Re: [WSIS-CT] Civil Society Priorities Document

[Meryem Marzouki <marzouki@ras.eu.org>]

Hi Adam and all,

I cannot disagree more with your request for deleting from the CS draft 
document a sentence which calls that management of Internet names and 
numbers and other related mechanisms should SERVE THE PUBLIC INTERESTS 
AND BE COMPATIBLE WITH HUMAN RIGHTS STANDARDS.
This is the least minimum civil society organizations could demand. 
Moreover, this is fully compatible with general civil society requests 
in the whole document and since the begining of the WSIS process. Not 
to mention that it is a constant request of civil society organizations 
in the framework of other summits and more generally speaking of all 
international/intergovernmental meetings.

Saying that it can only serve to support the arguments of governments 
to control Internet resource allocation is a misinterpretation.

Let me remind you and everyone that the current situation is that the 
control of Internet resources is currently in the hand of the US 
governement through the DoC under the cover of ICANN. Is this what we 
want ? Surely not.
Moreover, the protocols and standards definition are currently in the 
hands of big corporations. Is this also what we want ? Again, surely 
not.

Can we, in the same document, call "for a future Convention against 
Information Warfare" (Infosec section) and at the same time promote a 
statu quo of management of resources like Internet names and numbers, 
which, among many other decisions, strongly affects the sovereignty of 
some countries ?

Can we ignore that, regarding management of names and numbers, as well 
as regarding protocols and standards, serving the public interests is 
the only argument that we have against the control by the industry over 
the global information commons (Re: patent policies, etc.) ? Can we 
ignore that compatibility with the human rights standards is our only 
argument to protect privacy and freedom of expression in the names and 
numbers management (Re: privacy in whois databases, freedom of 
expression threaten by UDRP, etc.)

This is the reason why all theses policies need re-examination, with 
the full participation of all stakeholsders and, moreover, of all 
citizens, since these issues go far beyond only stakeholders interests. 
They are a question of democracy as a whole.

In any case, we will have time during Paris meeting to discuss this 
face to face and in deep details, so as to avoid any mistunderstanding 
and misinterpretation. I thus invite every civil society organization 
to participate in the meeting organized by the governance working 
group, since this is far from a technical issue only.

Meryem

Le lundi, 14 juil 2003, à 00:18 Europe/Paris, Adam Peake a écrit :

> I request that the following paragraph be deleted from the Civil 
> Society Priorities Document:
>
> "To these ends, the current management of Internet names and numbers 
> and other related mechanisms should be re-examined with the full 
> participation of all stakeholders in light of serving public interests 
> and compatibility with human rights standards."
>
> It can only serve to support the arguments of governments that wish to 
> gain control over Internet resource allocation, and others hoping to 
> see the ITU or some other inter-governmental organization take control 
> of Internet naming and addressing.
>
> It should be deleted.
>
> Kind regards,
>
> Adam Peake
> GLOCOM Tokyo