[WSIS CS-Plenary] WGIG

Thu Apr 21 15:23:16 BST 2005

Dear all,

as promised here is again another report from inside the WGIG. It is a personal report from the 3rd WGIG meeting, which ended yesterday evening and I do not speak on behalf of other members of the group. .

1. in the open consultation on Monday there was a strong pressure by some governments from developing countries, in particular India and Syria, to consider the establishment of an intergovenrmental body or, with regard to estimated costs of such a new body, to strengthen the role of the ITU. Chinas underlined again the principle of sovereignty but did not support a move towards ITU. The EU made a short but interesting statement, signalling that they could consider the creation of something like a public-private body for the oversight of some functions of the Internet. The US said once again, that the existing system is result of history not of conspiracy and that the US will terminate its MoU with ICANN in October 2006. But the USG was again not specific about its plans beyond 2006. It was also interesting, that the India delegate, whih was very clear and outspoken in favour of a new body. made clear, that such anew body should not interfere into the day-to-day operation of the Internet and should not deal with issues of a technical nature. Not all issues would make their way to such an organisaiton, he said, but did not specify, where he draws the line between "political" and "technical" issues. 

2. The Cluster Papers, published on the WGIG website, has helped to move the discussion forward and to get a better understanding of the complexity of Internet Governance. The decision taken by the WGIG in its first meeting, to develop a "broad working definition" was very helpful. So the group could go far beyond the ICANN issues. As a result of the debate - from the issue papers to the cluster papers - the members of the group started to realize, that there is an overexaggeration of the role of ICANN and the importance of the management of the core resources. The "real issues" for the users and other stakeholders are on the second and third layer - from Cybercrime and  Spam to e-Commerce and IPR . The first layer - core ressources - are more and more seen as an "enabler", which should. not be "controlled" but "protected" so that the Internet can continue to function in a stable and secure manner and could remain robust. This shift from "control" to "protection" is an important one and is more than "language". It changes the perspective with regard to the hidden but overexaggerated "power struggle". There is no so much "power" on layer one (if it is compared with the problems on layer 2,3 and 4) and the majority of the layer 1 issues are indeed of a technical nature (with a well recognized public policy dimension). 

3. The main critical issues on Layer 1 is the authorization of the publication of root zone files (this has first priority for the overwhelming majority within the group). Proposed improvements circle around the key words "independence" and "internaitonalization". Other Layer 1 issues are important  but not so dramatic. 
Here we have 
a.  the "stabilization" of the voluntary arrangements of the root server operators (both the 13 of the athoritative root and the 90+ of anycast); 
b. the issue of additonal allocation systems for IP addresses (which is rather controversial in the group and in my reading a majority of WGIG members reject the idea to have NIRs)
c. the procedural clarification  for the introduction of new gTLDs
d. the fomalization of arrangements between ICANN/IANA and ccTLD Registries (taking into account the recently adopted new GAC principles)
e. iDNS (here the proposal is to delegate this back to the "language families", that they continue to work this out on the basis of the ground work, done by IETF and ICANN sofar. 
The general mood is here evolution not revolution, simple not complex, minimal and maximal. 

4. The critical issue of Layer 2 is Spam. This discussion has shown, that there is no single body at the moment, dealing with this issue. It has also shown that national legislation is not enough to deal with Spam. There is no clear concept so far what to recommend and how to deal with this in the future. Probably a "new mechanism" will be proposed. Probably "Identity Theft" (including phishinf and pharming and spoofing) will get a similar status in the debate in the weeks ahead. The Cybercrime Convention is seen critical, but as one existing mechanisms. There was not detailed discusison sofar, how the convention could be further developed. It was also clear, that while govenrments have to take the lead in fighting misue of the Internet, all stakeholders has to become involved. 

5. The critical issue of Layer 3 is IPR and eCommerce. It is unclear how far WGIG should go into the terrain of WIPO and WTO and UNCITRAL, OECD, GBDe etc.). 

6. The critical issue of Layer 4 is capacity building, and here both access and training/education. 

7. With regard to "formal and informal arrangements" - Chapter 6 of the outline of the final report - there seems to be an rough consensus on the following approach:

7.1. establishment of a "Forum" (I call it the United Nations Internet Governance Communication Group/UNIG.cog) which could function as a discussion platform for policy development and as a wachdog. Such a Forum would not have decision making capacity (however it could recommend actions to other institutions which have decision making capacity in their special arena of responsibility). Such a forum should be  based on the principle of "multistakeholderism" and organized as a network, with a small "maultistakeholder core group" in the center of such an "Internet Spider Net". The Group could have an annual meeting under the umbrella of UN Secretary General. It could publish a annual World Internet Report. 

7.2 establishment of an intergovernmental oversight body for the root. This body would have a very limited mandate for decision making, mainly to authorize modifications, deletions or additions of political controversial zone files in the root. Such an body (or an "Internet Security Council") could be work on an ad hoc basis, that is it would meet only if controversial cases pop up. It could be established by the GAC, or by the UN or by interested governments.  

7. 3 recommendations to improve the performance and coordination of existing mechanisms

7.4 eventual recommendations to develop new mechanisms (probably for Spam or Identity Theft). 

All this is still work in progress. This report is done in my own name and I do not speak on behalf of other members of the group. So take this as my individual reflection and conclusion form the 3rd meeting. I welcome any critical remarks and input which will be helpful for the final online discussion and the offline endgame in mid June. 

Best regards

wolfgang