-selection process should be kept to the minimum.
And, of course, when recommending members to the group, all stakeholders
should ensure diversity in terms of gender, geography, and, where applicable,
special interest groups. I think while we are at the issue of the rotation of
the group, we should also revisit the role and structure of this group. And
to start with, it will be useful to list out the functions that the group is
expected to perform. One function is, of course, to make all necessary
arrangements for the annual IGF meetings. We must review the group’s
experience with carrying out this function, what more needs to be done by the
Multistakeholder Advisory Group to further improve the effectiveness of the
IGF. We are of the opinion that the group should review their decision-making
processes to make them more effective, and this is especially important if the
IGF has to move on to fulfill all aspects of its mandate. It will be very
useful for the group to work through working groups. This suggestion has come
through many quarters here. These groups should prepare for each main
sessions and the set of workshops which are connected to that main session.
Working groups can also be used to manage internal tasks of the group more
effectively. We also seek greater clarity at this point about whether the
Advisory Group has any substantive identity other than advising the U.N.
Secretary-General. For instance, to carry out other parts of the mandate
which require interfacing, advising, identifying issues, giving
recommendations and such. All of which, of course, are quotations from the
Tunis Agenda. It is highly impractical that these tasks can cohere in the U.N.
Secretary-General, and we would like to understand the role the group would
play in this part. The group should prepare an annual report for the IGF.
This report should mention the IGF activities and performance for the year
against relevant parts of the Tunis Agenda which lays out the mandate and also
outline plans for the year ahead. We suggest that this report once adapted by
the Secretary-General would also satisfy the requirements of paragraph 75 of
the Tunis Agenda and prepare for discussions about the desirability of
continuing the forum beyond 2010. IGF should actively encourage regional and
national level IGFs which should be truly multistakeholder and a special plan
should be drawn out for this purpose. The United Nations should recognize that
IGF is the outcome of a U.N. process and should ensure that it has the
resources it needs to fulfill its mandate as defined at Tunis summit in 2005.
We express our great respect and appreciation for the work of the IGF
Secretariat, while severely underfunded it has been responsible for many of
the IGF’s successes. The Secretariat should be provided with resources needed
to perform its role effectively. In addition, a fund should be established to
support the participation of people from developing and least developed
countries in the IGF annual meetings and in IGF preparatory consultations.
And lastly, a couple of comments about the special advisors to the group and
the chair. The need of special advisors, their role in the group and criteria
for their selection should be clarified. Considerations of diversity as
mentioned above in case of Advisory Group members must be kept in mind for the
selection of special advisors. And the number of them should be kept within a
reasonable limit. On the issue of the chair, we are of the opinion that in
keeping with the multistakeholder nature of the group, there should only be
one chair nominated by the U.N. Secretary-General. The host country should be
able to nominate a deputy chair, an arrangement that would be helpful
regarding logistical issues for the annual IGF meetings. In any case, we would
like to understand if there is any division of work and responsibility between
the two chairs in the present arrangement. It may be too late to move over to
the suggested new arrangement of one chair plus the host country deputy chair
for the Hyderabad meeting, especially if the Indian government representative
has already taken over as the co-chair or arrangements are in place for them
to take over, but we should take a decision about this for the post-Hyderabad
phase. And lastly, the caucus supports of continuation of the present chair,
Nitin Desai, as the chair of the Advisory Group. We recognize and commend the
role that he has played in guiding the MAG and the IGF through difficult
formative times. Thank you, Chair.
>>CO-CHAIR VIANNA: Thank you, IGF, for
your detailed comments and suggestions. I recognize now the Russian
Federation. Russia, you have the floor.
>>RUSSIAN FEDERATION: Thank you,
Chairman. Yes, firstly, allow me to thank the government of Brazil for the
excellent forum which they organized at a very high level. And when I talk
about the success of the forum, it would be remiss of me not to talk about the
work of the consultative group, the Advisory Group. The Advisory Group played
an important role in organizing the conduct of the forum. In closed
consultations, the Advisory Group discussed the agenda which had been drafted
and prepared, the agenda of the forum, the themes for the seminars, workshops
and other events. They decided upon the most important aspects of the
organization. And the mandate of the current group has now expired since the
Rio forum, and now we need to talk about the changes which we believe are
necessary to introduce into its work. Last year, during the consultations in
May, we made a proposal to improve the work of the Advisory Group. In
particular, to increase the transparency of the work of the MAG. The rotation
of the composition, the membership, and through this, making sure that there
is proper succession. And we have a few more details on the proposals which
were made to the meeting of the Advisory Group before this meeting that you
can find on the Web site of the IGF. In particular, we believe that every year
there should be a rotation within the Advisory Group of a third of the
members, which we believe would increase the effectiveness of the work of the
group, and also the responsibility and accountability of the people working
within the group. And we think that it would be interesting for everyone to
know which members of the working group are working in the group, and their
attendance at the meetings last year. And a second issue, or the second
proposal that we have on the work of the Advisory Group we believe is the
following. We are in favor of changing the format of the group in conformity
with the procedures within the U.N. system. I would remind you that the
mandate of the forum and the group come under the auspices of the United
Nations. So we would suggest that we apply to the group of governmental
experts which is formed on the basis of geographical representation, according
to the principles of one country, one vote, so that these experts can use the
services of their national experts, who took part in the closed meetings of
the Advisory Group, but without the right to vote and without the right to
speak. We also support the proposals on a new, clearly defined regulation,
rules of procedure for the work of the Advisory Group. We believe it necessary
to clearly define the scope of the work of the working group and its members
and the special advisors to the members of the working group. And we believe
that bringing new order into the work of the group will make the work and the
conduct of the work and its meetings much more productive. Thank you, Chair.
>>CO-CHAIR VIANNA: Thank you very much, Russia. I would like to know if
there are further requests for the floor. Mr. William Graham, please.
>>ISOC: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. ISOC has a few recommendations concerning
the renewal of the Internet governance Multistakeholder Advisory Group. The
first of those is to stress the importance of appointing the new advisory
group early so that work can begin in preparation for the next session. This
has been a problem in past, and it’s something that really needs to be
regularized and addressed, we believe. Related to that, we think that it’s
very clear that the Advisory Group’s work must be continuous. For example,
through the sessions this week and going forward until a new Advisory Group is
appointed. And therefore, we would recommend that there be a recognition that
the Advisory Group continues to function until a new one is in place.
Secondly, we would like to stress the importance of appointing Advisory Group
members as individuals rather than as representatives of any specific
organization. We are recognize that in reality, the members of the group have
been appointed in a way so as to ensure the voices of all relevant
stakeholders are heard, and with respect to balance on a whole range of
grounds that everyone here is familiar with. But we feel that the individual
responsibility that has resulted from the Secretary-General’s method of
appointment so far has really contributed to the caliber and amount of work
that the people have put into it. Like other speakers, ISOC would support
rotation of about one-third of the Advisory Group members each year, and we
think that the current size of about 40 members is about right. The gradual
rotation in the group should certainly be used to address the balance of
stakeholders in the groups, which we believe now leans a little too heavily
towards government membership. We would like to make the point that past and
present Advisory Group members drawn from the technical community have made
vital contributions to both the Advisory Group decisions and the overall shape
of the forum itself. For that reason, we believe it’s essential that the
expertise of the technical community continue to be a major component when
selecting members of the Advisory Group Whether the individuals themselves
come from the business community, the civil society community, academia, or
government. Finally, various proposals have been put forward in writing for a
nomination process. ISOC thinks that a number of groups and individuals should
be able to submit nomination for Advisory Group membership, but they should
not be able to restrict or in any way interfere with the choice of Advisory
Group members. That choice must remain the final authority of the United
Nations Secretary-General, giving the Secretary-General the ability to ensure
the best possible balance among the stakeholders, regions, and so forth in the
membership. Finally, I think we have made it clear that we feel that Advisory
Group members should be chosen on the basis not of who they represent but of
the size of community they connect to. This is a subtle but really relevant
difference, and something that affects very strongly the openness and the
consultative nature of the Advisory Group. We would also recommend, I guess,
just to add a final point, that maintaining a consistent single chair of the
Advisory Group has been very valuable and should be continued. We would
recommend that in 2008, the Secretary-General appoint Chair for the remainder
of the five-year mandate of the Internet Governance Forum, and we would
strongly support, if possible, the appointment of the current Chair who has
performed admirably in that role for the first two Advisory Group mandates and
who has won the respect and loyalty of all stakeholders. Thank you.
>>CO-CHAIR VIANNA: Thank you very much, Mr. Graham, for your valuable
comments. I would like to ask ETNO to take the floor.
>>ETNO: Thank you,
Chair. Once again, I speak on behalf of ETNO, and we would like to contribute
to the debate about the multistakeholder Advisory Group. We continue to
understand that the members of the Advisory Group work on a voluntary basis
under their personal capacities. We appreciate the work effort and time put
so far by the individual members. However, we recognize that there is room
for improvement as regards transparency and composition. And by composition,
I mean rotation. For us, transparency in the whole preparatory process is the
most important issue. We recommend the Advisory Group publish its agenda and
produces minutes of its meetings, as it has initiated already. We already
suggest the Advisory Group increases its efforts to disseminate information
regarding the preparatory process by producing regular reports of its
activities. The discussions made public, even if it was an anonymized is a
great step toward that direction and we highly appreciate it. Still, the
Advisory Group should strengthen its efforts towards becoming fully
transparent and democratic and accountable to our body, debugging the
impression of a closed structure which alone decides about who controls the
preparatory process. In order to increase transparency, we support the idea of
having a limited number of observers for each Advisory Group meeting.
Besides, we have learned that there are observers already, like OECD that
comes from Europe, ITU, who already attend the closed meetings with an
informal right to speak when asked. We believe this can be extended to other
organizations as well on the condition that they are really observers and that
they don’t speak, but only if and when asked. But coming up to the second
issue of rotation, we insist that certain criteria are established from now
on. By all means the Advisory Group must continue to be multistakeholder in
nature and its balance must be kept. The number of its members should not be
extraordinary, and it should not exceed the current number. We think that 40
is a good number. We recommend, as all the others have said already, that
one-third of the members are replaced each year after a call by the IGF
Secretary-General, while the remaining two-thirds are reconfirmed. Within the
one-third rotated, there must be a proportional spread within the various
multistakeholder groups. We support the idea that new members, as selected on
the basis of how large and diverse a community they connect to is, the
Advisory Group should be formally renewed every year by the U.N.
Secretary-General as soon as possible, preferably by February of each year.
And like the colleague from ISOC said, in the meantime, the Advisory Group
should continue to function until the new one is in place. Each new member
originating from the rotation process should have a term of three years with
the possibility of reappointment, preferably after a one-year break. One
member should represent the host country so that he or she can act as a
liaison for logistical and organizational matters. This member, exceptionally,
must have a term of one year. As regards the co-chair, we continue to
understand that if there is a need for a co-chair from the host country, that
person’s tasks must be devoted to the organizational and logistical
arrangements. However, we strongly believe these tasks can be fully covered
by one member of the Advisory Group, as we stated before, and not by a
co-chair. Finally, regarding special advisors, we recognize they can
facilitate the work of the chair, but if they are to remain, they should be
just advisors to the chair and not some other members of the Advisory Group
but not called so. Thank you, Chair.
>>CO-CHAIR VIANNA: Thank you very
much, ETNO. Any other requests? I recognize Nigeria. Nigeria, please.
>>Nigeria: Thank you, Mr. Chair. I would like to place it on record that we
do align with most of the recommendations made by ETNO and Russia, and would
like to say in respect of — especially those in respect to the size,
rotation, and membership rules. But we want to state that no matter the model
that is taken into consideration, there should be a special mention and
consideration made for developing countries and for gender to be represented.
Thank you very much.
>>CO-CHAIR VIANNA: Thank you, Nigeria. Mr. Adam
Peake, please.
>>ADAM PEAKE: Thank you, Mr. Chair. Firstly, a comment from
the e-mail that’s been coming in and being monitored. Just one comment so far
from Jeremy Malcolm, and he says, his question is who are the regional
coordinators of the Advisory Group? Which regions do they represent? And how
were these regions selected? And I believe Jeremy is talking about
representatives of regional government groups. Who they are, what they are,
and how they are formed. So that is a question from Jeremy that came in in
e-mail. And then a personal comment responding somewhat to the Russian
Federation’s belief that the mandate of the MAG is at an end. And I think we
have had some discussion on the Advisory Group mailing list about this. And
the general thought was actually that because of the nature of rotation
suggested by the Secretary-General when he reappointed the MAG in August, that
the MAG is now an ongoing process. Its mandate does not end. The MAG’s work
does not stop. It continues on this rolling basis as new members rotate in
and old members rotate out. So we don’t have a stop-start process. The
mandate doesn’t end. We continue to work. We should continue to work in this
meeting and beyond to call for workshops, to call for themes. And there is
not the stop-start process that we, unfortunately, experienced last year. So
that is certainly my opinion of what was meant by the idea of rotation. We
should continue our work and our mandate is not at an end.
>>CO-CHAIR
VIANNA: Thank you, Mr. Peake. Yes, I would like to give the floor to Mr.
Kummer that will explain or try to answer the question that was raised online.
Thank you.
>>SECRETARY KUMMER: Thank you, chairman. The regional
coordinators refer to the five regional groups as we use them in WSIS. That
is Asia, Africa, Latin American and Caribbean group, Eastern Europe and
Western Europe and others, meaning Western Europe plus U.S., Canada, also
Australia and New Zealand. But the regional groups nominated — or made the
proposals for the government representatives for the group and in the courses
of the actions of deliberations, we felt it was useful to associate the
coordinators of these respective groups to the meeting so they have a link
with their regional groups who brief them on the proceedings and so on. So
this is — has been well established now for the past two years or so, and we
have found it to be a very useful link to the diplomatic community in Geneva.
>>CO-CHAIR VIANNA: Thank you, Mr. Kummer. NGO is asking for the floor.
