[WSIS CS-Plenary] 3rd Unofficial personal report of Governmen t's ad-hoc group for Internet Governance

[zielinskic at who.int]

<...BTW, the US government (probably in the 
light of the WSIS disucssion) has renewed the contract with ICANN for 
THREE years (not for ONE, as it was expected). This brings stability to 
ICANN until 20065...>

That's 18,000 years - a bit more stability in ICANN than may be
prudent...:-)

Chris 

Chris Zielinski
STP CSI/GPR/EGB
World Health Organization
Avenue Appia, CH1211 Geneva
Switzerland
Tel: 004122-7914435 or mobile 0044797-1045354


-----Original Message-----
From: plenary-admin at wsis-cs.org [mailto:plenary-admin at wsis-cs.org]On
Behalf Of Wolfgang Kleinwächter
Sent: Thursday, 18 September 2003 11:53
To: plenary at wsis-cs.org
Subject: Re: [WSIS CS-Plenary] 3rd Unofficial personal report of
Government's ad-hoc group for Internet Governance


Dear Chun,

again, this is a very excellent work you are doing. It helps a lot and 
provides to make the further input more efficient. It was also good 
that Bertrand took the floor. This issue will be open fort final 
agreement until the summit. BTW, the US government (probably in the 
light of the WSIS disucssion) has renewed the contract with ICANN for 
THREE years (not for ONE, as it was expected). This brings stability to 
ICANN until 20065 and opens the door for the finalization of the 
transition phase, that is po hand over control over the root server to 
ICANN, as promised by the Clinton Administration. Whether this will 
happen in 2006 remains to be seen but I had some discussion with DOC 
officials in the last days and they confirmed more or less that they 
would be ready, if ICANN has done all its homework, to consider a 
reduced role of the USG. Anyhow, this fits more or less into what was 
said by Paul Twomey.

Keep going be sending the very precise informaiton aorund the globe.

Best wishes (from Aarhus)

wolfgang


On torsdag, sep 18, 2003, at 08:05 Europe/Copenhagen, Chun Eung Hwi 
wrote:

