[WSIS CS-Plenary] An Assessment of the WGIG Report

[Milton Mueller]

The Internet Governance Project, a consortium of academic experts on
international Internet regulation and policy, has issued a response to
the recently-released report of the UN Working Group on Internet
Governance (WGIG).

The IGP praises the report for providing a "useful" consensus
definition of Internet governance and for "identifying a range of
important public policy issues." The IGP singled out two policy issues
mentioned in the report in particular : 

1) A call for moving beyond unilateral U.S. control of the domain name
system, and;

2) A recognition that existing Internet-related treaties around
intellectual property protection are controversial, and may need to be
reviewed to be better balanced with values such as fair use, free
expression, privacy, technical innovation and economic development.

However, when it comes to the WGIG's other mandates to "define the
roles and responsibilities" of governments, civil society and business,
and to make specific proposals for action, the Report provides less
guidance. 

The IGP was forced to respond "none of the above" to its 4 proposed
models of institutional reform. The IGP supports WGIG's call for a new,
open global Internet policy forum that gives equal status to citizens
and governments, but says that such a forum will not succeed unless its
efforts are focused on a particular objective. The IGP suggests that the
new forum focus on preparing the world's governments to achieve binding
agreements on the basic principles and norms to guide Internet
governance.

The UN WGIG Report itself can be downloaded at www.wgig.org 

The Internet Governance Project's response can be downloaded at
www.internetgovernance.org or at
http://dcc.syr.edu/miscarticles/IGP-quovadis.pdf 

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