[alac] Fwd: [WSIS CS-Plenary] WGIG

[Izumi AIZU <aizu@xxxxxxx>]

This gives a good summary of what happened at WGIG
last week in Geneva.

Vittorio may add your own observation, perhaps.

thanks,

izumi


> Delivered-To: plenary@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> From: Wolfgang Kleinw臘hter <wolfgang.kleinwaechter@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> To: plenary@xxxxxxxxxxx
> Cc: WSIS Internet Governance Caucus <governance@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>
> 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
>
>
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