[WSIS CS-Plenary] ITU : Workshop on Internet Governance, Geneva (from the CTO newsletter)

[Alan G. Alegre]

http://www.ictdevagenda.org/frame.php?dir=07&sd=10&sid=1&id=580
ITU : Workshop on Internet Governance, Geneva (Switzerland)
Switzerland  17 March 2004

The workshop on Internet Governance organized by the International
Telecommunications Union (ITU) was held in Geneva from 26 - 27 February. The
workshop was attended by some 140 participants from government, industry,
international organizations and civil society including root server
operators, Regional Internet Registries (RIRs), and ICANN staff and former
board members and those responsible for country code top-level domain names
(ccTLDs).

In his background paper prepared for the workshop, Don Maclean - an
independent consultant and former head of the ITU's strategic planning and
external affairs unit - encapsulates the inherent complexities of the issues
involved. Called 'Herding Schrödingers Cats: Some Conceptual Tools for
Thinking About Internet Governance', the paper 'refers to a task that is
very difficult, perhaps impossible, to accomplish - the expression 'Herding
Cats' is a good description of the challenge of coordinating the
Internet-related interests and activities of governments, the private
sector, civil society, and international organizations. "Schrodinger's cat"
was the subject of a famous thought experiment by an Austrian physicist,
which can be read as demonstrating that absurd results can follow if
principles that make sense in one context are applied to very different
kinds of problems.'

At the first phase of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS)
held in Geneva (Switzerland) during December 2003, governments asked United
Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan to set up a multi-stakeholder working
group on Internet governance to investigate and make proposals for action by
the Summit's second phase (Tunis, 16-18 November 2005). That working group
is to include governments, intergovernmental and international
organizations, as well as the private sector and civil society, from both
developed and developing countries. The workshop inputs from a number of
experts and organizations, among them the issues paper on Internet
Governance published by the ICC in January 2004 (see Regional Roundup: ICC
Publishes Issues Paper on Internet Governance). The task of the working
group is to develop a working definition of Internet governance, to identify
public policy issues that are relevant to Internet governance, and to
develop a common understanding of the roles and responsibilities of the
different stakeholders.

According to an ITU press release, key outcomes of the workshop were that:

    * Definitions of 'Internet Governance'. Participants expressed a broad
range of opinions, but also a willingness to find common ground and to
stress the complementarities of efforts. Several speakers stressed the
problem of articulating the character and scope of governance activities in
a neutral, non-ideological and systematic way. In formulating a common
understanding of what constitutes governance, some made the case for
differentiating between "hard" forms of governance, which involve laws,
regulations or standards, and "soft" forms, which include cooperation and
coordination. These definitions would map across big-picture issues such as
development of technology for equitable and sustainable global development,
to narrow-focus issues such as the use of common resources and the exchange
of specific services and products between nations.

    * 'Form should follow function'. There was significant support for the
architectural maxim that "form should follow function". In other words, the
governance tools chosen to address a particular issue, and the
decision-making structures designed to apply these tools to specific
problems, should reflect and fully represent the balance of interests,
capabilities and needs that exist in the 'real world' - there should be
sufficient flexibility to adapt as this balance changes.

    * Inclusive decision-making. The history of global ICT governance has
demonstrated that some things are best left to the private sector, some are
best left to governments, and that satisfactory arrangements have yet to be
devised for including developing countries and civil society in either the
public or private domains of governance. This experience has also shown that
it is difficult, if not impossible, to become truly inclusive without
fundamental recognition of the separate and complementary functions of
public and private governance structures, the legitimate roles of different
actors, and the need to create dynamic linkages between them.

    * One-stop-shop, or multiple fora. To address current gaps in
governance, some speakers said, many developing countries would like to see
a "one stop shop" like ITU to help them adjust to the new governance
universe, since they lacked the financial, technical and policy resources to
pursue their interests effectively across multiple forums. Others felt that
multiple forums allowed faster adaptation to technological changes and more
flexibility.

* Modalities for reaching consensus were also discussed. The chairman of the
workshop, Shyamal Ghosh, of India's Ministry of Communications and
Information Technology, said that after the first phase of the Summit many
felt that drafting in big plenary meetings was not the best way to forge
consensus, but also that small committees were too exclusive and did not
adequately reflect the views of many Member States. One recommendation was
thus to hold open-ended meetings for all stakeholders, which would still be
intergovernmental in character but more inclusive. The workshop sounded out
ideas that would feed into the efforts of the various bodies involved in the
process.

Resources:

This article based on a press release issued by ITU.

    * ITU http://www.itu.int

* Workshop on Internet Governance
http://www.itu.int/osg/spu/forum/intgov04/index.html