[WSIS CS-Plenary] Re: [WSIS-CT] ICANN and the public interest issue in CS priority document

Mon Jul 14 13:14:32 BST 2003

Hi Wolfgang, and others,

Thanks for these precisions. Although I disagree on the fact that 
"ICANN 2.0" has a more technical function than before, I do share your 
point of view that between the governmental ITU and the private ICANN, 
there is a growing grew zone with undefined issues and 
responsibilities. This is the exact reason why the famous sentence 
calling for re-examination of the whole process has been put in the 
document. A new organization like the one you propose on the long term 
could be one of the many possibilities. But at this step, the question 
is not yet mature enough among CS - as we can see with this discussion 
- to propose a definitive solution which many implications need to be 
discussed.

Also, I don't think the danger of having ITU taking over ICANN is 
imminent (see recent message from Bill Drake on this list - I share his 
analysis on that). But a re-examination may open a large debate and we 
as CS may make profit of this.

Now as a pratical solution to our problem of finding a consensus for 
the document, I think Bill Drake's proposal of adding a last sentence 
to the "Global ICT governance" section making clear at least that CS 
doesn't endorse the idea of ITU taking the whole Internet management 
would be a good solution. We may discuss that face to face at Unesco, 
and propose it to the CS plenary.

Meryem

Le mardi, 22 juil 2003, à 13:22 Europe/Paris, Wolfgang Kleinwächter a 
écrit :

> Dear Meryem and others,
>
> the point is here, that the understanding of ICANN has changed over the
> years. While it was seen a couple of years ago as "something like the
> government of the Internet", ICANN 2.0 has a much more limited mandat 
> with a
> more or less clear technical function. All discussions, at the same 
> time,
> articulated that the techical issues have political and social and 
> economic
> implications, that is "public policy implications". The Marakesh 
> resolution
> (2002) of the ITU says that while "private corporations" (like ICANN, 
> ITU
> refused to mention ICANN in its documents) could deal with technical 
> issues,
> it is the ITU which is responsible for the public policy implications. 
> The
> GAC did not jump into this boat directly. The GAC Chair explained this
> during a ccTLD Workshop in Geneva immediately after WSIS PrepCom2 in 
> early
> March 2002 (also in conttrast to the ambassador of Syria) with the 
> argument,
> that, while in the ITU only the PTT ministries are represented, GAC
> representatives come from a broad range of different ministeries - from
> foreign affairs to economcy, technology and even culture - and 
> represent a
> broader view of the government and have to take a wider look, dealing 
> also
> with "other stakeholders". So the ball was back in the governments 
> groups to
> clarify their inner discussion, which ministry should speak on behalf 
> of the
> whole government. Between the governmental ITU and the private (US
> dominated/although the US dominance is more de jure than de facto) 
> ICANN,
> there is a growing grew zone with undefined issues and 
> responsibilities.
>
> The first proposal for a "GIG" tried to take this discussion on a new 
> level,
> that is to introduce the proposal of a New (open and transparant
> multi-stakeholder) Organisation (I call it the Global Information 
> Society
> Observation Council/GISOC) which could take care of "new emerging 
> issues"
> and "invite existing organisations" or "propose the establishment of 
> new
> organisations" to deal with the open questions. I know this is very far
> forward looking, but WSIS is a right time and a right place to start 
> such a
> discussion and to escape from the ITU vs. ICANN debate. We live in the 
> 21st
> century and not only priorities have shifted, also enemy images, 
> models and
> approaches. All this is work in progress.
>
> Best
>
> wolfgang
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Meryem Marzouki" <marzouki at ras.eu.org>
> To: <ct at wsis-cs.org>; <plenary at wsis-cs.org>; <hr-wsis at iris.sgdg.org>;
> <governance at lists.cpsr.org>
> Sent: Monday, July 14, 2003 12:41 PM
> Subject: [WSIS-CT] ICANN and the public interest issue in CS priority
> document
>
>
>> Hi all,
>>
>> It seems that we have a serious point of disagreement in the "Global
>> ICT governance" section of the draft CS document. The sentence at 
>> stake
>> in the document is:
>>
>>> "To these ends, the current management of Internet names and numbers
>>> and other related mechanisms should be re-examined with the full
>>> participation of all stakeholders in light of serving public
>>> interests and compatibility with human rights standards."
>>
>> A/ Those who request the deletion of this sentence - mostly members of
>> the governance working group who are participating to the ICANN
>> process, some of them having been elected at ICANN board - argue that,
>> although ICANN is far from perfect, such a sentence would be a call 
>> for
>> the governements to take over the Internet management system, while
>> they consider that nothing would be worse than an intergovernmental
>> management.
>>
>> B/ Those who want this sentence remaining in the document - members or
>> not of the governance working group but certainly not having any
>> responsibility within ICANN process - argue that the current status is
>> that ICANN has been and still is in the hands of the corporate
>> interests, and that ICANN final decisions are in the hands of the US
>> Department of Commerce, to which ICANN reports and without which it
>> doesn't make any important decision.
>>
>> In other words, this sentence is here to say that :
>> 1/ The whole issue should be reexamined, not to put ITU in place of
>> ICANN, but to have everything reexamined and discussed on new bases
>> 2/ Any discussion should inlude the full participation of all
>> stakeholders
>> 3/ Any discussion or decision should serve the public interests and
>> should be compatible with human rights standards
>> 4/ When governements are in, we favour multilateralism among
>> unilateralism (i.e. in this case the sole US governement decision),
>> specially in order to give equitable voices to the South
>>
>> It is also amazing to see how a general sentence intended for the 
>> whole
>> ICT/Internet governance issues to ask for the promotion of public
>> interests, human rights and the sustainable democratic development of
>> the information and communication society seems to be understood by
>> some as solely directed to ICANN.
>>
>> To my knowledge, this is the only specific issue in the document where
>> there is such a strong disagreement, while at the same time other 
>> parts
>> of the CS document also promotes the public interest, human rights and
>> the sustainable democratic development, and even multilateralism over
>> unilateralism.
>>
>> One can then reasonably wonder what is exactly at stake here.
>>
>> Best regards,
>> Meryem Marzouki
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Ct mailing list
>> Ct at wsis-cs.org
>> http://mailman.greennet.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/ct
>> Civil Society Plenary: http://www.wsis-cs.org/
>> Content & Themes Documents:
>> http://bscw.fit.fraunhofer.de/pub/bscw.cgi/0/42953798
>>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Ct mailing list
> Ct at wsis-cs.org
> http://mailman.greennet.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/ct
> Civil Society Plenary: http://www.wsis-cs.org/
> Content & Themes Documents:
> http://bscw.fit.fraunhofer.de/pub/bscw.cgi/0/42953798
>