>>NGO: Yes. I’m Francis Muguet. I am a member of the WSIS working group
on information network governance. And the focal point of the dynamic
coalition on linguistic diversity. But I am pressing myself in my personal
capacity, since we have been caught a little off guard to prepare the comment
reflecting a formal consensus. It is a paradox that the governance of the
Internet Governance Forum itself is raising serious legal issues. The origin
of the prevailing malaise and ambiguity of the IGF process is that the Tunis
Agenda for governance has defined the mandate and organization IGF has been
negotiated by one set of stakeholders, implemented by the different set of
stakeholders. First of all, the U.N. traditional distinction between
procedural and content matters has not been followed. The bureau as mentioned
in this text to deal with separate issues and has not being created. A
program committee to deal with content matters has not been created either.
Instead, an all-powerful Advisory Group has been created to deal in a fuzzy
way on both issues. This does not fit well with the separation of power which
we can find in many democracies. It must be reminded that the MAG has been
constituted as a temporary body to prepare the Athens meeting, and its
composition was made in consideration of this temporary status. There was a
question at that time by Robert Guerra that was very precise, and there was a
very clear answer from the chair. The aggravating factor is that the set of
stakeholders that are prevailing in the current MAG does not correspond to the
same set of stakeholders negotiated in the Tunis Agenda. The prevailing set of
stakeholders in the MAG will have never agreed to the Tunis Agenda and is
clearly (inaudible) in implementing it. Therefore, the Tunis Agenda is not
fully implemented. We could make the analogy with a dinner party. The menu
was chosen by one set of prospective guests, and were decided about the diner,
but then another set of guests are coming instead. And they do not like
necessarily the menu. The legal question, does the creation of the MAG replace
the need of reformation of a bureau and a program committee. An answer will
be most welcome. Concerning the possible rotation of the MAG and the creation
of the bureau and the program committee, a public nomination process and call
should be made. The program committee should be different for each meeting
while the bureau could be more permanent. If the Tunis Agenda is the law of
the IGF, then there is a distinct possibility that the current process could
become illegal. The chair should carefully assess this aspect. Now, as we are
getting to the midpoint of the IGF process, it is time for a first assessment.
It is now a time for each stakeholder to take everything with the larger
picture, not to be blindfolded by their own interest in order to evaluate if
we are not missing a fantastic opportunity to build a multistakeholder process
on a sound legal basis. Thank you for your attention.
>>CO-CHAIR VIANNA:
Thank you, Mr. Muguet. I would like to give the floor to APC.
>>APC: Thank
you, co-chair. APC, Association for Progressive Communications. My name is
Anriette Esterhausen, I am speaking on behalf of APC. We would like to
endorse previous inputs, particularly that of the civil society, Internet
governance caucus, and Adam Peake and Internet society and don’t have much new
to add. Just perhaps emphasize some practical considerations. The one is with
the mandate, regarding the mandate of the MAG. As Adam Peake pointed out,
it’s ongoing. I do think it would be worth revisiting it and clarifying it in
the light of some of the nuances that are being added to the broader IGF
process. For example, national and regional Internet governance forums. I
think it would be worth considering whether the MAG should have any
relationship or accountability or take account of participating in those, or
interacting with those. I think that would be quite important. Similarly, the
relationship between the MAG and dynamic coalitions, it might be worth
considering creating some milestones for interaction with dynamic coalitions
and the MAG, beyond just these public consultation. And similarly, if there
were working groups and if the proposal that’s being made by some entities for
the IGF to look at working groups alongside dynamic coalition, it would be
also important to look at what the MAG’s relationship is to those working
groups. And then particularly with regard to transparency and reporting, I
think it would be good to come up with a very concrete, feasible proposal for
how the MAG can report to the broader IGF community. And to do this, I want to
emphasize the feasibility of this, because if it’s a burden that then rests on
the Secretariat, which already has insufficient resources, it might not prove
sustainable. And linked to that, we recommend, as we made in our previous
submission on the MAG, I think last September, that the MAG looks at creating
some form of organizing or management committee, a slightly smaller structure
within the MAG that can take responsibility for then adhering to this code of
reporting and maintaining the desired transparency. That’s all.
>>CO-CHAIR
VIANNA: Thank you very much APC. Colleagues, it’s 1:00. We should adjourn
now, and we will be resuming at 3:00 on the same item of the agenda. Thank
you. Have a good lunch.
Internet Governance Forum Open consultations Geneva 26 February 2008 Afternoon
Session (Gavel)
>>CO-CHAIR VIANNA: Good afternoon, participants. Let’s
resume our session. I’d like to take requests for the floor on Item 2 of our
agenda. We’re discussing the role, the nature and many other aspects of the
Multistakeholder Advisory Group. Some colleagues have already taken the floor
in the morning session, and, as I said, the floor is open for more
contributions.
>>CO-CHAIR DESAI: I think, basically, it appears that most
of the people who wanted to have spoken on this issue, there are certain
things which are reasonably clear. The idea of a group which is renewed is
presumed. We came up with several things. The procedure for the appointment
was mentioned. The transparency of the proceedings of the group that was
mentioned, there were more basic questions that were raised about the basis
for this group and that’s, more or less, where we were. So this has provoked
two or three people to speak up, so let’s continue. I hand it back to the
chair.
>>CO-CHAIR VIANNA: Thank you, Co-chair Desai. Brazil asked for the
floor. Brazil has the floor. I recognize China and, for the moment, that’s
all.
>>BRAZIL: Thank you. Thank you very much, Co-chair Desai and Co-chair
Vianna. Thank you very much Markus Kummer as well. I have a few remarks to
make. In broad terms, I wish to reiterate two very important points which I
think that were very important in the Rio meeting. The first was the main
session on critical Internet resources which allowed for a very important and
fundamental discussions on a crucial issue. And critical Internet resources
is, indeed, something that is foreseen in Tunis Paragraph 72(j). And, also,
the Rio meeting produced an important outcome which was the IGF’s Chairman
summary. And before entering in the more specific issue of the MAG, also
simply to reiterate that IGF is a process that needs to keep evolving. And now
coming to the method of work and to the procedure of nomination of the
Multistakeholder Advisory Group, Brazil believes that multistakeholder in the
stage that we are means that MAG must comprise four basic sectors, which is
governance, the private sector, civil society and academia. This is the basic
composition of MAG. We agree in general that four members is, indeed, a good
number. And now coming to the issue of rotation. I would wish to point out
that two very important ideas were expressed in the morning. The first one
was that members should not serve for more than two terms. This is an idea
that could be further explored and further discussed as a way of guaranteeing
that MAG composition will rotate. And another idea was also — the first one
was on the “should not serve more than two terms,” and the other one was the
idea of having an annual renewal of one-third of members. Those are two very
good ideas that could be further explored and further discussed here in this
meeting. And as I’ve said before, we believe that “multistakeholder” means
government, the private sector, academia and civil society. And, also, one
idea that was pointed out by Mr. Bill Graham from ISOC, which I think is very
important, is the cross-cutting issue of capacity-building, capacity-building
for Internet governance. This is a broad area of cooperation that could be
further explored. Thank you very much.
>>CO-CHAIR VIANNA: Thank you,
Brazil. China, you have the floor.
>>CHINA: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The
Chinese government has the following views on the question of rotation of
membership. Number one, the Chinese government believes that in the question
of rotation in MAG, the membership of the developing countries should be
increased. At present, the representation of the developing countries are not
sufficient. We feel that in the new round, the representation of developing
countries should be raised so that the views of the developing countries will
be objectively and adequately expressed. Number two, the actual rotation
should take into consideration the principles of gender balance and regional
balance. The IGF — the main job in IGF is the coordination of the government
and the industry. Therefore, the position of government is very important,
especially in the developing countries because the industry and the private
sector are relatively weak. Therefore, government is very important.
Therefore, we would suggest that the current membership — the current
proportion of the government should be maintained. Number three, I think the
group should use the working method of consensus. We note that the MAG is an
Advisory Group and not a decision-making body. Therefore, the group should
discuss the questions which have divergence among the members. The views of
the MAG should represent the concerns of all parties. Thank you, Mr.
Chairman.
>>CO-CHAIR VIANNA: Thank you, China. I’ll give the floor to
ICC/BASIS.
>>ICC/BASIS: Thank you. My name is Illka Lakaniemi speaking
here on behalf of the ICC/BASIS. I would like to do the following comments on
the issues. On the issue of the host country co-chair, ICC/BASIS supports the
reconfirmation of Mr. Nitin Desai as the chair of the Advisory Group as our
input ahead of the IGF in Rio undertaking stock and way-forward sessions
outlined. We believe that the chair of the IGF Advisory Group has an
important role to play and must be a neutral objective and balanced in this
guiding role. The naming of a co-chair was an experiment that has concluded.
We support only a special liaison from the host country of India being
appointed to assist the chair, Mr. Nitin Desai, with planning and logistics.
We support this approach because such a role will help facilitate this
important aspect of a successful IGF meeting. In addition, it will enable us
to return to the clearer situation of having one chair and allowing Mr. Desai
to focus more completely on the work of the Advisory Group and the open
consultations. Regarding the rotation of the Advisory Group, ICC/BASIS
supports maintaining the important link of the IGF Advisory Group to the
United Nations Secretary-General’s office. We also support the current
balance of representatives from government, business civil society and
technical community in the Advisory Group. These statements have been said
earlier today, for instance, by ETNO and ISOC. It is important to build on
the experience of experts who have participated in the Advisory Group and also
to bring in new expertise for planning of the next IGF in India. Thus, we
would support a voluntary renewal and rotation process with approximately
one-third of the representatives from each stakeholder group being replaced
while the remaining two-thirds would be reconfirmed. Among the criteria for
rotation and renewal process should be the active engagement and constructive
participation of Advisory Group members at the meetings in the online and
offline consultations and at the IGF and commitment to fulfill these
responsibilities. ICC/BASIS proposes that the IGF Secretariat post a call for
proposed names from all of the stakeholder groups for consideration in
rotation and renewal of the Advisory Group members. Such a call would also
envision asking current members about their plans for their own personal
continuation in the group or whether they would be interested in creating
space for a replacement including suggesting names for possible replacements.
This would allow a critical objective to be met which is to have the Advisory
Group confirmed just after the February consultations and stock-taking
meetings of the current Advisory Group. This is critical to ensure that the
program for the IGF in Hyderabad is well progressed between May 2008 and
planning and invitations will be facilitated by this action. We support the
need for geographic diversity to be carefully considered in the renewal and
rotation process for the Advisory Group. We support the input that has been
earlier said about the ongoing role of the Advisory Group and we do not
support changing the name, structure, format or rules of procedure of the
Advisory Group to a bureau or a Program Committee, even though many of the
functions of a bureau or Program Committee are de facto carried out by the
Advisory Group. The existing format has worked well for the past two IGFs and
should be maintained. Consideration should be given to establishing a schedule
for IGF key dates that can be counted on each year instead of reinventing the
wheel each year. This concludes the remarks of ICC/BASIS for now and we will
come back on other issues later. Thank you very much.
>>CO-CHAIR VIANNA:
Thank you, ICC. I recognize Canada. Canada, you have the floor.
>>CANADA:
Thank you, Chairman. I have several remarks to make in regards to the
Advisory Group. We believe the members of the Multistakeholder Advisory Group
should continue to be appointed by the Secretary-General of the United
Nations. Early appointment of Advisory Group members will better allow
preparations to be made for the forum in December. In Canada’s view, the
Advisory Group mandate remains appropriate and accords fully with the
reference to a bureau contained in paragraph 78 of the Tunis Agenda. As many
have mentioned, there should be a means for rotating membership of the
Advisory Group but not to exceed 30% of the total membership each year.
Efforts must be made to not only adequately represent the various stakeholder
groups but also to reflect diversity, including geographic and gender
diversity. Publishing an agenda and summary reports is a useful way to enhance
the transparency of the Advisory Group. Such reporting should be pursued as
the preparations for the third IGF progresses. However, the Advisory Group
discussions should remain closed and comments by members left unattributed in
order to allow the Advisory Group to productively conduct its work. Thank
you.
>>CO-CHAIR VIANNA: Thank you, Canada.
>>CO-CHAIR DESAI: Canada has
just spoken.
>>CO-CHAIR VIANNA: I don’t see any other requests for the
floor. Oh, Egypt, please. And then El Salvador.
>>EGYPT: Thank you, Mr.
Chairman. Egypt would like to share some comments on the issue of the
Advisory Group. With issue of rotation it is important to maintain as we
believe the continuity within the Advisory Group members, not only for the
next meeting in India but also for the IGF meeting in Egypt and the following
one. Therefore, we believe that the percentage of members to be rotated has
to be flexible where one-third would be an upper limit. On the issue of the
need to increase transparency, we believe that opening up the Advisory Group
meeting to observers would probably serve such an issue and would also enrich
public online discussions on the different topics at hand. It is important,
though, to look into different options so that the number of observers do not
become a matter of concern from a negative perspective. As for membership, I
would like to stress here that the composition of the Advisory Group should
continue to be based on a multistakeholder approach that goes in line with the
(inaudible) of WSIS and at the same time serves in keeping up with the
interest shown by the different stakeholders. In connection with this point,
Mr. Chairman, we think that the government — the members of the government
stakeholder group within the Advisory Group, we believe that they do represent
their own governments and they may wish to seek the support of their national
expertise through participating in the Advisory Group meetings. And we would
like this to be implemented for the upcoming meetings. Two more points. Egypt
would like to associate itself with the views expressed by some participants
on the need to holding on the principle of continuity with regard to the
Chairman of the Advisory Group in this position for the remainder of the IGF
mandate. And the second point related to this one is the issue of having a
co-chair from the host country where we believe that such an issue should be
carefully assessed based on the experiences we witnessed over the last two
meetings of the IGF in Athens and in Rio and that such an assessment should
lead to some sort of consensus on a sustainable model for the future meetings.
