AW: [WSIS CS-Plenary] Re: [governance] Internet governance :roles of plenary and governance lists

Sat Jan 24 13:10:53 GMT 2004

Hi Jean-Louis,

Perhaps it would be helpful by way of background to pass along a message sent yesterday to the governance list.  
Bottom line, it's an ITU meeting, not a WSIS meeting, subject to ITU procedures.  I've inquired about whether some invites can be allocated for CS 'stakeholder representation,' which is not the model they're following in relation to non-members.  We'll see what happens.  Of course, it would be good to know when asking for this if in fact there are people who would actually be prepared to attend, given that there's no budget for travel support....?

Best,

Bill

-----Original Message-----
From: William Drake [mailto:wdrake at ictsd.ch]
Sent: Friday, January 23, 2004 2:04 PM
To: governance at lists.cpsr.org
Subject: CS Participation in ITU's Internet Governance Workshop

Hi,

Had a call this morning from Bob Shaw at ITU about their upcoming event http://www.itu.int/osg/spu/forum/intgov04/index.html.  We had a useful and lengthy conversation from which several points of local interest emerged.

1.  Focus.  There has been debate on this list about the scope of governments' intentions and thinking with respect to 'Internet governance' and, in consequence, what we should be focusing on as a group.  It sounds like the ITU's reading of its members' interests is consistent with what I had thought was the rather unambiguous language of the summit declaration, and indeed the whole preparatory process.  They are not equating 'Internet governance' with just the activities of ICANN, and the workshop is not about just ICANN and whether ITU should be taking over its management of identifiers etc (although of course these issues are inevitably a key part of the mix).  Taking into account the landscape of international arrangements that impact Internet infrastructure, services, communication and commerce, the goal is to define Internet governance broadly and identify those aspects thereof  that could require national and global public policies (implicitly, the latter might be areas ITU could have a lead role in).  So it's fairly open ended, and could entail anything from interconnection/ICAIS to taxation to whatever.  Indeed, Bob noted that ITU is organizing a workshop in the spring on spam that is understood to build directly on this event.

2.  Relation to WSIS/Invitation Process.  While the WSIS process gives rise to the meeting, this is an ITU event, to "initiate a process to prepare ITU's inputs and position" vis-a-vis the UN working group.  As such, it is the rules and organizational culture of ITU that apply here, not those of WSIS.  This goes directly to how they have been approaching the matter of invitations to participate.  They have been following a top down model in which the secretariat reaches out to selected individual experts to round out a meeting that will be overwhelmingly populated by the governments and businesses that are the ITU's paying members and sector members, respectively.  They were not thinking of civil society organizations as an fixed constituency that should be 'represented' per se and thus should have a right to nominate representatives on a bottom up basis.  Moreover, the secretariat people involved are generally speaking not quite up to speed on the whole WSIS CS process and apparatus.  Bob for example had no idea how we are organized---bureau, plenary, CT, families/caucuses/WGs etc---and have made decisions, and hence didn't know how to respond when various individuals started writing to say they represented xyz CS grouping and hence would like to attend, expenses paid please.  I should add that, contrary to something I conjectured about previously, he says the line-up of participants will definitely include plenty of critics of the ITU.

3.  Participation of the Caucus.  In fact, the caucus will be almost disproportionately well represented, with (if I recall correctly) at a minimum Vittorio, Izumi, Milton, Bertrand, Wolfgang, and myself in attendance.  But we are invited as individual experts, not as caucus representatives (he didn't know much about the caucus).  Per the invite letter, we are asked as individuals to consider writing something.  I asked whether it would be ok if, should the caucus get it together to write a joint statement, this could be presented by someone as part of the program.  He said sure, why not, we can have a slot for this somewhere in sessions 1-4.  So as I think others have suggested, we should move on both tracks, individual and collective inputs, to ensure non-government/business thinking is well represented.

The above begs two questions:

a.  While the process discussions have at times been made unnecessarily unpleasant, we clearly need to make final decision on the caucus name, coordinators, and website.  We obviously cannot issue a joint statement etc. without doing these things.

b.  We need to figure out how we are going to coordinate with the larger WSIS CS structure.  We can adopt a joint statement as a caucus, but should we also be seeking a broader endorsement thereof?  Or should we even be thinking of something that would not be a caucus statement, but rather a statement that would be done with and endorsed by the much broader range of organizations that have devoted time and energy to WSIS?  As I said in a message on Dec. 19, I personally think we should not assume that by default this group 'owns' any issue that arises related to 'Internet governance,' and that we should actively engage others.

