[alac] ALAC Statement on WSIS Declaration of Principles and Plan of Actions

[Vittorio Bertola <vb@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

At Large Advisory Committee's Statement
on WSIS Declaration of Principles and Plan of Actions

January 20, 2004

At the World Summit on the Information Society held on December 10 to 12 in
Geneva, the member states of the United Nations adopted the Declaration of
Principles and the Plan of Action that include specific language on the
issue of "Internet Governance" (as attached). 

ICANN's At Large Advisory Committee welcomes the fact that these statements
clearly recognize the role of civil society as a full participant in the
international management of the Internet, and bring attention to the need
for a deep involvement of individual users into its governance.

Specifically, we believe that the technical management of the Internet
should remain as much as possible in the private sector and civil society,
or providers and users of the specific services, and include governmental
participation only as overseer and ultimate guarantor of the public
interest. We are concerned that excessive intervention by governments into
technical Internet operations, in local, regional and international arenas,
might interfere with its smooth and healthy operation, limit innovation and
cause over-regulation, countering the existing workings of the Internet and
the principles that caused its success as a tool to foster economic
development and to increase freedom of communication.

This is why we strongly endorse the idea of a community-driven consensus
that is behind the very existence of ICANN. We would also like to mention,
however, that user participation in ICANN activities has not yet been given
the full attention or support  it deserves, and call for further
improvements of the users' role inside the ICANN framework. This should be
an issue of primary importance in the Internet governance discussions
between now and the second WSIS phase in Tunis, together with other
fundamental items such as increasing ICANN's international footprint,
internal diversity, and multilingualism.

However, the scope of ICANN activities should remain limited to technical
matters that require world-wide coordination, understanding that in some
areas they cannot be parted from their social and political consequences,
and that these consequences must be considered in the technical
policy-making process. ICANN can be successful only if it focuses on those
issues that it can address. Issues such as the Digital Divide, in-country
competitive and pricing policies, and, more generally, those that pertain to
Internet usage control rather than to Internet technical coordination,
should be left to those fora best-suited to handle them.

The At Large Advisory Committee, as mandated by the ICANN Bylaws, is
currently setting up a practical organizational structure to foster the
representation and participation of Internet users and their civil society
organizations from around the globe. This structure will be based on
Regional At Large Organizations (RALO) that will be constituted in each of
the five ICANN Regions by a set of accredited At Large Structures (ALS), or
civil society groups and organizations who represent different types of
Internet users and different countries of the world. This ambitious program
will create an effective and diverse instrument for participation to global
and regional Internet policy-making processes by all netizens of the world.

For this reason, we declare our willingness to participate in the
forthcoming multi-stakeholder working group activities organized by the
Secretary General of the United Nations, to channel into these activities
the voices of the global user community on Internet name and address
resource management issues, as mandated by our mission. 

Moreover, while pointing out that ICANN-specific issues only constitute a
part of the broader set of issues labeled as "Internet Governance", we also
think that the experience gathered in these years of ICANN could be
positively used to draft a workable model for the multi-stakeholder
governance of other issues. We want to remain focused on finalizing and
operating an effective user participation mechanism within ICANN, but at the
same time we think we can bring an important contribution to the next phase
of Internet Governance discussions at WSIS.

Finally, we support the Civil Society Declaration, "Shaping Information
Societies for Human Needs", which clearly endorses inclusive participation,
transparency, and democratic accountability and recognizes the need for
"full and effective participation of marginalized stakeholders like
developing and transitional countries, global civil society organisations,
small and medium-sized enterprises, and individual users." This, in the
interest of the global network, should be considered one of the main
objectives of any revised structure for Internet governance.


 
Reference 1
Declaration of Principles of WSIS
Final version as adopted on Dec 12, 2003 in Geneva

48.     The Internet has evolved into a global facility available to the
public and its governance should constitute a core issue of the Information
Society agenda. The international management of the Internet should be
multilateral, transparent and democratic, with the full involvement of
governments, the private sector, civil society and international
organizations. It should ensure an equitable distribution of resources,
facilitate access for all and ensure a stable and secure functioning of the
Internet, taking into account multilingualism.
The management of the Internet encompasses both technical and public policy
issues and should involve all stakeholders and relevant intergovernmental
and international organizations. In this respect it is recognized that:
policy authority for Internet-related public policy issues is the sovereign
right of States. They have rights and responsibilities for international
Internet-related public policy issues;
the private sector has had and should continue to have an important role in
the development of the Internet, both in the technical and economic fields;
civil society has also played an important role on Internet matters,
especially at community level, and should continue to play such a role;
intergovernmental organizations have had and should continue to have a
facilitating role in the coordination of Internet-related public policy
issues;
international organizations have also had and should continue to have an
important role in the development of Internet-related technical standards
and relevant policies. 
50.     International Internet governance issues should be addressed in a
coordinated manner. We ask the Secretary-General of the United Nations to
set up a working group on Internet governance, in an open and inclusive
process that ensures a mechanism for the full and active participation of
governments, the private sector and civil society from both developing and
developed countries, involving relevant intergovernmental and international
organizations and forums, to investigate and make proposals for action, as
appropriate, on the governance of Internet by 2005.  