I wish to adhere that it is equally important in this point to take into
account the views of the host country regarding this particular issue. Thank
you, Mr. Chairman.
>>CO-CHAIR VIANNA: El Salvador.
>>EL SALVADOR: Thank
you, Mr. Chairman. First, I would like to report to the room that an
ministerial-level meeting was held recently in Latin America and the Caribbean
on the information society. At the meeting, our region renewed its commitment
to fulfill all commitments undertaken at this summit, including Internet
governance. And at the time, we also convened a working group which met at
the end of last year. Now going into the specifics, sir, regarding to the
issue that we are examining at this moment. El Salvador would like to express
its support to the chair for this exercise in Internet governance and would
like Mr. Nitin Desai to continue in his function until the end. We also
understand that rotation is very important and we further understand it should
be on a voluntary basis and not based on any specific cabalistic, if you will,
percentage. 13% seems an appropriate number. Decisions should be taken at the
general level in the United Nations with regard to the functioning of the
Advisory Group. It should be geared to making sure that it works. That’s how
it should be managed. In other words, diversity balance should be ensured in
all arenas. Now, this is very important but what’s even more important than
balance is the fact that the Advisory Group should be able to do its work and
achieve the goals set for it. Thank you.
>>CO-CHAIR VIANNA: Thank you to
the ambassador of El Salvador. I will now give the floor to ITAA, Mrs. Cade.
>>ITAA: Thank you. My comments at this moment are offered on behalf of
WITSA. I mentioned earlier that ITAA is a sister association to WITSA, an
alliance of over 60 associations, most of which are located in developing
countries. And I would like to comment specifically on the issue of the
importance of maintaining a diverse, geographically distributed representative
and Multistakeholder Advisory Group, as many others have already commented.
WITSA does support the idea of a carefully planned rotational approach that
will enable the MAG to achieve its mission and its purpose. Members should be
invited to consider rotation and new potential member nominations should be
received from interesting groups, individuals and organizations and the
decisions about final appointment will need to be made by the secretariat and
the appointments should continue to be made by the U.N. Secretary-General. A
member of the MAG should bring skills, expertise and expertise — sorry,
experience and expertise. And we believe it is important to ensure that all
four of the key second fors, business, civil society, governments and the
technical community are represented. Appointees should continue to act in an
individual capacity but WITSA believes that they should also bring the ability
to reach a very brought base of interested stakeholders from their own
community as they should engage in discussions and participation more broadly.
The Advisory Group should be appointed as early in the IGF annual cycle as is
possible. We recognize, however, that we are where we are and until this
process is complete we support the current Advisory Group continuing to act to
support the planning process. Thank you.
>>CO-CHAIR VIANNA: Thank you very
much, Ms. Cade. I recognize Mr. Al-shatti. You have the floor, sir.
>>QUSAI AL-SHATTI: Qusai Al-Shatti talking on behalf of Kuwait information
technology. Let me, first, thank the Brazilian government in organizing the
successful second meeting of the IGF in Rio de Janeiro, and we look forward to
the meeting in Hyderabad with continued success. On the issue of the rotation
of the multistakeholder group, the MAG, we support the statement of the
Internet Governance Caucus in this regard. We find the rotation of the MAG
members should not exceed one-third of the total number of its members to
ensure continuity, the balance among all stakeholders, the geographical
balance and the agenda balance should always be maintained with any rotation
and we should not underline the role of the technical and academic communities
which have played a major role during the WSIS process on the issues related
to Internet governance and their work was especially recognized through the
WGIG work and the WGIG report. Last, on a personal note, I would like to thank
the Indian government and the secretariat of the IGF in considering
rescheduling the dates of the IGF event in December which was conflicting with
the Eidil Kabir occasion, which was the Islam occasion for us. I would like
to thank both of them and recognizing that, and we hope we see you all there.
Thank you very much.
>>CO-CHAIR VIANNA: Thank you very much, Mr. Al-Shatti.
Any other requests for the floor? Well, I don’t see any other requests so we
could move on to Article 3 — point 3 of our agenda. But before that, Mr.
Co-chairman, I would like to make a very brief comment. I’m sorry, I see that
France is asking for the floor. So I reserve my comments to after the
statement of France.
>>FRANCE: Thank you, Mr. Chair. I don’t take the fact
that no other requests from the floor has been put forward as allowing me to
keep the floor until almost the end of the session this afternoon. [ Laughter
]
>>FRANCE: I have listened carefully to a certain number of
contributions. This issue of the MAG and the composition and its rotation is
a very interesting one. I heard a few remarks that I think should be taken
into account as the list of criteria that will be used by the Secretariat and
the UNSG in picking up the different actors who might be joining the Advisory
Group. One key element is, indeed, the size or connections to various
communities that the different actors have. We do not consider that the
Advisory Group members are actually representing or representatives of a
specific stakeholder or stakeholder group. They are chosen and should serve
on their personal capacity. And it is in the interest of the whole community
that the members of this group, as a whole, represent as broad and as diverse
a range of perspective and viewpoints on the different issues so that, as a
matter of fact, it is not about having a representative group in terms of the
stakeholder groups, but a representative group in terms of the diversity of
the viewpoints that have to be taken into account. In that respect, divisions
between stakeholder groups is not something that we should adhere too strongly
to, because actually the frontiers are very fluid. I know a certain number of
colleagues who actually have crossed the boundary between government and civil
society, when I crossed the boundary on the other way around. I think the fact
that a lot of people in the Advisory Group have either successively or
simultaneously had various hats is a very good benefit for the group in terms
of it being recognized and accepted by the broad community as basically being
balanced.
So I would strongly — We would strongly recommend not trying to find very
careful balances between very well-defined stakeholder groups, but, rather,
combine a whole group with gender, geographic, and experience diversity.
Another element that has not been mentioned, but I think should be taken into
account, is that, as much as possible, reward should be given to actors during
the course of the last two IGFs who have devoted some energy to the
organization of workshops, to the gathering of stakeholders, to the
organization of regional meetings and so on. This is something that should be
encouraged, and the composition of the group in the future should reflect that
as much as possible. We also support the notion of a Chair that provides a key
facilitating role and support the continuation of Nitin Desai as such a chair,
without, at the same time, putting on him the burden of an eternal
responsibility for this organization. But I would like to address an issue
that has not been addressed. Everybody is talking very frankly about rotating
one-third, but the question is how do you rotate? How do you choose? There
is, of course, a comment about whether natural attrition will provide this
replacement. I don’t believe it will be the case because most of the Advisory
Group members are actively involved and they have legitimate reasons to want
to remain in there. I would like to make a distinction between actors who have
been somehow identified through the governmental traditional identification
method and the other members of the Advisory Group. As far as the European
Union is concerned, we have a natural rotation mechanism that will provide a
natural suggestion for members. Maybe it could be possible to send a message
to the different regional groups for the governmental participants that an
objective of rotating a third of the members is their responsibility, and they
have to discuss among the different geographic groups to make recommendations
of people that would be interesting and widely recognized as useful. For the
other part, and apologies for being blunt, is there a possibility of
considering just drawing by lot among the different actors to basically
provide this rotation? I mean, this is a hidden — or a — I mean, it’s the
elephant in the room. We are talking about rotation, a third. How do we
decide? This doesn’t mean that people who are in the MAG today and who would
be picked by this rotation could not be redesignated if they seem to be very
appropriate according to those criteria. But I think this is a way just to
explore. It’s not the ultimate solution, but it’s something that we shouldn’t
hide, and maybe the Advisory Group itself will be discussing that afterwards.
Finally, there is a distinction between actually two periods. I have heard
notions of three term — three-year mandates, not more than two mandates of
three years. There is a distinction between the period from now to basically
the meeting that will take place after Egypt and the period afterwards. Maybe
the period between now and the meeting after Egypt should be used, one way or
the other, to establish a mechanism that would then continue on its own,
naturally, afterwards, should the IGF continue, which I hope, after this
period. So there is a difference, probably, between the transition and the
final, final system. Finally, I would just like the opportunity to mention one
thing that has not been used at all, and I think it is a pity, is that there
is a plenary list for the IGF. And I think it should be used — first of all,
advertised much better, because there are many few people who are subscribed
to the list, and it should be used as a sounding board, an interaction
mechanism, with the Advisory Group. I saw that there is a discussion within
the Advisory Group on the notion of a closed list and an open list. I would
advocate that, actually, there is no need to create this distinction. It
already exists. There is an open list called the plenary, and there is
nothing that prevents Advisory Group members from posting regularly on this
list to get feedback from the rest of the community. Thank you.
>>CO-CHAIR
VIANNA: Thank you, France. I recognize Mr. Echeberria. And then I would
like to give the floor to our co-chair, Mr. Nitin Desai. Mr. Echeberria.
>>RAUL ECHEBERRIA: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I will be very
brief. Since most of the proposals that I wanted to make have been already
mentioned, having said this, I would like to say that we are in favor and
(inaudible) are also in favor of a partial rotation of the Advisory Group, and
a rotation of a third of the Advisory Group is something that would be good,
and it seems to enjoy support. And to reply to the question on how to elect
this one-third of the members, new members, well, I believe that we should
trust the Secretariat, the chairman, and the Secretary-General of the United
Nations, and I’m sure they will be able to balance the composition of the
Advisory Group. I am convinced that many people are willing to participate in
this work. They will be very interested in carrying out this work, and I
don’t think it will be difficult to find the candidates to replace one-third
of the Advisory Group. Indeed, perhaps there could be an eventual conflict
between the desire for the members of the Advisory Group not to go beyond the
two terms, and this will be part of the rotation process. And of course
one-third of the members of the Advisory Group will still be there for four
years. And we can, of course, decide to replace a bigger number of members,
more than one-third, but I’m not sure that this is actually possible because I
think that this is the number that is enjoying consensus now. As far as the
chairman is concerned, it seems that Mr. Nitin Desai is enjoying a lot of
support here, and we hope that this wish will become a reality and that Mr.
Desai would actually like to continue his work as a chairman. This is a very
demanding work requiring a lot of energy, so we do hope that he will continue
to be the chairman. And we also believe that the Chair should remain in place
and the co-chairman should continue their work, in order to continue their
work with the host country, especially for issues of protocol and logistics.
We are also in favor of limiting the number of advisors. I think they should
be chosen in the same way as we choose the Advisory Group. Thank you.
>>CO-CHAIR VIANNA: Thank you very much, Mr. Echeberria. I will turn it
over now to Chairman Desai.
>>CO-CHAIR DESAI: Thank you. I think this has
been a very useful discussion. I’m sure the Advisory Group will take these
ideas into account. I think the question of the one-third is something which
would stabilize if the group continues. It is largely a matter of the next two
years that we have to work out. I think on the question of the chairmanship,
this is an Advisory Group of the Secretary-General. It is basically up to the
Secretary-General to decide. I am very grateful for your kind comments, and
certainly the comment about what is neutral, objective and balanced is
something I shall convey to my wife and children, who may have a somewhat
different view on this matter. (laughing). So I think it’s something that
should be left to the Secretary-General. I really don’t want to comment much
more on this, Mr. Chairman, but you may wish to say a bit more.
>>CO-CHAIR
VIANNA: Well, thank you very much, co-chair Desai. I don’t see any other
requests for the floor. I will ask for your indulgence for just a minor
comment from this co-chair. Well, all that you have mentioned is extremely
important for the work of the MAG that, as you know, starts tomorrow. All the
contributions, I’m very sure, will constitute excellent material for debates
and coordination. I’d like, if you allow me to, to touch a subject which I
consider very important as well, and has to do with the work I have done here.
It has to do with the chairmanship. In my — From my point of view, there are
two aspects that are very much important. One has to do with continuity. And
I personally share all the ideas, all the contributions that mention the need
to have Mr. Desai guiding us throughout this process. I would very much
appreciate that the group could count upon his skills, his experience in
advising the U.N. Secretary-General on IGF issues. The other aspect has to do
with the question of co-chairmanship. I think I am the first co-chair to exist
in this process, so — and this is the last time I co-chair these
consultations. So what I can tell you is that, as for Brazil, this exercise
was extremely important and adequate. I am not referring only to the
logistics. The question of logistics, the coordination for logistics. This
participation was very much instrumental, as I said in my speech. But I can
tell you that co-chairing the World Summit helped me very much to advise the
Brazilian authorities with regard to their participation in the Rio meeting.
And again, it does not have to do only with logistics. It’s political. It
has to do with their expectations. I was able to advise them on your
expectations. And I hope that this work produced a quite neutral, a quite
productive Rio, as I heard your opinion, as it happened in my country last
year. So the conclusion would be, the question of co-chairmanship should be
taken case by case. So if the next host countries feel like having the same
experience that I had here, it’s up to the country to discuss with the MAG,
with the co-chair within the U.N. system. So this is the minor contribution I
would like to make. And if everybody agrees, we can move to the next item on
the agenda. And it has to do with the 2008 meeting. And I hand it to Mr.
Desai.
>>CO-CHAIR DESAI: As you know, the 2008 meeting is in India, and
rather than my trying to present anything, I am going to call upon India, Ravi
Shanker from India, to do a presentation so you have some sense of what are
the arrangements being made for the meeting in India. And then we can open it
up for discussion. So I can have a sense of how much time we have, are there
any people who would like to take time under the reports from related
activities? Can I get a sense? One, two, three, four, five. So there are
about five people — six. Six or seven. Okay. So it gives me a sense of how
much time we need to leave for that. Good. So Ravi, would you like to — Do
you have something which you are going to project or are you just going to —
Okay.
>>N. RAVI SHANKER: I do have a CD. And also, I would like to make a
verbal presentation. I would leave it to the honorable Chair to guide me as to
what —
>>CO-CHAIR DESAI: Are you ready? Because I think it would be hard
showing people. It would be easier for people to follow — Can you do this?