4.  Participation of WSIS CSOs More Generally.  Finally, while ITU was not thinking of constituency representation, I urged Bob to start.  In particular, I asked that he consult with his colleagues and see if it wouldn't be possible to reserve a block of invitations, like maybe ten, for people who could be nominated from the larger assemblage of CS groups in WSIS, even though this isn't a WSIS event.  He said that would be tough because they have a limited number of bodies they can accommodate and the governments and businesses involved in ITU will want to provide most of them; indeed, rather interestingly, he noted that he'd heard from some businesses that they wanted slots because they'd heard the CSO people were getting slots!  Anyway, we'll see if anything can be done.  He noted that no matter what's decided on this score, there's no money to fly people in etc.

So that's that.

Best,

Bill

> -----Original Message-----
> From: plenary-admin at wsis-cs.org
> [mailto:plenary-admin at wsis-cs.org]On Behalf Of Fullsack Jean-Louis
> Sent: Friday, January 23, 2004 10:51 PM
> To: plenary at wsis-cs.org
> Cc: bjaffre at csdptt.org
> Subject: Re: AW: [WSIS CS-Plenary] Re: [governance] Internet
> governance :roles of plenary and governance lists
>
>
> Sorry, Wolfgang, Adam and others
> Once more the ITU Secretary general has selected his
> interlocutors. This is
> unacceptable for the Civil Society.
> If the CS is to participate as a speeking partner in these "panel
> discussions" we -the CS Plenary- ought to be informed previously about the
> content and rationale of the CS contributions and/or position. And we -the
> CS Plenary- are to designate our representative(s) accordingly.
> No closed doors negociations on behalf of the CS and please no
> "welcome" for
> Utsumi's nominal "invitations".
> Jean-Louis Fullsack
> CSDPTT
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "AIZU" <aizu at anr.org>
> To: <plenary at wsis-cs.org>; "Governance" <governance at lists.cpsr.org>
> Sent: Wednesday, January 21, 2004 1:02 PM
> Subject: Re: AW: [WSIS CS-Plenary] Re: [governance] Internet governance
> :roles of plenary and governance lists
>
>
> > I also received an invitation from ITU a few hours ago, and
> > am trying to modify my schedule to go.
> >
> > I fully agree with Vittorio that we should coordinate our participation.
> >
> > izumi
> >
> >
> > At 11:04 04/01/21 +0100, Vittorio Bertola wrote:
> >  >wolfgang at imv.au.dk ha scritto:
> >  >> Thanks Adam & Jeanette,
> >  >> this is good step forward.
> >  >> What do you think about a Caucus Website?
> >  >
> >  >Actually, I was tasked with preparing it in Geneva, and I have started
> > working. I stopped when the discussion on our name & domain name went
> > nowhere, but if we can accept to live with the name Adam
> registered on his
> > own (gov-net.org), I think I can come up with an initial site
> by the next
> > weekend. At least, I hope so.
> >  >
> >  >> I think the letter to Kofi Annan$B%((Bs office is as urgent as a
> letter to
> > Utsumi. It should be short letters. Could you write a first draft?
> >  >
> >  >Support. I think our new coordinators should manage the agenda and get
> > deliverables done :)
> >  >
> >  >> Concerning the letter to Utsumi, we should take note in this letter
> > (and welcome), that some Caucus members has been invited by him in their
> > personal capacity as experts and than propose three other
> names. As far as
> > I know Milton and Betrand has been invited officially.
> >  >
> >  >I got an "early notice of an invitation" yesterday evening.
> (So I don't
> > need a "ticket" from the caucus, I think.)
> >  >
> >  >An interesting note is that the invitation says that invited
> experts are
> > supposed to express their preference on whether they would like "to
> >  >either introduce their contributions, make presentations and/or
> >  >participate in panel discussions". I think we should coordinate
> ourselves
> > so that CS people don't end up all in the panels or all making
> > presentations... The agenda is not clear yet, but, if we can, I think we
> > should try to get a CS person in every relevant panel (assuming that the
> > organizers will agree, of course...)
> >  >--
> >  >.oOo.oOo.oOo.oOo vb.
> >  >Vittorio Bertola - vb [a] bertola.eu.org
> >  >http://bertola.eu.org/    <-- Vecchio sito, nuovo toblog!
> >  >
> >  >_______________________________________________
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> >  >Plenary at wsis-cs.org
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> >  >
> >
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