[WSIS CS-Plenary] Comments on the draft CS document

[Meryem Marzouki]

Hi all,

I'd like to thank the volunteers of the drafting group for the civil 
society document which has been circulated on July 10th to the list. 
The document is obviously the result of a huge effort, made in a hurry, 
and this is not an easy task specially given the diversity of civil 
society positions.
I fully understand the difficulty - or even the impossibility - to 
reach a true consensus document in such conditions. I also think it is 
unavoidable that such a document lacks many specific points. 
Furthermore, I do share the view that only those organizations who 
eventually accept to endorse the final CS document will be accountable 
for the position it reflects, but this doesn't mean that we shouldn't 
do our best working towards the wider number of endorsements. Finally, 
I agree with Sally when she says that "consensus means that in the 
spirit of achieving a common position, there are no overriding 
objections".

Unfortunately, after having carefully read the proposed draft, I'm 
afraid there are such overriding objections, and that, to some extent, 
the document results in a juxtaposition of contradictory positions 
rather than in consensus. I think everyone would agree that this is not 
our common objective.

Let me then highlight the three major points of disagreement that 
should be mentioned, and propose alternative rewriting for these points:

1/ "Global governance" section

First of all, the second paragraph of this section (on the definition 
of a "Global Internet Governance") is completely contradictory with the 
whole CS vision reflected not only in this draft document, but also in 
all the CS document endorsed by a wide number of organizations since 
the beginning of the WSIS process. As it is, this paragraph means that 
the undersigned organizations are in favor of establishing special 
rules for a "cyberspace" (what the hell could this be?!), different 
from the common rule of law. This is in particular contradictory with 
the priorities set by the Human Rights caucus. What is proposed in this 
paragraph is to establish and/or follow special rules and regulation in 
the "cyberspace".
This is unacceptable because this would open the door to non democratic 
process, or open it more than it is already, "thanks to" entities like 
ITU, ICANN, WTO, WIPO, etc.
"Content regulation, free speech, access, privacy, information 
security, data protection, e-commerce, intellectual property rights, 
information infrastructure development etc." should by no mean be 
governed in such thing as a "global internet governance" framework but, 
on the contrary, should be dealt with, taking into account the 
peculiarities of such issues, in the framework of national and 
international common rule of law and specially in reference to UN 
International Covenant on both civil and political rights and economic, 
social and cultural rights.

Therefore, I'm asking for the complete withdrawal of this paragraph 
from the "Global governance" section.

Secondly, I have never seen - and certainly not on the governance 
working group list - any consensus to affirm that "global governance in 
information societies should be based on a multistakeholder bottom-up 
policy development process (buPDP)" [first paragraph of this section], 
specially since this "global governance" goes far beyond the sole issue 
of Internet names, numbers and protocols. Moreover, what does "(buPDP) 
should be open in particular to stakeholders most closely concerned by 
a certain policy" mean? Is it a call for global governance (not only 
Internet governance) made by groups of lobbyists promoting their 
particular interests? I thought there was, on the contrary, a CS 
consensus on democratic, inclusive, transparent, and publicly 
accountable process. This is not at all what is meant by this paragraph.

Although I share Bill Drake's concern to deal in this document not only 
with Internet governance but also with global governance, it is obvious 
that, as it is written, the "global governance" section raises strong 
objections and doesn't not even correspond to Bill's suggestion made on 
the governance list. Since we obviously don't have the time now to 
discuss such complex issues as global governance, it is then preferable 
to concentrate this section only on Internet governance, and to rewrite 
it in a way that would allow wide consensus. Here is an alternative 
proposal for that:

==========
"Internet governance

An information and communication society good governance must be based 
on the values of participation, transparency, accountability and the 
rule of law. This particularly implies the democratic management of 
international bodies dealing with ICTs. Given the borderless 
characteristics of ICTs, decision making bodies should ensure the 
respect of principles of democracy and openness, as well as of legality 
and sovereignty.

In particular, the management of the core resources of the Internet, 
that are the Internet protocols, standards and identifiers such as 
domain names and IP addresses, must serve the public interest at the 
global, national and local levels.