While you set it up, we will reverse — we will take the reports from related
activities, and then we can reverse to your presentation afterwards so that
gives you time to set up your presentation. And maybe somebody can help you
to do that. I think it’s worthwhile your showing the presentation to us on
screen. Okay? So somebody will — in the meantime, we will reverse it, and we
will take up, with your permission, item 4 on the reports from related
activities while you are doing that. So can I just have the — maybe I can
start with Carlos Afonso.
>>CARLOS AFONSO: I have been asked to read a
statement from the Internet Bill of Rights dynamic coalition. We the dynamic
coalition on the Internet Bill of Rights appreciate the opportunity to define
and clarify our coalition’s mission and vision at this first consultation
leading up to the IGF 2008, with the intention to invite the participation of
all stakeholders in order to contribute to the success of the IGF 2008, not
least by the advancement of the project described in our mission. The Internet
Bill of Rights is a dynamic coalition that has set out to make rights on the
Internet and their related duties, specified from the point of view of
individual users, a central theme of the Internet governance debate held in
the IGF context.
Respond to go the IGF’s mandate for multistakeholderism, the coalition
welcomes and, indeed, explicitly seeks participants from all stakeholder
groups, including individuals, civil society groups, the academic sector,
governments, intergovernmental organizations, the technical community and
private sector. Our mission is as follows. Bring awareness and promote
fundamental human and civil rights and liberties on the Internet, identify
ways in which these rights and liberties can be translated on the Internet and
evaluate the applicability of existing legislation. Promote the addressing of
issues of human civil rights in policy-making proposal by all stakeholders.
Promote the specification of how the existing rights can be applied and what
they practically imply in the context of new ICT technologies. Identify ways
in which new rights and principles deriving from the innovations caused by the
Internet can be defined, agreed and promoted when necessary. Seek to identify
measures for protection and enforcement of these rights. And seek to engage
the various stakeholders within the coalition’s mission and express the
coalition’s interest to work with them. We believe that a lot of work done for
and around the IGF is thematically overlapping. Therefore, the coalition
wants to be first and foremost a platform facilitating collaboration and
dovetailing the work of the dynamic coalitions, especially as they relate to
rights on the Internet. It wants to build a collection and showcase for the
federated results of all the dynamic coalitions from the IGF. It sets out
especially to promote a process and instruments to frame and enforce rights in
the Internet. We strongly believe that the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights is the basis for our work and we should build on all the existing work
that has been done in this field. We therefore ask you to contribute to the
collection of information and links to documents, projects and organizations
we have started in our Wiki, and contribute the results of this work to the
platform. Hence, the Bill of Rights platform will be, in fact, made of a set
of several documents, some existing, some new, some substantial, some
procedural or related to enforcement. For the moment, we foresee the platform
as a tool kit comprised of three elements. The first part is to meant to
illustrate and translate from a right to how we can enjoy this right online.
This should promote a common understanding of what one’s rights on the
Internet are, including clear guidelines on how these rights play out in
specific everyday activities conducted on the Internet by ordinary people —
sending and receiving e-mails, publishing content and so on. A second
important part is a collection of existing instruments and how they are
applied in today’s legislative practice, a database of precedents. This is
meant as a tool for lawyers and policymakers to get informed and compare
solutions and application. It would also serve as an Internet rights watch,
giving publicity and media attention to victims. This part of the Internet
Bill of Rights platform might also become a clearinghouse where users can find
out who they can contact to enforce their rights. Thirdly, the individual
users are meant to benefit from a translation and standardization of the
results of all the dynamic coalitions into layman terms and even graphical
standards that can communicate effectively what rights are guaranteed,
similarly to the creative commons icons. Inside the IBR framework, the
Internet Bill of Rights framework, is a space for one of these documents to be
a “bill of Rights” which can be endorsed and signed by institutions as well as
individuals, providing one further step that starts from the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights and other basic human rights documents, puts them
in context, and addresses new parts such as participatory rights and the
multistakeholder principle, which is not recognized anywhere in terms of
people-centered founding documents. Network principles such as network
neutrality, et cetera. And also, importantly, some high-level objectives of
the Internet and the Information Society. The Bill of Rights platform wants to
be a decentralized, distributed, collective effort to advance Internet rights
in all their dimensions, not only by promoting specific initiatives but also
by providing a conceptual and practical framework to support this effort. It
also aims to raise the awareness of the importance of this endeavor to curtail
the existing digital divides, to ensure the collective participation of all
stakeholders, and to support an inclusive and solid development of the
Internet which respects cultural and social diversities but adopts the global
public interest as its main objective. Thank you very much. We are looking
forward to your active participation. You can find information about the
history of the coalition and how to get involved at the Internet Bill of
Rights site, which I will be happy to inform you the exact address. Thank you.
>>CO-CHAIR DESAI: Can I just read out the names I have. I have ITU, then I
have APC, I have Mr. Al Shatti on this, then I have (saying name) from Diplo,
OECD, Mr. Pouzin, GIGAnet and Nominet
>>CO-CHAIR VIANNA: Council of Europe.
>>CO-CHAIR DESAI: Council of Europe. Are there any others? So these are
names I have down. So if I can hear ITU.
>>ITU: Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Marco (saying name). I
speak on behalf of the International Telecommunication Union. As mentioned
this morning by Mr. Johnson, which is the director of the standardization
bureau, ITU has established a dynamic coalition on accessibility and
disability and it is a concrete follow-up to one of the events we had in Rio,
with lots of other stakeholders expressed the interest in follow-up on this
specific issue. So this dynamic coalition aims to ensure that the ICT
accessibility is included in the key debate around Internet governance issues,
in order to build a future where all sector of the global community have equal
access to telecommunication and online information. So we are convinced the
entire community can benefit from an accessible ICT world, as people can
permanently or temporarily disabled due to personal, environmental, and
cultural conditions. So the initial list of founding partners who were active
in the field, in this field during the Rio meeting, can be found in the paper
that we have submitted to this meeting, and we have also made available in the
back of the room. Soon it will be available also on the IGF Web site in
coordination with the IGF Secretariat. ITU will be hosting also the Web site
on the dynamic coalition and all the electronic — related electronic
facilities that are still under development. So we would like to invite
whoever interested in improving ICT accessibility to join the coalition and to
contribute to our work. I would also like to make a general comment on
possible integration of some relevant issues within the debate of Internet
governance. As Mr. Desai said this morning, there are some other issues, like
sustainable developments, environment, that should be taken into
consideration. In particular, ITU, as other agencies belonging to the young
family, is investigating issues relating to climate change, specifically ICT
and climate change. We were at two main events in Kyoto in Japan and in
London, on the input of the use of ICT and the environment. And we could be
able to present the result of this work within the next IGF meeting, in case
it will be decided that these issues will have space. So we believe that these
kind of issues are very, very much relevant to the work of the Internet
Governance Forum. And we are available to investigate collaboration
opportunities. For example, establishment of another dynamic coalition on
that or some other cooperation activities with relevant stakeholders in case
this issue will be taken into consideration. Thank you very much.
>>CO-CHAIR
DESAI: Thank you. APC.
>>APC: Just a quick report. APC and the Council
of Europe are collaborating to do a fairly small-scale research project into
how the code of practice on self — on public participation and transparency
and Internet governance could learn from the experience of the Aarhus
convention, of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe. So it will
have a report ready hopefully by May that explores how institutions involved
in Internet governance can agree to a common code of practice, particularly
with regard to stakeholder participation and transparency, accountability.
>>CO-CHAIR DESAI: Thank you. Qusai Al-Shatti.
>>QUSAI AL-SHATTI: Thank
you, Mr. Chair. We are talking about the next meeting. This is the topic.
>>CO-CHAIR DESAI: Not yet.
>>QUSAI AL-SHATTI: Then I will hold to that.
>>CO-CHAIR DESAI: (saying name) from Diplo. Mic, mic.
>> Thank you, Mr.
Chair. Can you hear me? Okay, fine. I would like to provide brief update
about Internet governance capacity-building program both in my capacity as
adviser to the chair and director of Internet governance capacity-building
program. I’m sure that most of you had a chance to meet some people who have
been involved in Internet governance capacity-building program, both within
the IGF context, also in ICANN and other Internet governance fora.
Capacity-building program has been quiet but, I would say, substantive in
infrastructural aspect of the IGF process. Even before IGF, we started in the
— since WSIS process. Including IGF, we have trained 500 people in nine
months’ long program which involves online learning, policy research and
policy immersion which is extremely important aspect of the program, in
participation of meetings like this or in the works of the IGF Secretariat and
other foras, ICANN and other meetings. Capacity-building program is mainly
supported by Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, and we have other
partners who are also contributing by hosting the interns or by providing
expertise. Last year we trained 138 people and ten of them participated at
the meeting in Rio. Unfortunately, I missed Rio, but I see that I missed a
lot. The feedback from Rio is extremely positive, and we are preparing now
for the meeting in India. We will start the online learning course in March.
It will last for three months. It will be followed by policy research on
development issues and most successful participants, 10, 15 of them, depending
on available funds, will participate at the IGF 2008 in India. We have had
very successful cooperation with various institutions, including our strategy
partners, Swiss Development Agency, IGF Secretariat and other institutions
involved in the I.G. process. I would like to invite other institutions and
individuals to join us in this important and diverse infrastructural and
structural contribution to I.G. debate by providing expertise, fellowships for
the most successful participants and in some cases, if it is available,
funding for the participation in meetings. I will be on your disposal over the
next two days to discuss possible frameworks for cooperation. Thank you, Mr.
Chair.
>>CO-CHAIR DESAI: OECD.
>> OECD: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I’m
(saying name) of OECD. I noted with interest this morning that in your final
remarks you stressed the importance of economy and the Internet and the
importance and need of addressing the related issues. The OECD’s organizing
in a meeting — ministerial-level meeting on the future of the Internet
economy which will take place in Seoul, Korea on 17 and 18 June 2008 which
will have economic issues and the Internet as a key theme. As I mentioned, the
meeting will take place on 17 and 18 of June in the (saying name) Conference
Center in Seoul, Korea. And the ministerial will be preceded by three
parallel non-governmental stakeholder forums which will take place on 16th of
June also in the same conference center in Seoul. Participants in the meeting
include both OECD member countries — as you know, we have 30 member
countries, but we also invited 17 non-member countries to participate. And at
the moment, about 40 ministers have already confirmed their participation,
including the minister of Canada, Portugal, Australia, Mexico, U.K., Hungary,
Finland, but also Israel, Estonia, Brazil, Senegal, Egypt and many others. We
also have several high-level speakers at the meeting. Those include, for
example, Viviane Reding, the commissioner — the CEO of British Telecom; Vint
Cerf; Hamadoun Touré, the Secretary-General of the ITU and so on. We would
like — we would envision reporting the results of the ministerial during the
IGF meeting in December in India, as we think is a very important venue to
discuss what we — the result of our meeting in June and to receive feedback
from, perhaps, a wider community. I would like also to stress that we have —
in terms of the theme of the meeting, as we said, we are an organization whose
expertise is in economic analysis. And, therefore, we will try to focus on
these aspects that are relevant for the economy and the Internet in our
ministerial. For example, these issues include using the Internet to promote
creativity in developing sustainable economic growth, addressing challenges in
areas such as health care or the environment. Issues relating to the
management of scarce resources such as spectrum, for example, looking at
policies and regulations surrounding the Internet and NGN as convergence takes
place as well as other important issues relating to security and privacy. And,
of course, we would like to address the question of how to improve access to
the Internet economy for all countries. At our previous — just a final
remark. We have been talking a lot today about multistakeholder
participation, multistakeholder, and, of course, the IGF is deep embraced to
discuss this issue. At our previous ministerial in Ottawa in 1998, we had
multistakeholder participation and we would like to build on that this time
around. We believe we need to involve in the discussion on the future of the
Internet economy all stakeholders communities, government, private sector,
civil society and the Internet technical community. For this reason, the
stakeholder forums mentioned before are organized by this community and will
take place the day before the ministerial. The Korean government kindly
agreed to provide the facilities and the necessary support for those meetings.
Participants at the forums will have the possibility to report back to the
ministerial the following day so there will be a session to report on their
conclusions. And, well, I would just like to conclude saying all
non-government stakeholder communities are already actively involved in the
preparation and that we would welcome the involvement and contribution of all
interested stakeholders. For more information, about how to participate, I
would invite everybody to go and visit the OECD future of the Internet economy
Web site at the address, www.oecd.org/futureinternet or to contact the OECD
secretariat at futureInternet@oecd.org. Thank you.
>>CO-CHAIR DESAI: Thank
you. Louis Pouzin from Eurolinc.
>>EUROLINC: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Two
topics, quite independent. First about what we heard of the dynamic coalition
and the Bill of Internet rights or human rights, I am not quite sure. There
is a group in France which is working just on this subject and they would be
willing to participate in the dynamic coalition. So when this group — when
this coalition is being set up, could it please — they persons who are
setting that up advertise it so that the French colleagues are aware of it and
be able to get in touch. Okay. Second topic about Hyderabad. One proposed
theme, you know, the year 2008 is a year of languages as launched by UNESCO.
And, further, India is a perfect case of linguistic diversity. So taking this
as an opportunity, we just should think in Hyderabad we have a special theme
of the year which would be called “linguistic diversity.” And it is quite
predictable that there will be a lot of interested people in that part of the
world. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
>>CO-CHAIR DESAI: Certainly there will be.
In fact, there was a very good workshop on this in the ICANN meeting also.
You are absolutely right. There was a huge interest in India on this issue,
very huge interest. Can I have (saying name) from GIGAnet.
>> GIGANET:
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As you probably remember from the academic
community, after the presentation of the WGIG report in July 2005, it started
the process to organize itself and created a global Internet Governance
academic network which is called GIGAnet. And this was established during the
first IGF in Athens. During the Rio meeting, we had a second even more
successful GIGAnet symposium which attracted a lot of papers, academic papers
on the issue and although, you know, a lot of audience, thanks to the fact
that the GIGAnet symposium took place a day before the IGF started. We had a
lot of IGF participants in the meeting and a lot of representatives from
governments and from the private sector, you know, and this was a good place
for interaction from a — more or less, academic perspective about issues of
Internet Governance. We are planning now to have a GIGAnet meeting during the
upcoming Hyderabad meeting, and we would be very thankful if the secretariat
would cooperate with the GIGAnet people to make sure we have a full-day
symposium on eve of the IGF also in Hyderabad. We are planning although more
activities between the IGF — during the forthcoming ICANN meeting in paris.
