[WSIS CS-Plenary] Some thoughts on Internet Governance for Tunisia Prepcom

[Milton Mueller]

Internet governance will presumably be a major focus 
of the rest of the WSIS process. In order to facilitate
progress toward a CS position 

Insofar as the Internet governance caucus can agree to do
anything, it was agreed that we should take the relevant section 
of the Civil Soc Declaration as a starting point, and discuss how to 
modify it. That is what I do in this post. 

A summary of the CS Declaration's main points relevant to IG are:

 * Governments should not take over the ICANN function and should 
not be exclusively responsible for IG

 * The special US oversight role over ICANN and the root zone file 
(mistakenly identified as the "root servers") should end when "the 
conditions for system stability and sound management can be 
guaranteed"

 * There should be "public interest monitoring" and analysis of Internet 
governance-related IOs such as ICANN, WIPO, OECD, WTO, etc.

 * A "multi-stakeholder observatory committee" should be established to 
perform this monitoring and analysis

In terms of modifying this statement, I think a lot of work needs to be done. At the time it was written it probably did a good job of staking out basic CS attitudes toward some key Internet governance issues, both broad and narrow. The debate has progressed significantly since WSIS Phase 1, however, and in its current form the statement does not contribute much.

* At a minimum, we need to correct the error and properly identify 
what ICANN does and what aspect of it is supervised by the U.S. Dept 
of Commerce. The root servers are actually owned and operated by 
independent organizations and have no contractual relationship either 
with ICANN or the U.S. DoC. ICANN does, however, have some MoUs 
with the USG and the U.S. Dept of Commerce does oversee the contents 
of the root zone file. 

* In addition, I personally would want to closely re-examine those 
words about when USG oversight should end; the qualification about 
"guaranteed" conditions for "system stability and sound management" 
sounds a bit too restrictive for me. If a new statement is not to be 
completely irrelevant, a firm position on this issue must be taken

* The "observatory committee" strikes me as an idea who time has 
come and gone. Most of what it was supposed to do has been 
superseded by the SG's Working Group. (Maybe we can claim that 
our call was heeded? ;-) ) 

* A revised statement should take some position on how to deal 
with multiple, overlapping internet governance regimes. See my 
discussion of this in the Internet Governance Project's paper on 
principles and norms http://dcc.syr.edu/miscarticles/IGP-UNICTTF.pdf 
 
A more aggressive approach to revision could do any or all of the 
following:

* Identify which of the multiple Intgov regimes are failing, or where 
contradictions or loopholes exist

* Articulate specific critiques and supports of ICANN, e.g. oppose 
the use of Internet resources as leverage for regulation and control, 
and call for consistency of its governance mechanisms with the end 
to end principle; approve ICANN's incorporation of direct CS input into 
its processes, with perhaps some critique of its bowdlerized At-Large 
mechanisms 

* Articulate specific critiques of ITU and address the ITU-ICANN relationship

* Address in a more substantive way the relationship between 
developed and developing countries in governance institutions. 
The current language, which basically says that inclusiveness is 
good, rather begs the question of what institutional reforms 
would actually improve the situation.

* Take a position on IPR and specifically fair use standards

* Take a position on spam control

* Take a position on privacy specifically as it relates to Internet 
governance and surveillance

--Milton Mueller
(with apologies for the monolingualism)