Plan of Actions of WSIS

C6.     Enabling environment
13.     To maximize the social, economic and environmental benefits of the
Information Society, governments need to create a trustworthy, transparent
and non-discriminatory legal, regulatory and policy environment. Actions
include:
a) Governments should foster a supportive, transparent, pro-competitive and
predictable policy, legal and regulatory framework, which provides the
appropriate incentives to investment and community development in the
Information Society.
b) We ask the Secretary General of the United Nations to set up a working
group on Internet governance, in an open and inclusive process that ensures
a mechanism for the full and active participation of governments, the
private sector and civil society from both developing and developed
countries, involving relevant intergovernmental and international
organizations and forums, to investigate and make proposals for action, as
appropriate, on the governance of Internet by 2005.  The group should, inter
alia:
i)      develop a working definition of Internet governance;  
ii)     identify the public policy issues that are relevant to Internet
governance; 
iii)    develop a common understanding of the respective roles and
responsibilities of governments, existing intergovernmental and
international organisations and other forums as well as the private sector
and civil society from both developing and developed countries;  
iv)     prepare a report on the results of this activity to be presented for
consideration and appropriate action for the second phase of WSIS in Tunis
in 2005.
c) Governments are invited to:
i)      facilitate the establishment of national and regional Internet
Exchange Centres;
ii)     manage or supervise, as appropriate, their respective country code
top-level domain name (ccTLD);
iii)    promote awareness of the Internet.
d)      In cooperation with the relevant stakeholders, promote regional root
servers and the use of internationalised domain names in order to overcome
barriers to access.
di)     


Reference 2

"Shaping Information Societies for Human Needs"
Civil Society Declaration to the World Summit on the Information Society
Unanimously Adopted by the WSIS Civil Society Plenary on 8 December 2003

(http://wsis-online.net/smsi/file-storage/download/WSIS-CS-Decl-08Dec2003-eng1.htm?version_id=313554)


2.4.7 Global Governance of ICT and Communications
International "rules of the game" play an increasingly central role in the
global information economy.  In recent years, governments have liberalised
traditional international regulatory regimes for telecommunications, radio
frequency spectrum, and satellite services, and have created new
multilateral arrangements for international trade in services, intellectual
property, "information security," and electronic commerce.   At the same
time, business groups have established a variety of "self-regulatory"
arrangements concerning Internet identifiers (names and numbers),
infrastructure, and content.

It is not acceptable for these and related global governance frameworks to
be designed by and for small groups of powerful governments and companies
and then exported to the world as faits accomplis.  Instead, they must
reflect the diverse views and interests of the international community as a
whole.  This overarching principle has both procedural and substantive
dimensions.

Procedurally, decision-making processes must be based on such values as
inclusive participation, transparency, and democratic accountability.  In
particular, institutional reforms are needed to facilitate the full and
effective participation of marginalized stakeholders like developing and
transitional countries, global civil society organisations, small and
medium-sized enterprises, and individual users.

Substantively, global governance frameworks must promote a more equitable
distribution of benefits across nations and social groups.  To do so, they
must strike a better balance between commercial considerations and other
legitimate social objectives.  For example, existing international
arrangements should be reformed to promote: efficient management of network
interconnections and traffic revenue distribution, subject to the mutual
agreement of corresponding operators; equitable allocations of radio
frequency spectrum and satellite orbital slots that fully support
developmental and non-commercial applications; fair trade in electronic
goods and services, taking into account the developing countries' need for
special and differential treatment; an open public domain of information
resources and ideas; and the protection of human rights, consumer safety,
and personal privacy.  In parallel, new diverse international arrangements
are needed to promote: financial support for sustainable e-development,
especially but not only in less affluent nations; linguistic, cultural, and
informational diversity; and the curtailment of concentrated market power in
ICT and mass media industries.
 
In light of the relevant controversies in the WSIS process, special
attention must be given to improving the global coordination of the
Internet's underlying resources.  It must be remembered that the Internet is
not a singular communications "platform" akin to a public telephone network;
it is instead a highly distributed set of protocols, processes, and
voluntarily self-associating networks.  Accordingly, the Internet cannot be
governed effectively by any one organisation or set of interests.   An
exclusionary intergovernmental model would be especially ill suited to its
unique characteristics; only a truly open, multistakeholder, and flexible
approach can ensure the Internet's continued growth and transition into a
multilingual medium.  In parallel, when the conditions for system stability
and sound management can be guaranteed, authority over inherently global
resources like the root servers should be transferred to a global,
multistakeholder entity.

The international community must have full and easy access to knowledge and
information about ICT global governance decision making.  This is a baseline
prerequisite for implementation of the principles mentioned above, and
indeed for the success of the WSIS process itself.   We need public-interest
oriented monitoring and analysis of the relevant activities of both
intergovernmental and  "self-governance" bodies including, inter alia, the
International Telecommunication Union, the World Trade Organization, the
World Intellectual Property Organization, the United Nations Conference on
International Trade Law, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and
Development, the Hague Conference on International Private Law, the of
Europe, the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation, the North  American Free
Trade Agreement, the Internet Corporation for Assigned  Names and Numbers,
and Wassenaar Arrangement.

As a viable first step in this direction, we recommend the establishment of
an independent and truly multistakeholder observatory committee to: (1) map
and track the most pressing current developments in ICT global governance
decision-making; (2) assess and solicit stakeholder input on the conformity
of such decision-making with the stated objectives of the WSIS agenda; and
(3) report to all stakeholders in the WSIS process on a periodic basis until
2005, at which time a decision could be made on whether to continue or
terminate the activity. 
-- 
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