There will be a special academic panel on Internet Governance in June 2008 and
in July 2008 during the IMCR conference in Stockholm. There will be another
academic session on Internet governance issues. And as another result of this
GIGAnet process, we launched last year a summer school on Internet governance
which was successful and we are planning now a second summer school on
Internet governance which takes place in July, again in Germany. And I have
distributed some flyers. So the applications for the summer school is open.
Furthermore, with the success of the summer school in Germany last year, we
have discovered that there are two summers on the globe. One in the north and
one in the south. And so we want to organize in 2009 a summer school in March
in the south in Buenos Aires. And Olga Cavalli is at the moment working on a
meeting in March 2009 in Argentina.
>>CO-CHAIR DESAI: Thank you. Emily
Taylor from Nominet.
>>NOMINET: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to
update you on our work in the U.K. to create a national process to support the
international dialogue on IGF. Over the last couple of years, we have been
working in partnership with parliamentarians and the department of business to
further this aim. On the 6th of March, we will hold a launch event for the
U.K. IGF in parliament. This will encompass a number of activities which are
taking place at the local level. So we will be launching the best practice
challenge 2008, a project that we did for the first time last year. The aim
is to give a picture of U.K. activity and best practice in the key IGF themes,
such as openness, security, access and diversity. But we will also hear from
those engaged in related activities such as an initiative to create a crime
and nuisance reduction partnership which is led by the Right Honorable Alan
Michael who is showcasing this example as an example of walking the talk and
doing as we speak in the IGF context. There will be a number of
multistakeholder panels including Markus Kummer and Nick Thorn (phonetic), the
U.K. ambassador to the U.N., as well as people from the government, business
and civil society. Those panels will be moderated by British
parliamentarians. Through the rest of the year we plan two messaging sessions;
first of all, to identify issues of importance and priorities for U.K.
stakeholders. And then prior to the Hyderabad meeting in the autumn, we plan
to bring together the work that will have been continuing through the year to
see where we are and to showcase and exhibit the winners from the best
practice challenge. We’re hoping to collaborate — as Bertrand mentioned
earlier, we are hoping to collaborate with colleagues from France, Finland and
Brazil to explore what’s going on at the national level at the IGF in India.
There is also activity at the E.U. level to report on. There is a meeting
next week organized by the European Internet Foundation in which MEPs will try
to explore whether they have a role in coordinating and bringing together
stakeholders at the European — the regional level and to showcase some can
examples of what is going on at the national level. So we will hear from a
colleague from France about work they have done for development and
capacity-building of country code registries in the African region. This
concludes my remarks. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
>>CO-CHAIR DESAI: Council of
Europe.
>>COUNCIL OF EUROPE: As I said this morning, Mr. Chairman, the IGF
has stimulated Council of Europe Internet governance work in very concrete
terms. My first example was also meant to illustrate the fulfilling of the
interface and the emerging issues objectives of the IGF. However, the example
in question was already covered by the intervention of the Association for
Progressive Communication. It flows the work that was referred to from a best
practice forum which was co-organized together with the U.N. Economic
Commission for Europe and the APC, and that very clearly shows the impact of
these workshops, of these forums on concrete projects that emerge afterwards
and in that particular case were already mentioned in the reporting back
sessions in Rio. Now, turning to children, only last week the 47 Council of
Europe member states made known their view that other than in the context of
law enforcement there should be no lasting or permanently accessible record of
the content created by children on the Internet which challenges their
dignity, security and privacy or otherwise renders them vulnerable now or at a
later stage in their lives. They agreed that it is desirable for states to
explore with other relevant stakeholders the feasibility of removing or
deleting such content including traces of children’s Internet activities
within a reasonably short period of time. This relates to the so-called
electronic footprint that children leave on the Internet. Since Rio, adding
also to the Council of Europe material on Internet literacy for children, we
have updated our handbook for classroom use on Internet trends and terminology
and we have launched a human rights-based online game for children, the Wild
Web Woods. The Rio IGF also allowed the Council of Europe to present some of
its work which is relevant to Internet governance. And the response of
participants also helped to give direction to and to put into context core
areas of Council of Europe work, particularly concerning cybercrime, data
protection of private life as well as the protection of children against
sexual exploitation and sexual abuse. We noted with interest that calls were
made by IGF participants for broader ratification or accession to our globally
applicable conventions, something that would no doubt contribute to
harmonization. This is a matter of ongoing consideration for us and we have
pursued very concrete contacts with a number of states in that respect. Thank
you very much.
>>CO-CHAIR DESAI: Thank you. I have got Kenya, France.
Okay. And Francis Muguet.
>> NGO: Yes, I wanted to take advantage of the
fact that there is interpreting available. As far as the Hyderabad meeting
topics are concerned, there was a proposal for the multilingual Internet. As
someone else mentioned, it is also the international year of languages which
has been recognized by the United Nations. And it was launched 20 February of
this month at UNESCO for the international mother tongue language year. Then
you have the inclusive ICT networking. In other words, it would be helpful to
examine all policies related to the different ISPs and fentasel (phonetic)
technologies which provide wireless access, which is a lot more centralized.
Another theme that can be mentioned is the distribution of digital content on
the Internet. With the evolution of a national station, the ISPs have become
really important and it has really created a problem from the point of view of
governance on the Internet. And, finally, the Internet of things, this is an
Internet, something that will be many times larger than the Internet that we
know with the RGD connection and the Internet. This is a governance that is
just coming into being, and this is something that could be discussed in a
very fruitful manner and may lead to different recommendations. And, finally,
a very practical point from the work of Hyderabad, the working group on the
governance of Internet and information networks was very active in the weeks
just before Rio because the issue of funding for civil society and developing
countries was discussed. Unfortunately, this funding was not made available
and this is why it is very important to ensure that this funding which was in
existence during the time of Rio, that we hope there will be new funding
available. We have to make sure this funding is available to civil society.
Thank you.
>>CO-CHAIR DESAI: UN-DESA.
>> UN-DESA: Thank you, Mr.
Chairman. I would like to ask the floor because of a — one of the
suggestions made in the previous speakers in the morning, particularly, on the
increased public value service through the Internet. Therefore, I would like
to draw attention to the participants that UN-DESA not only has become the
host agency on behalf of the Secretary-General to facilitate the IGF
Secretariat work but also has been intensively working on the — helping the
member states to see how to use the Internet strategically to improve the
public service delivery. Therefore, I would like to call for maybe a joint
effort in the next forum to work together with some of the stakeholders
interested in this topic through a workshop addressing this particular issue,
if the theme is decided to add to the discussions of the next forum. Thank
you.
>>CO-CHAIR DESAI: I have Kenya, then I have the NSPCC, Katherine
Chapman, Switzerland, and somebody right to the back whose card I can’t read.
WHO? NGO. Welcome. Kenya.
>>KENYA: Okay, thank you. My name is Ken
Lohento. I represent the Association Institute from West Africa, and I work
on the project related to new technologies. That is the name of CEPAcom
(phonetic). I would like to say that we have been carrying out various
activities on Internet governance in Africa and most specifically one year ago
we prepared a document that reviews the challenges for Internet governance in
Africa — the Internet Governance Forum Debate in Africa. That’s the title of
the document. In this document, we tried to look at the different challenges
related to Internet governance and to see the different themes that are
related to this issue and to see what they look like in Africa and what are
the main actors in this area. And this document — these documents are
available on the Internet. There is a French version and English version of
the document, and we expect in the upcoming months to carry out an assessment,
how can individuals, African actors, have witnessed this Internet governance
forum over the past two years, what are their views and what they think should
be done in the future. And, also, I would like to mention the access society
which is a formal/informal network of actors from the civil society. This
association is planning a publication on issues of Internet governance in
Africa which may contribute to the organization of a meeting in Egypt. And so
it will be first the Hyderabad meeting and then after that a meeting in Egypt.
Thank you.
>>CO-CHAIR DESAI: Thank you. Maybe I could take these two
together which is one after another. First is NSPCC from Katherine Chapman
and then there is another group working in a similar area, ECPAT, Carmen
Melania Madriñan.
>> Thank you, Chair. I’m Kathleen Spencer Chapman from
the NSPCC in the U.K. My colleague mentioned earlier that we’re involved in
setting up a new network of NGOs from at the moment 14 European countries,
specializing in online child protection issues. So I just wanted to give a
bit more information about this network, which we hope will also play a
valuable role in the IGF. The game of the network is to bring together NGOs
from across European to show strategies and expertise in terms of protecting
children online. And we want to be able to voice the concerns and expertise
of these NGOs in European and international fora.
The policy themes that we’ll focus on will be Internet Governance and child
protection. We’re going to work also on the fight against online child sexual
abuse material and identification and protection of children who’ve been
abused in the production of images. We’ll also look at children’s use of
interactive technologies and how to protect and empower children to protect
themselves online. And we’ll also be looking at online grooming, manipulation
and sexual exploitation and this will, of course, give us a platform to
discuss a whole range of emerging issues in relation to child protection. The
network will be running for an initial period of two years and during that
time we’re going to put quite a lot of resources into developing the network
into at least the E.U. 27 countries we hope and also beyond building
partnerships with NGOs and neighboring countries and, of course, when we
intervene in international fora in partnerships beyond the NGO community at a
global level. Partnerships we hope will include In Hope, In Safe Council of
Europe, business industry, government, we want to really make this network a
part of a multistakeholder discussion. So to come back to the IGF, we want the
child online network to play a very dynamic role in the child protection
dynamic coalition and to make sure that that dynamic coalition can play a
really strong role within the IGF. So we look forward to working with the IGF
on those issues.
>>CO-CHAIR DESAI: Thank you very much. ECPAT.
>>ECPAT:
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just want to share, in preparation for the IGF, I’m
representing the dynamic coalition on child safety on the Internet. Some of
the activities that we are engaged with through the dynamic coalition, to
broaden the consultation process in advance of the IGF meeting in Hyderabad.
We’re mobilizing with private sector partners, NGOs, government in advance of
that meeting, particularly towards a world Congress that the government of
Brazil will be holding one month before the IGF, where we’re planning to bring
much of the work of the dynamic coalition for a broader global consultation.
And out of that, to bring it back into the IGF the following month. We think
it’s quite important to use these opportunities beyond the actually IGF
processes to make the work of the IGF known. And we see this as a very
important opportunity, as the Congress is linked to many international
processes, and also will count on government delegations that will participate
from all countries around the world. Thank you very much.
>>CO-CHAIR DESAI:
Thank you very much. Switzerland.
>>SWITZERLAND: Thank you very much, Mr.
Chair. Actually, I have just a procedural question. We decided, according to
the agenda, not to take the floor in the morning and to concentrate our
remarks on our ideas and proposals for the India meeting the next year. But
given that many speakers have already expressed their ideas of the next
meeting, just a question, will there be — also looking at the clock, will
there be a session on the next meeting, or shall I make my remarks now?
>>CO-CHAIR DESAI: In fact, you are the last scheduled speaker for this
agenda item before we move to the agenda item on the India meeting. You may as
well begin. And we can move to the next agenda item, which is the 2008
meeting. But if you would agree, Thomas, we could perhaps hear the
presentation from India first, and then we can — you could take the floor.
Can I have the presentation from India?
>>INDIA: Thank you, Chairman. The
IGF 2008 is scheduled to be held at Hyderabad from the 3rd to 6th of December.
The venue will be the Hyderabad International Convention Center. For those who
will be keen to know where Hyderabad is, it is in the southern part of India,
and it is equidistant between Dubai and Singapore. International connections
are fairly moderate to Hyderabad, but should increase in the next few months.
Next slide, please. Hyderabad is the fifth largest city in India. It’s a
400-year-old city, a blend of modern and tradition. It’s developing as an I.T.
hub, with “Cyberabad” as the I.T. city, a cyber city. It has emerged as the
convention capital of India, and in accordance with the convention center’s
requirement, a lot of hotel rooms are there in the city. This is information,
general, on Hyderabad. Fairly temperate climate, and in the month of December,
it should be salubrious, so for those who are coming from different parts of
the world, I promise it will be fair weather. This is the USB. A new
international airport is coming up at Hyderabad. The first flight is to
commence from the third week of March 2008. So IGF 2008, in a way, is auger to
all good things with the Hyderabad International Airport coming well before
the IGF. Next slide. The convention center is close to the city — I mean the
new international airport. And I think that augers well. As the new
international airport should commence its first flight from March 2008, a lot
of commercial activities are cropping up in and around that area. I think that
augers well for a lot of recreational activity, also, to those who are looking
for work, not just IGF as a brainstorming session but as a relaxation and
recuperation point. Flight services. At this point of time, Hyderabad has a
number of flights from Frankfurt, from Dubai, and from Singapore. British
airways is planning to have new flight services from London as well. So I
would reckon that people coming from any part of the world, either through the
heart of Europe, London, or Middle East or Far East, could reach Hyderabad in
the span of six to eight to ten hours. That gives a snapshot of the
connectivity, so from whichever part of the globe you wish to come, barring
South America from which you do not have direct flights, or from the African
continent. Otherwise, from Dubai, from Frankfurt, you are well connected.
Next slide, please. This is the venue, per se. And this is a venue which is
built to international standards. The venue meets all the requirements for a
U.N. conference. Next slide, please. This gives detail of the physical
infrastructure available. The venue, per se, can have a seating capacity of
over 4,000 chairs in the main hall. And it’s called for expanding it as well.