To this end, the current management of Internet names and numbers 
should specially be revised, taking into account the possibility of the 
coexistence of multiple root servers, provided that a strict 
international regulation be defined and enforced for their good 
articulation and global consistency. Furthermore, any decision made on 
protocols and standards should be compatible with international human 
rights standards, and specially the rights to freedom of expression, to 
privacy, and the principle of non discrimination. Such decisions should 
also allow a better balanced flow of information."
==========

2/ "Access and Infrastructure issues" section

Here are some remarks first:
I thought we agreed since at least PrepCom2 preparation, that CS 
documents should not give priority to "community networks" over public 
service infrastructure policies. Both could coexist and complement each 
other.
Moreover, I think we should avoid such wording as "global information 
infrastructure", which is referring to the US doctrine established for 
some decades I'm afraid. "information infrastructure" would be enough 
to mean what is intended to mean. Also, speaking of "rules of fair 
competition" for infrastructure means that the CS as a whole is 
promoting the telecom privatization policies, which is not, to my 
knowledge, a consensus point, not to mention that this will be 
requested strongly enough by the industry. A CS document should on the 
contrary emphasize public services and infrastructure development and 
expansion in a way serving the public interest.

My most important point about this section deals with its last 
paragraph (on a "digital solidary fund"). The concern here is the same 
as the previous one regarding "cyberspace" and a special regulation for 
it. What could mean this concept of "digital solidarity"?! Isn't it 
(I'm sure, unvoluntarily) promoting a neo-colonial approach of the 
development of the South, by dictating to least developed countries 
what should be their economic and social priorities, ensuring at the 
same time the expansion of the Northern industries and corporations 
market? We should stuck with solidarity and equal terms of 
international exchange, no need to refer to a "digital solidarity" that 
is quite fuzzy, to say the least. It is, BTW, very similar to the US 
governement policy on AIDS : forbidding the development and large use 
of generic medication, and at the same time providing the South with 
charity funds to fight AIDS (ensuring at the same time that this money 
will end back in the pocket of the multinational industry).

Since I'm sure this was not the objective of this paragraph, I simply 
propose to withdraw its first sentence, so that the last paragraph of 
this section becomes:

==========
"WSIS should agree to draw up an International Convention on a policy 
of subsidised tariffs and prices for digital inclusion public policies 
and projects, and of the fair renegotiation of bilateral network 
interconnections and multilateral peering agreements, towards better 
balanced and lower cost international route, Internet bandwidth and hub 
repartition."
==========

3/ "Attention to other regional and international processes" section

This section is most welcome in a CS document, thanks for putting it 
in. I would furthermore suggest that we add the reference to the EU 
Directive on data retention, which is a major threat to privacy. Also, 
since this section is the right place to point the dangers of the 
Council of Europe cybercrime Convention (as the document already does), 
I suggest to withdraw the reference to it in the "information security 
issue" section. Not that I'm against insisting on that (rather the 
contrary!), but it seems a bit odd that this is the single "CS 
priorities" section addressing international/intergovernmental specific 
instruments which we find bad.
Please also note that "AGCS" is the acronym of the French name of the 
WTO agreement: it should be replaced by GATTS, the English one. Same 
remark applies to ITU's "taxe de repartition" which should read in 
English "repartition tax", I assume.

Finally, regarding the establishment of an "observatory committee", why 
should it be a "multistakeholder" committee ? Shouldn't we work for our 
own objectives, as civil society ? I propose that this would become a 
"civil society observatory committee" and that it should have a 4th 
task, which should be: "propose supervisory mechanisms and indicators 
for human rights and sustainable democratic development compliance in 
the information and communication society".

I hope all the points raised in this message would be taken into 
account, so as to ensure the widest range of civil society 
organizations endorsements for the final document.

Best regards,

Meryem Marzouki
IRIS - France
Human Rights in the Information Society (HRIS) caucus co-coordinator
[NB. While all the comments in this message does not necessarily 
reflect the views of HRIS caucus members, since we haven't had time yet 
to discuss the draft CS document, most of the rewriting proposals is 
taken from HRIS caucus written contribution to the intersessional 
meeting and/or from further HRIS caucus members general suggestions]