> Yesterday evening, at 6:30 P.M. I attended again to the governments'
> working group meeting for Internet Governance in wondering how much 
> time I
> could be there. Then, fortunately I could be present there until the
> ending time. But assuming I could be in the next meeting only for 5
> minutes, I want to record this in detail as much as possible.
>
> At the beginning, there was a briefing/introduction on ICANN, which was
> presented by Dr. Paul Twomey, President/CEO of ICANN. I remember 
> around 25
> minutes was used for his presentation. And in my feeling, as expected, 
> his
> presentation was impressively successful. When he introduced himself 
> and
> ICANN at first, he emphasized he had worked in government of Australia 
> and
> one leader of GAC(Government Advisory Council ) of ICANN. He described
> that ICANN is international and at that time introduced Mr. Mouhamet 
> Diop,
> one board member of ICANN and CEO of one ICT company of Senegal. I 
> don't
> know why he came here and why only he was invited here among many ICANN
> board members. He didn't say even any one word there, but his African
> traditional clothes was very beautiful and enough good to demonstrate 
> or
> persuade that ICANN is truly international (?). Anyhow, in my
> understanding, ICANN may be international, but precisely speaking 
> there is
> no change in the fact that it is legally one non-profit foundation 
> based
> on California State law of the U.S. Paul Twomey emphasized that ICANN 
> is
> seeking public-private partnership in describing GAC and although I
> suspected momentarily my ear and I also don't know well of it, he
> described that GAC has 86 member countries.
>
> His presentation had five points - what ICANN is, what ICANN is not,
> Public-Private Partnership, Redelegation procedure of ccTLD (country 
> code
> top level domain) transition, the future of ICANN. Regarding the 
> procedure
> of ccTLD transition, Paul Twomey said that is very cautious process and
> its transition procedure depends on each country's rule or their 
> internet
> community. He said that each government is always important in this
> transition process. But there are many different ways applied because 
> of
> different and diverse situation of countries. Although I forgot most of
> his very succinct and clear explanation, he emphasized ICANN's scope is
> very narrowly technically defined and its function has worked from its
> earlier date of Internet and for a couple of decades. But his last 
> point
> regarding the future of ICANN - it seemed to be very attractive to most
> governments and even to myself because I have rarely heard such an
> explanation before. If my memory is correct, over last many ICANN
> meetings, many people asked questions on this, but only poor and very
> vague answers had been got back. But Paul Twomey explained very clearly
> and firmly on this part even to an extent that nobody could have any
> suspect on that point. Given the importance of his explanation on this
> part, I copied his last presentation slide as it was written. Of 
> course,
> when transition could be done remained very ambiguous even in his clear
> words.
>
> -----------------------------------------------
> Completing the transition from the U.S.
>
> -	final step
> -	further internationalization - staff, materials, education, skills
> transfer, presence
> -	transition from US backstop function
> ------------------------------------------------
>
> There were two question and answers on his presentation. The first
> question was very good. It was "You just said that ICANN's scope is 
> very
> technical one, but the creation of new gTLD (generic top level domain 
> like
> .com, .net, .org) is so technical?" Paul Twomey's answer was very
> excellent. Yes, it may have many aspects of ICT business and even some
> public policy. Regarding business aspects, there is one issue of 
> monopoly
> of gTLD. ICANN's principle is to promote competition to this business. 
> And
> in relation to public policy aspect, that is why public-private
> partnership is so important in ICANN. GAC's - governments' opinion on
> public policy related issues has always been very seriously being taken
> into account at ICANN Board.
>
> The other question came from Uganda delegate - "Concerning on each 
> ccTLD,
> what ICANN can do for its technical skill?" His answer was that ICANN
> doesn't have enough resources and but there is such a school that ICANN
> should provide for something to those needs. Such an issue might be
> discussed in WSIS context. Due to the limited time span, after two
> questions, the chair requested some people who have more questions to 
> go
> outside and ask him directly. Some people went out together with Dr. 
> Paul
> Twomey.
>
> Maybe, since afternoon session, that working group organized one team 
> for
> drafting compromise document. And they submitted one new draft and
> disseminated it to all participants. It is just discussion draft, but I
> rewrite it here as it is - It is very short.
>
> New TEXT
> -	The international management of the Internet should be
> multilateral, transparent and democratic, with the full involvement of
> governments as well as the participation of the private sector, the 
> civil
> society and international organizations. The management of the Internet
> encompass both technical and policy issues.
> -	The private sector has had and must continue to have a lead role
> in the development of the Internet at the technical level.
> -	Public policy authority for country-code top-level domain names
> (ccTLDs) should be the sovereign right of countries, and its management
> should rest with the respective government or with a relevant public
> authority.
> -	International issues related to public policies and to the
> national interest should be coordinated, as appropriate, on an
> intergovernmental basis, under the UN framework.
>
> That document was put on the table and participants' comment was open. 
> One
> delegate requested to add one more bullet sentence as the fourth one. -
> "Facilitating the multilingual domain name registration"
>
> Next speaker was Chinese delegate. (Horrible to all observers in 
> hearing
> its country name called and such an expectation has never been betrayed
> even this time) His short remark reminded the chair of rules of 
> procedure
> that make observers leave in negotiation process. Chair quickly 
> responded
> by requesting observers to leave out. Alas! So, I should leave. Then,
> abruptly, one person of civil society participants rebuffed the chair's
> request. "Depending on rules of procedure, at least five minutes 
> should be
> given to observers for speaking their concerns". That argument was very
> correct, and so chair allowed observers use ten minutes. He made a very
> good comment on the draft document. His point was two. One is that at 
> the
> first bullet sentence, "multilateral" is inappropriate word. Multi
> stakeholder concept should be clearly described there. And secondly,
> regarding ccTLD (third bullet sentence), multistakehoder principle 
> should
> be reformulated even to national level. Later, I confirmed the speaker 
> was
> Bertrand Chappelle. Momentarily, in my brain, Meryem's comment that
> multistakeholder concept is not yet a consensus of civil society 
> community
> was reminded, but anyhow I think his short comment was very important 
> and
> valuable at the meeting.
>
> When I slowly put materials in my bag for leaving, Brazilian delegate 
> made
> new proposal. His request was very interesting. "We, Brazil, and some
> other countries which are taking common position on this issue should
> discuss together and I have not yet consulted with my government.
> Therefore, I propose to have another comment session tomorrow morning" 
> He
> mentioned some countries - Cuba, South Africa, China and at least two 
> more
> countries (unfortunately I forgot it) sharing the same position. Chair
> accepted his request and declared to close the meeting.
>
> This morning, I will attend to the working group meeting again, but
> definitely I must be kicked off after five minutes attendance.
>
>
> -- 
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> Chun Eung Hwi
> General Secretary, PeaceNet | phone:     (+82)  2-2166-2205
> Seoul Yangchun P.O.Box 81   |   pcs:     (+82) 019-259-2667
> Seoul, 158-600, Korea  	    | eMail:   chun at peacenet.or.kr
> ------------------------------------------------------------
>
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