It has a state of the art facility and, as mentioned by the convention center
authorities, it caters to U.N. conference requirements. Next slide, please. It
has all the facilities for translation into all the U.N. languages and a
little more thereof, also. Interpretation capacity for 12 languages. And it
also has an exhibition capacity hall in the neighborhood, which, if required,
could also be used by those who wish to use the location to showcase their
capabilities or their product profiles. Next slide, please. It has a fairly
good security component. The U.N. security team who had visited the
convention center was satisfied about the ability of the convention center to
cater to U.N. standards. And it has all the necessary physical infrastructure
which will make it convenient for all the delegates and the guests who come
there. Next slide. The audiovisual capabilities do envisage a fairly high
quality, digital content, and I’m sure that seeing it would be actually the
essence of participation. Next slide, please. Security, as I indicated, is of
international standard, and all the U.N. protocols would be adhered to by the
convention center authorities. Next slide, please. All emergency response
teams are in position, and a high level of coordination between the Cyberabad
police, a separate police station, has been set up in the vicinity of the
convention center, and that takes care of all the license for administrative
requirements. The hotel requirements are the essence of participation, because
this has been one factor which has often been mentioned during the course of
the ICANN meeting in Delhi, also. We do have reasonably good hotels, four and
five stars, in the $150 to $250. The Novotel HICC room, as it says, is
adjacent to the convention center. Similarly, the Novotel (saying name) will
be adjacent to the new airport, so that will get you to over 300 rooms. The
(saying name) campus will be within five minutes from the convention center.
Taj (Saying names) will be between 35 to 40 minutes from the convention
center. These are all the four- and five-star category hotels available in
Hyderabad. We have taken great care to see that budget hotels are available,
and Hyderabad has got this new concept of service apartments. So that entails
that the service apartments are available in a very affordable range of $50
per day. And two three-star hotels going up to $125. Adequate budget hotels
are available and the travel time from these budget hotels and three-star
hotels would be within range of 5 minutes to 25 minutes at maximum. So the
question of accommodation has been fully addressed. Personally, I have looked
at more than 15 to 20 such accommodation facilities with the U.N. team, and we
are fully satisfied that IGF 2008 will not be constrained by the factor of
affordability. And we do hope to have a high participation of delegates from
across the world. Next slide, please. I think these are the mid-budget hotels
and the service apartments. The attraction of Hyderabad, the venue itself is
in the new city of Hyderabad which is away from the old city. Hyderabad is
synonymous with the Charminar or the four pillars of the minarets and there is
a lot of history around Hyderabad. I’m sure the attractions of Hyderabad will
be enough for all delegates from across the world to actually congregate at
IGF 2008. Next slide, please. (Saying name) Fort is one of the attractions of
Hyderabad. A sound and light show is the icing on the cake, if one can say.
It’s the city of pearls, so I’m sure that a lot of ladies would definitely
like to visit Hyderabad. Pearls and bangles, embroidery work and other
traditional Indian attire. It’s a happening city. It’s not just an I.T. city
or a cyber city, but it’s a happening city because it has the old world charm,
if one can say so. Next slide, please. The government of India would be
hosting a reception for all the delegates who participate at the IGF, and this
is the venue which we have had a look at, the Charmila (phonetic) Palace which
is more than 200 years old. The Persian influence of the Hyderabad dynasty is
very much enshrined in this palace work. It would be an evening to remember.
Next slide, please. This is a statement by Google’s co-founder and president,
“We chose Hyderabad because of its large, well-educated, technically literate
and English-speaking population, competitive environment, and a sound
infrastructure.” I must mention that Hyderabad has really upped itself in the
last decade or so with Microsoft, Google, UBS, WebPro, CA, and a host of
others who have made it their home. It augers well that all these are located
in the vicinity of the Hyderabad International Convention Center. So the
Internet community would sort of feel at home at the HICC. If there are any
questions from the audience or delegates present at this convention hall, I’ll
be most happy to answer each of them.
>>CO-CHAIR DESAI: Thank you very
much, Ravi. And let me express my thanks on behalf of the members to all the
effort that has been put in by the government of India and all of you to
organize this. And I think we truly appreciate this. I thought before I
opened the floor, maybe Markus, who visited the place, may want to just say
one or two words, because he has seen the place and he has a good sense of
what is required. And maybe you would like to connect it with some of the
questions which have been raised about things like Village Square, et cetera.
Actually, I haven’t seen the place. I haven’t been there, but Markus has. So
let him say a few words.
>>SECRETARY KUMMER: Thank you very much. There
is not much I can add after the excellent presentation except I can confirm
every word what he said. It is really a state of the art convention center.
And as a visitor of the city, you will be surprised by seeing the dynamism of
the I.T. sector there. All the big names are there. The buildings are just
shooting up. You can see them grow. I suppose next time we will be there, it
will be totally different again. And the convention center really will offer
all the facilities we need. We will be able to tailor or program around to the
facilities that are there. One of the features I already mentioned in my
introductory remarks will be that we may be able to pick up the suggestion to
have a bigger Village Square with some thematic clusters for those sessions
and so on. The center allows for that and it has enough space also for
parallel events, and it is a very pleasant setting run by pleasant and
extremely professional staff. And I really look forward to continuing our
planning and our cooperation with our Indian friends. And I’m sure you will
all be very happy and very impressed in that center.
>>CO-CHAIR DESAI:
Ravi, there are a couple of questions which I’m sure people will have, which
you may want to respond to. One, what procedure do you envisage for the
booking of hotels? Will it be a centralized procedure or would it be some
where people have to do this directly? Second, visas. This is something which
always is a little time consuming, and whether the steps would be taken to
ensure quick and economical visa facilities for the participants in IGF. If
you could just respond to these two, then I will open the floor.
>>N. RAVI
SHANKER: On the first question of hotel accommodation, the government of
India will negotiate with the hotel authorities for a special tariff for the
participants of IGF 2008. But the registration will have to be done
individually by the delegates, and the moment they indicate that they are a
delegate to the IGF 2008, the negotiated tariff will be applicable to them for
the cut-off date indicated by the hotel in the Web sites. We will try to
create hyper links so that from the IGF site one could immediately go to the
respective hotel sites. And we’ll also request the hotel authorities to
facilitate delegates for IGF 2008 to register well in advance. On the second
aspect of visa facilitation, in accordance with the U.N. expectations, the
visas will be free of cost to the delegates. And we wish to emphasize here
that the Department of Information Technology and the government of India will
liaise with the Ministry of External Affairs to facilitate this process by
issuing letters from the Ministry of External Affairs to all the embassies and
high commissions across the world. That should enable the delegates to have a
fairly smooth travel arrangement prior to IGF 2008.
>>CO-CHAIR DESAI: The
floor is open for questions. The focus has been more on logistical issues, but
I know Thomas and the others have some points they wish to raise on
substantive issues about the 2008 meeting. You may also wish to do that. Any
questions? Let me first see if there are major questions that anybody has.
The dates are 3rd to 6th December. Well, Eid could be 7th, 8th, 9th — it
could be 9th but it depends on when the moon is sighted. So it all depends on
the sighting. So we will play it safe and it will end by the 6th. Are there
any questions on the logistical issues? Yes, please.
>>EGYPT: Thank you,
Mr. Chairman. Actually, it’s not a question. Egypt would like to express the
great appreciation and gratitude for the government of India as well as for
the Secretariat and Mr. Kummer in particular for showing a great amount of
positiveness towards what we have raised earlier regarding changing the date
of the meeting. Based on what we were expecting that it will coincide with the
Feast of Al Adha and we do reiterate our thanks and appreciation, and we are
satisfied with the new dates. Thank you so much.
>>CO-CHAIR DESAI: That’s
very helpful. Thank you, and I can assure you we would have done — I was very
grateful this was pointed out because surely we would not want to hold a
meeting at that time. And incidentally, I must say, for those of you who are
willing, do stay on for Hyderabad for Eid. It is a great place to be for Eid.
Lovely place to be for Eid. You can really enjoy Eid there, for those of you
who choose to stay on. ETNO.
>>ETNO: Thank you, Chair. And we thank the
Indian government for the presentation. We are very happy to hear that we now
have a confirmed time and place for the new meeting and would like to make
some comments regarding participation. We are very pleased to hear that there
will be affordable accommodation. The question now will be whether there will
be enough rooms. And I say that because ETNO in the beginning was very much
concerned about the cost for participating in the IGF. We hope that more
people will go to the — will go to India and attend the IGF meeting so that
there are better chances for certain quality in the multistakeholder dialogue
and the efficiency of the debate. I would like to touch one issue, which is
remote participation. Remote participation could turn into an alternative
solution for the success of the Indian IGF. In Rio, remote participation was
almost invisible. Although we know that there was extended video and audio
broadcast, which we highly appreciated. So it would be quite useful to have
feedback on remote participation. Because we do believe that the IGF is open
and inclusive in principle, and it should truly promote the participation of
people from all groups and from all geographical areas. This does not mean
only physical participation, which may be difficult for many, but remote
participation as well. Moreover, due to the substance of this event, remote
participation should be very well this forum and keeping the diversity as
effective remote and physical participation of all stakeholders, this remains
a challenge that the next IGF and even the next ones need to meet. So we thank
you for that. And we thank the Indian delegation. We wish them Good Luck
with the preparations.
>>CO-CHAIR DESAI: Thank you. Good. I think, then,
there may be some questions. I think Thomas, you had some points you want to
raise on more substantive grounds for the next meeting. Maybe you wish to do
that now.
>>SWITZERLAND: Thank you, Mr. Chair. Since this is the first
time that we take the floor, we would like to join the previous speakers in
thanking the host country, the co-chairs, the IGF Secretariat, the Advisory
Group and everybody else in involved in the preparation and realization of the
2007 IGF in Rio for their efforts in making the event a successful one. And
after having seen the presentation by our Indian hosts of our upcoming
meeting, I would like to thank them, too, for the efforts they are taking, and
we are sure the next IGF will also be a very successful event. We have made
specific comments and recommendations on the format of the different types of
events, on the Advisory Group and other issues, in our written contribution to
this meeting. Since much of that has already been mentioned by other speakers
today, I will not repeat all of this but invite you to see our comments on the
IGF Web site. However, there are a few things I would like to stress with
regard to what Switzerland expects of the next IGF meeting at the end of this
year. With regard to participation of all relevant stakeholders, we think that
efforts must be continued to strengthen the participation of developing
country stakeholders. Also, the IGF should try to enhance the participation of
business representatives from big international marketplaces as well as from
innovative small and medium size enterprises from all around the world, but
especially from developing countries. In order to make the IGF attractive for
participation, it needs to be organized and prepared in a very timely manner.
All relevant structures, participants, key dates, and schedules should be
decided and announced as early as possible. If possible, following a schedule
that will be recurring every year. This, however, is only possible if the
Secretariat gets adequate resourcing to do its work in a more sustainable way.
Furthermore, we would welcome that at the next IGF, there would be some space
for announcement of initiatives, partnerships, et cetera. Because we think
that this might make the IGF more attractive for leaders, especially business
leaders to participate, and also for the media to report on it. We would like
to make some proposals on substantive issues to be discussed at the next
meeting. In our view, the IGF should be a platform where participants can
exchange views and ideas on how the Internet can best continue to be a sphere
of innovation that serves all people around the planet to progress in their
economic, political, social, and cultural development. It should help to
empower individuals and societies to make the best possible use of the public
service value of the Internet, and to build an inclusive Information Society
which is based on existing and agreed fundamental rights and freedoms and on
human dignity. We do not think that there is a need for new rights and
freedoms for the Internet, but we think people need to be assured that the
existing rights are also applied to the virtual world. In this regard, we
highly appreciate the encouragement of organizations such as the Council of
Europe and others in the IGF, and we would like to invite all stakeholders
from all regions to profit from the instruments and tools that these
organizations offer. The cross-cutting issues of capacity building and
development are, in our view, fundamental and should therefore be
strengthened. And the experience of the last two IGFs has shown that since
cross-cutting issues tend to be forgotten in the discussions on concrete
themes, we would propose that they should be explicitly addressed in all
events of the IGF. We also welcome the idea to work on a development and
agenda for Internet governance. We think that the IGF should help participants
to explore how the innovation potential of the Internet and its governance can
be better explored by small and medium businesses, especially from the
developing world. As another important issue, if not the most important, we
would like to put the principles for Internet governance as they have been
defined in the Geneva declaration of 2003, meaning that the international
management of the Internet should be multilateral, transparent, and
democratic, with the full involvement of governments, private sector, civil
society, and international organizations in the center of the IGF discussions.
The IGF should help that these principles be implemented in all organizations
and fora involved in Internet governance. And by saying democratic and
multilateral, we do not mean that every government should be represented in
every forum, but we mean that in every forum and organization there should be
structures that allow the people, the citizens, the users to make them heard.
We understand these principles as meaning to ensure that these fora are
bottom-led and accountable to the communities they stand for. We are also
interested to hear that APC and the Council of Europe continue the discussion
on the idea of developing a code for public participation in Internet
regulation as proposed in a workshop at the last IGF meeting. Furthermore, we
would like to join those who want to see environmental issues like ICTs and
climate change or even better ICT and sustainable development as a
cross-cutting issue of the next IGF. And after having listen to the discussion
of this morning about the main issues to the last two IGF meetings and the
remarks by several speakers about the uselessness, for example, to discuss
openness issues separated from security issues, my feelings get stronger and
stronger that we should not continue to have the four main themes that we had
in the last two meetings but that we should try something new. What we could
do is we could turn the whole thing around and make main sessions on the
issues that were the cross-cutting issues so far, meaning development and
capacity-building and maybe also sustainable development and the
implementation of the WSIS principles for public participation in Internet
Governance. And what we also should do is that we should choose rather than
one dimensional main sessions like state security versus Internet users
freedom, for instance, or something like efficient technical functionality of
the Internet versus internationalization of its governance. This might help
to make the discussions more interesting and relevant. A few remarks with
regard to the outcome and the outreach of the IGF. We think that the
participants at the IGF would want to take something home that is an added
value to them and that helps them to better perform in their daily businesses.
We would like to see the discussions to be continued in other fora on global,
regional and national levels. So we think that there should be an outcome of
the IGF that is more tangible and better reflects the ideas and tendency that
is have evolved in the IGF. We think it is not enough to reflect the
discussions of the main sessions in a summary paper. The outcomes of the
workshop should also be made more visible. We strongly believe that the IGF
should remain a platform for open and free exchange of views and ideas. We
would, therefore, oppose to any elaboration of a negotiated outcome which in
our view would threaten to destroy the unique value of the IGF. However, we
would propose that the IGF develop a form of a paper outcome that reflects the
co-views, discussions of the IGF. In our view, there would be no need for a
consensus on such a document. On the contrary, die verging view views should
be reflected. Such a paper could, for instance, contain a list of messages,
some of them could even be controversial and list of projects, initiatives, et
cetera, that could be clustered around — according to the new defined main
issues. So the IGF should not be a place where decisions are taken but its
discussions should be heard in other fora where decisions are taken. Now I
would like to make a few recommendations with regard to dynamic coalition.
Switzerland like other recommend the dynamic coalitions where actors can
formally and voluntarily get together to work on specific issues of their
experience. In order to strengthen these coalitions we think they should have
more visibility at the IGF meetings and also between the IGF meetings and
their work should better feed into the meetings. We think the coalitions
should take more profit from the IGF by presenting the work they have already
done and also by looking forward and define the objectives of their work until
the next meeting. In order to clarify existing uncertainties with regard to
the dynamic coalitions, we suggest that the IGF develop more concrete rules
under which these coalitions could work, how their relations to the core IGF
would be organized, what rights and obligations they have, when they call
themselves a dynamic coalition of the IGF. Furthermore, we would like to
support a proposal of others to create IGF working groups inspired by the WGIG
forum that has been used in 2004 and 2005. As we understand this proposal,
these working groups could address particular challenges and could develop
recommendations on these particular issues that would not have to be agreed by
the core IGF as a promising example. We would like to refer to the
contribution to this meeting made by APC in which they analyzed the Rio
workshops on access to the Internet and identify those points where there has
been so-called rough consensus. A working group on this issue could then start
to work on these issues in the time between the meetings and come up with
recommendations on how to implement this rough consensus at the next meeting.
In the end, the question of whether we have working groups or dynamic
coalitions and what they are called are not that important for us. Important
is that the discussions at the IGF should lead to action in other fora after
the meeting. However, in whatever way dynamic coalitions or working groups
are formed or reformed, this should not affect the openness and informality of
discussions at the core IGF itself. And, finally, the development of a more
elaborate but still loose structure around the core of the IGF which would be
able to work more in between meetings could help us solving the problem that
we have discussed this morning of having too many events during the IGF
meeting itself. So in our view, we should have less events during the meeting
but more action to be taken in coalitions and working groups between the
meetings that would really move forward things and feedback into the next IGF
meeting. Thank you for your attention.
>>CO-CHAIR DESAI: Milton. Milton
Mueller from the IGP, Internet governance project.
>>MILTON MUELLER: Thank
you, Mr. Chairman. I will have to wear two hats in this intervention. First
speaking in my personal capacity and then for the sake of time, combining that
with an officially sanctioned intervention from the Internet Governance
Caucus. Is that okay? To begin with my personal comments, let me begin by
observing that the Internet is connected to all aspects of society, and as a
social scientist, I am very aware of this. It is a mistake, however, to
conclude that all aspects of society can be approached as Internet governance.
For that reason, I want to express deep reservations with the idea that has
been floated here of making environmentally sustainable one of the major
themes of the 2008 IGF. Obviously, those issues are critical and relevant.
They are relevant to the use of all information technologies, not just the
Internet, and, indeed, all electrical and electronic appliances, not to
mention automobiles and many other industrial and post-industrial devices. But
it is out of scope — way out of scope for an Internet Governance Forum — or,
rather, a forum that is mandated to consider international Internet Governance
to consider such issues as one of its main themes. IGF needs to concentrate
its scarce time and attention on those issues unique to the Internet that
require global coordination and governance. It is dangerous and
counterproductive for IGF to divert its attention from those central issues of
Internet governance to take on issues that more specialist bodies can handle
better. It has no mandate to cover environmental issues and no capacity to
effect change in that area. To suggest two themes that we should be looking at
and which are core to Internet governance, one of them is the IPv4-IPv6
transition or the lack of a transition. That, indeed, is the question. And
that is a critical question that could, if handled badly, threaten the very
universal connectivity that makes the Internet so central. It would be a
travesty, I think, for the forum not to consider that, to not have it on the
forefront of the agenda. Another issue I think it should consider or a theme
perhaps under the rubric of critical Internet resources would be examining the
oversight of ICANN by the United States government, the Joint Project
Agreement being scheduled to possibly end in September 2009, a discussion of
this by the forum in late 2008 would be timely. I would also point out that
organizations such of ours have asked perhaps at the forum in a very soft and
non-binding way, of course, could take over some of the review and oversight
functions that are now provided by the Department of Commerce should the
commerce department choose to yield those powers. Now, I’m putting on my
official Internet Governance Caucus civil society hat and identifying themes
that reached consensus among this caucus. The caucus is of the opinion that
the four general themes have, basically, served their useful purpose in the
early formative stages of the IGF and that we should now move on to more
purposefully to the serious business of providing directions, ideas and
possibilities to global public policy making in the Internet arena and that
that is a primary mandate of the IGF. The general themes of access, openness,
diversity and security are, of course, important but to echo what the Swiss
delegate said, we should be — these should be cross-cutting themes for
organizing the next meeting in India. But the main session should address
more specific public policy issues that are considered the most important. A
series of thematic workshops should be organized around these main sessions
and output feed into these sessions. Adequate prep for work should go into
preparing this sessions using dedicated working groups. These working groups
should also synthesize appropriate outcome documents for each main theme. Now
I’m going to suggest two main themes and, again, speaking as a representative
of the civil society Internet Governance Caucus. One of these is called
enhanced cooperation. What was meant by the Tunis Agenda and what is the
status of it? The Tunis Agenda spoke of the need for enhanced cooperation for
a global policy making for the Internet. There are different views about what
exactly is meant by this term and what process can constitute it. IGF is
definitely the right forum to deliberate on the meaning and possibilities of
this term through wide participation of all stakeholders. It is quite possible
that such an open discussion pushes the process of enhanced cooperation
forward, which at present seems to be caught in a kind of limbo or at least
confusion. Another possible theme — and then I will conclude — is network
neutrality, ensuring openness in all areas of the Internet. Network
neutrality has been an important architectural principle for the Internet.
This principle is under considerable challenge as the Internet becomes the
mainstream communication platform for almost all business and social
activities. This main session could examine the implications of this principle
and its possible evolutionary interpretations for Internet policy in different
areas. Issues about the openness of the architecture are increasing manifest
in all layers of the Internet today. So to reiterate, enhanced cooperation and
network neutrality being suggested as themes by the Internet Governance Caucus
of civil society. Thank you.
>>CO-CHAIR DESAI: Thank you. I have APC.
>> APC: Thank you, Mr. Chair. APC would like to formally once again
congratulate the Brazilian host and wish the secretariat and the MAG and the
Indian governmental the best with the next IGF. We propose proposals made by
previous speakers. We’d like to just emphasize a few points, some of which we
have included in our written submission. Firstly, the idea, the suggestion to
have regional and national IGFs. We feel that this mechanism can help define
regional and national priorities and facilitate greater participation in the
IGF process, particularly participation from developing countries. And these
national regional IGFs can also form a space in which action and
implementation between IGFs can take place. And they build partnership
between the multiple stakeholder groups that participate in this process. With
regard to the structure of the next IGF, we support the comments that have
been made, particularly by Switzerland and by the Internet Governance Caucus.
There is no need to recycle the core themes that can be addressed in other
ways and space needs to be made for emerging themes. One comment based on Rio
was that we felt that gender balance was not particularly good in the plenary
sessions. So we would suggest that more care be taken in India. Around the
substantive content themes, we support the themes proposed by the Internet
Governance Caucus and by the Swiss delegation. We also support the idea, even
if it is controversial, of including sustainable development. Sustainable
development emerged in Athens in the emerging issues session, and it emerged
again in Rio. In fact, one of the open speakers, the CEO from Fujitsu,
highlighted how his company is addressing this issue in his opening statement
in Rio. And if we do not take this issue more seriously, we will, in fact, not
be taken public policy of the Internet very seriously. We feel very strongly
it should be taken very seriously. It also compliments the importance of the
development agenda and we want to reinforce the Internet Governance Caucus and
Switzerland’s that the development agenda and Internet governance is very
important. Issues of sustainable development has to be considered, for
example, in the access theme. Policymakers and operators and others involved
in infrastructure development can make choices and, in fact, need to make
choices about the technologies that they use to address the infrastructure
gap, the access gap, and those choices need to be informed by the long-term
sustainability of our entire environment and our societies. With regard to
working groups, we agree that there is a need for this and I won’t repeat what
has been said. But we see working groups as being very different from dynamic
coalitions in one particular respect. Dynamic coalitions can be formed on any
issue of interest to the people who shape it, who form it. But there are
certain issues, particularly the thematic issues as well as the main topics
that are addressed as an IGF that need a different kind of attention. And APC
as we’ve done in our original submission proposed specifically the format of a
working group on access. And we base this on the fact that consensus has been
built in Athens and in Rio on how to deal with access and accelerate access to
the next billion to use the language used by ISOC this morning. And rather
than restate the access challenge, we feel the next IGF should actually
discuss some concrete suggestions for action, not by the IGF but by the many
stakeholders involved in trying to build access. So such a working group can
really play the role of ensuring that we move from dialogue to implementation.
And this is not changing the primary role of the IGF as an open, informal
space for dialogue. The action need not to take place within the IGF or be
managed by the IGF. And I think I’ll close on that. Oh, yes, just one other
role that the working groups can play, they can assist with consolidating
consensus that’s been made on themes that have been addressed. And in the
case of a new proposed topic or proposed theme, particularly the examples that
have been used of the development agenda and Internet governance and
sustainable development, such a working group can work alongside the
secretariat and the MAG in defining the issues and convening a plenary session
or in any other way helping the actual Internet governance forum address these
emerging issues or topics or themes.
>>CO-CHAIR DESAI: Bill Drake from
Internet Governance Caucus.
>> INTERNET GOVERNANCE CAUCUS: Thank you, Mr.
Chairman. I will read the second half of the IGC statement, the Internet
Governance Caucus statement. The tag team hand-off didn’t quite work. And
then make a couple comments on it. We have two other thematic proposals with
regard to main sessions. One of them has already been referenced here, the
notion of a development agenda for Internet governance. Development is, of
course, the key focus of the Tunis Agenda and its mandate for the IGF and was
also listed as a cross-cutting theme of Athens and Rio but neither of the
conferences have had a main session devoted to a significant and focused
dialogue about the linkages between Internet governance mechanisms and
development. However, at the Rio meeting, a workshop was organized by civil
society actors in collaboration with the Swiss government, the Brazil general
Internet Steering Committee and other partners from other stakeholder
groupings on the development agenda for Internet governance. The workshop
considered the options for establishing a holistic program that would help to
mainstream development considerations into Internet governance
decision-making. Attendees at this workshop expressed strong interest and
further work on the topic being pursued in the IGF. Hence, we believe that the
development agenda concept should be pursued in a main session in India and
that this would be of great interest to great many participants there. We
also support the Swiss government’s proposal to consider establishing a
multistakeholder working group that could develop recommendations to the IGF
on the notion of a development agenda. Secondly, the last of our four
proposals pertains to transparency and inclusive participation in Internet
governance. We’ve already heard the WSIS principles and Internet governance
reference here so I won’t repeat them. The governments have repeated them and
cited them throughout the WSIS process and much has been made of them.
Nevertheless, IGF has not had any follow-up discussion about how to pursue
this key element of its mandate, the promotion of the WSIS principles. The
Internet Governance Caucus has systematically enhanced the Swiss government’s
statement that implementation of the WSIS principles should be added as a
cross-cutting issue at the core of all IGF discussions. To help kick start
that cross-cutting consideration, we propose a main session that would
concentrate on two WSIS principles of general applicability for which progress
and implementation could be most readily assessed. These are transparency and
inclusive participation. The session could consider patterns of practice
across Internet governance mechanisms and identify generalizable lessons
concerning good or best practices. A few observations on these points I’d
like to offer because they may be relatively unfamiliar in comparison to the
other themes that we’ve proposed, net neutrality and enhanced cooperation.
Not that everybody’s terribly clear on what those concepts mean, at least
they’ve been bandied about a lot. Why is this useful? Transparency and
inclusive participation are, indeed, cross-cutting horizontal issues and these
are uniquely value-added in the context of the IGF. Vertical issues all have
established forums in which they’re being pursued in different ways but the
horizontal issues are, in effect, homeless. There is no place in the
international system for any kind of a systematic and focused assessment of
these questions. From the beginning, the IGF was envisioned as a place that
could provide a focal point from which the whole distributed architecture of
Internet governance and its parts could be assessed, not just a small subset
of the mechanisms. You know, we’re not interested in just a small part. We
are interested in the broad topography and how these questions play out across
them. This cross-cutting approach is very important. Now, what would we
actually do in such sessions? We could discuss how development transparency
and participation are being addressed within the diverse range of governance
mechanisms and for networked information, communication and content. Here I
emphasize Milton’s comments that we’re talking about Internet governance per
se as debated and defined inter alia during the WSIS, shared rule systems,
procedures and programs designed to steer, guide, decision-making on
development and use of the Internet. The IGF should not be about general
information society issues like e-government and so on that involve
applications to solve social problems. So, for example, when we suggest a
development agenda, we are discussing the notion of the linkages specifically
between Internet governance mechanisms, how they operate and development
considerations. It is important to avoid mission creep and dilution of the
focus. This is not The Internet Society Forum and many topics important to
the world about the Internet are outside the mandate of the forum and there
are other places to look at them, as Milton has suggested. The sessions would
have essentially a dual kind of focus. One would be the procedural component,
how decision-making and implementation activities are structured to address
development, e.g., by catering to special needs and challenges of developing
countries and their effective participation providing space to their concerns
and so on, as well as transparency and inclusion, such questions as what
practices are followed. Regarding the dissemination of information in the
terms of stakeholder, these very widely across different Internet governance
mechanisms. The substantive component would be to look at how the diverse
policy frameworks or outputs of the Internet governance mechanisms that we
have in place for different issues, whether it is security, intellectual
property, network trade, competition policy which you referred to before and
so on, advance those cross-cutting objectives. In both cases, the notion would
be to focus on good best practices, surface them and put them in a sort of
framework where we can look at them side by side, compare and ask what works,
what generalized lessons can we learn from mechanisms that might be relative
to and emulated by other mechanisms. I emphasize that the idea is not to
criticize or shine the line of possible shortcomings of any one particular
mechanism but, rather, to have a positive and constructive discussion about
good governance which is a concept that is a central concern of many
intergovernmental institutions as well as such initiatives as the global
compact and so on. Finally, just with regard to session organization, we think
that you can do this drawing on analytical inputs from a variety of sources to
frame the discussions with scholarly work but also stakeholder assessments, et
cetera, you could possibly have as was suggested a multistakeholder working
group that would be linked to the MAG in some way, perhaps, involving a subset
of MAG participants and some outsiders. You can have linked thematic workshops
that go into more detail on specific aspects and bring those to the main
sessions and also linked open forums, invite the relevant organizations to
incorporate a focus on these three dimensions into their presentations. And,
again, that would be brought back into the main session so we would have
something concrete and empirical to work on. The workshops and the open
forums take-aways, their broad lessons would be brought into the main sessions
and made available to everybody. If we could do something like this, then the
main sessions would be part of an integrated ensemble of activities rather
than a stand-alone one-shot deal which we think would be very useful in
meeting the mandate of the IGF in particular. Thank you.
>>CO-CHAIR DESAI:
I have Dr. Jeremy Beale from CBI.
>> CBI: Thank you very much, Chair. We
very much look forward at the CBI for the forthcoming IGF in India. We think
the Indian government has set an extremely good example in showing how with
good practices and policies businesses can learn to use effectively the
Internet to increase their business capability and their country’s economic
development. I just want to ever add a small point, though. I think it is
important when we talk about Internet governance not to assume that there is a
static set of public policy issues associated with that term. I think one of
the things that the experience of the development of the Internet by the
private sector has shown is that it is actually a shifting terrain and that in
many cases governance — good governance of the Internet has been something
that has developed voluntarily in the private sector and between the private
sector and, say, consumers, how they engage with consumers, how they can
improve that engagement and how businesses and governments can interact. And
it is having that open relationship that actually is the most dynamic and
productive. It would be interesting to explore some of the ideas of good
practices developed by companies in terms of how they go about of their
governance in terms of using the Internet with the employees and customers and
with the governments that they engage with as a way of exploring what options
there are available in terms of those interactions rather than assuming there
will be a set — static set of relations that are covered by the term
“governance and public policy issues” that enter pertain to those. Thank you.
>>CO-CHAIR DESAI: Thank you. It looks as though we have seem to have
exhausted our capacity. That’s good. It is getting to quarter to 6:00. Not
that I don’t want to say more to you. There is Brazil. Sorry. Brazil?
>>BRAZIL: Thank you very much, Chairman. Perhaps, a couple of comments to
make under this agenda item. Brazil understands that the IGF is an evolving
process and in this regard, Hyderabad’s agenda should enhance Rio’s outcomes.
As set out in the Tunis Agenda, the main purpose of the IGF is to discuss
Internet-related public policy issues and in this sense, we support the idea
of maintaining the debate and building upon the five main pillars of openness,
security, access, diversity, and critical Internet resources. As to critical
internet resources, it’s both reiterated that the main session on CIR was the
best attended event in Rio, and this session proved the maturity of the
international community to debate the issue in a positive way within the U.N.
system. And now, Chairman, turning to more specific issues, we believe that
Hyderabad should provide an opportunity for debating issues such as the
transition from IPv4 to IPv6, interconnection costs, and the fundamental
importance of finding and striking a right and principled balance between
protecting privacy and combating cyber crime. And before concluding, let me
point out that this afternoon, two quite interesting proposals were mentioned,
and these proposals would count with Brazil’s sympathy. The first one was what
Bill Drake referred to as the idea of working on, developing an agenda for
Internet governance. And the second one, which was captured, I believe, in
the Swiss proposal that is on the Web site, is the idea of further evolving
the debate on enhanced cooperation. Thank you very much.
>>CO-CHAIR DESAI:
Mr. Al-Shatti.
>>QUSAI AL-SHATTI: Thank you, Mr. Chair. During the Rio
meeting, we had notice that the workshop — the workshops attracted more
participation than the plenary sessions, with the exception of the Internet
critical resources session. Although the number of workshops and the variety
of topics were good indicators of the success and the importance of the IGF,
the plenary sessions are the policy dialogue floor, which is the original
purpose of the IGF. But the session — the plenary session is important, and
we should look on means of how we can increase the number of participation of
it — the participants in it. One aspect is to introduce new topics for the
plenary sessions that can make it more attractive rather than repetitive. One
of the topics we would like to suggest is the safety of the global Internet
infrastructure. As many would know by now, our part of the world, the Middle
East, recently experienced an interruption of the Internet service. Users
were off-line for more than 36 hours, and some of them for more than 48 hours.
The Internet access took 12 days to be restored to its original level. It is
estimated that the Internet interruption cost the gulf countries alone a
billion dollar loss. Therefore, we find it important to discuss the safety of
the Internet global infrastructure and how can we make the international
consortium running this infrastructure more accountable to the Internet users
and more transparent in stating the cause of interruption. Another topic we
would like to be discussed is the family and child online safety. We have
noticed that some means of exchange of information on the Internet have
triggered violent behavior that represented a threat to the young population
and societies as a whole. Therefore, we need to develop an acceptable,
implementable framework for the family and child online safety. We find the
IGF a suitable place for this. A third issue which was mentioned earlier by
several participants is linking the IGF with sustainable development. We find
it important to discuss issues related to topics like entrepreneurialships,
small to medium enterprises and e-commerce during the IGF meeting. These
issues represent career and job opportunities to many in the developing world.
We are glad to see that the topic of national and regional IG is gaining
support by several of the attendees today in this open consultation session.
We have mentioned earlier in many open consultations, in many previous open
consultations, the importance of national IG, and, therefore, we support
national and regional IG mechanism to be discussed during the IGF meetings. On
the issue of best practices forums, we would like it to be reconsidered. They
were limited to country experiences. Their timing attracted smaller audience,
and the audience itself was not the targeted group we wanted to be there. We
support the idea that the workshops should not only be capacity building or
advocacy is I sessions. We support that the workshops should be also a place
for debate and exchange of views. We also believe that the workshop
organization should commit to report on their workshops. We cannot attend all
of them. And, therefore, the workshop report will be our only means to know
what issues were discussed in that. I would like to conclude my remarks with
joining the others in supporting the continued chairmanship of Mr. Nitin
Desai for the MAG, for the skill, experience, and balanced approach played a
major role in the success of the MAG work. And we wish the government of
India all the best and success in organizing the third IGF meeting in
Hyderabad. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
>>CO-CHAIR DESAI: Kenya. Ken Lohento.
>>KENYA: Thank you very much. I would like to support a proposal that was
made here so that we can discuss the theme of the criticism vis-a-vis the
Internet. I think this was one of the themes that was really appreciated by
the participants in the Rio meeting, and I believe that this particular issue
could not be discussed at the same levels as the four other themes discussed
in Internet, the classic themes. Since we talk about the Internet governance.
So we would like to discuss the critical resources for the Internet during
our next meeting, and the four themes we discussed in Athens and in Rio —
access to the Internet and other issues — we can actually limit the
discussions of those issues because they are quite general ones. And I would
like to suggest that we should promote the best-practice forums. We believe
that this is a very practical idea that could be interesting, that will allow
developing countries to use the experience of other countries in the area of
Internet governance. This is a very interesting experience, but I agree with
the previous speaker that these workshops were not really promoted for this or
that reason. These best-practice forums. And on another issue, I would like
to suggest that we should be more specific in the IGF. Of course, the mandate
is to have political discussions, but it also would be very interesting for
participants to come from these meetings with specific ideas, with
recommendations, as has been suggested by the representative — as has been
stated by the representative of Switzerland a few minutes ago. And the last
idea relates to the national and regional forum. I think we should promote
these meetings because they allow developing countries to participate in the
best possible way from the work of Internet Governance Forum. Thank you.
>>CO-CHAIR DESAI: I think we are coming towards the — I need to end, Mr.
Muguet. Do you have something quick? Because I have to finish in five
minutes. And we have two other speakers to speak also.
>>FRANCIS MUGUET:
On the workshops, I think these workshops should produce recommendations, and
these recommendations should be included in comprehensive document, something
like proceedings of the meeting. And we also support the idea of a
multi-partner working group to come up with these recommendations. I believe
that also the focal point for the dynamic evolution should be observers in the
MAG. And also, since there were some free spots last time related to the best
practice forum, I think this should be done before. And sometimes there was
not enough places, and we should do the most in order to ensure the work of
these workshops. And also, perhaps have contact with Hyderabad, the contact
point, and we should have a better interaction with the academic circles or
the scientific circles, and if, indeed, if there is a GIGAnet network on the
academic network, human sciences and the political side. Now on the
technological side, there is something lacking and we should benefit from the
fact that this meeting will be taking place in a highly tech city. And I
participate in a European project which establishes roadmaps for work in
various digital areas, and we can make some suggestions. Now, on the issue of
strength and cooperation, this is something that has been referred to. This
is simply a suggestion. There is information of the working group, enter
governmental working group and the ITU, when representatives of the sectors
can participate, but not necessarily members of the civil society. And
perhaps this working group can be the hard core, the center of a process of
strengthening capacity, so we can bring together these two processes. At the
same time, and I think this is very important, we create a link with the
process related to the work of regional fora. And also perhaps national fora.
But most importantly, regional fora.
>>CO-CHAIR DESAI: Sorry, we need to
end now. I just wondered whether you had a word to say before I conclude.
>>CO-CHAIR VIANNA: Well, thank you very much, Mr. Co-chair. Just to bid
farewell to all colleagues. And I will be at your disposal in the Ministry of
Foreign Affairs in Brazil. Thank you very much for your support.
>>CO-CHAIR
DESAI: We are just still working the next two days.
>>CO-CHAIR VIANNA: I
am talking about the consultations.
>>CO-CHAIR DESAI: I was a little
worried, you see. (Laughter.)
>>CO-CHAIR DESAI: So the — I think this has
been a useful consultation. I’m sure the members of the Advisory Group who
are here have taken away many lessons or messages from this. Clearly, we do
have a lot of work to do in terms of designing the substantive program for
Hyderabad. The impression I gather is people do want to move on. And this is
true. We cannot keep on repeating the same discussions year after year. We had
a job in the first two IGFs in establishing the forum, in establishing its
credibility, in establishing its role in the global system. I think by and
large it has been done and I think the challenge in Hyderabad is to say, okay,
this forum can do things which have not been done elsewhere. Yes, I realize
the conclusions which are there as to what exactly is the mandate of this
forum when we say Internet governance and public-policy issues we have a
starting point. In the listing of public-policy issues which was given in the
report of the working group which was by implication endorsed by the summit.
In that sense, it’s a fairly broad definition of what constitutes — what are
the public-policy issues related to Internet governance. It’s also true that
what we have to do is to make sure that what — our primary constituency are
the constituency of people who are responsible for the management of the
Internet. But there are also people who are involved in the use of the
Internet who, to some extent, are a constituency and who we need to keep in
mind. What is important is that we are not the place where we can solve
environmental problems. I mean, we are not going to come up with something
dramatic which is going to solve the problem of climate change. There are
places where this is going to get done. So we should not think we have some
huge contributions to make in areas which are really well outside the limit —
not just our limit, but the limit of the constituencies that we work with.
What I would say is the constituencies we work with is more than just the
people who are involved in the management of the Internet. It does involve
people who are involved in the use of the Internet, and, to some extent, when
you get groups like the people who are involved in the protection of children.
You could have argued at some stage that the Internet and security — that
security has nothing to do with the Internet. Security is something police
forces should be handling. Yes, but we realize that the way in which the
Internet is managed impinges on security, and, therefore, there is a
connection which we need to explore. What you do not get into is how to run a
police force. That’s not in our job. Similarly, how to run an environmental
policy is not our job. But our job is to see, is there something that we do in
the Internet — for instance, something that we do in the Internet which
encourages excessively rapid obsolescence, excessively rapid obsolescence, so
you have more waste generated than is necessary. Is there something you do on
governance which does that? Is there something that you do on governance
which impinges on issues of competition? Is there something that you do on
governance which impinges on the possibility of the use of the Internet for
development by developing countries? Access costs, it could be, for instance.
So I would say, yes, we should limit what we are talking about to things which
are within the limit of our constituencies. But nevertheless, we can’t be too
rigid about the subject matter and say that development is not in or out. But
I agree that we have to be a little more careful in what are we going to talk
about when we talk about these things. I would urge, therefore, that the
advisory group, when it meets, really work through this and keep an open mind,
not be necessarily a prisoner of the formats, et cetera, that we have
inherited from the past. And I do take that lesson home from all of you. And
we have reached 6:00. We should end now. So thank you very much. This has
been a very constructive and useful discussion. And I look forward to the
meeting with the group tomorrow. Markus, any last — Nothing? Thank you very
much. Meeting is adjourned [ Applause ]