Fwd: [WSIS-CT] ICANN and the public interest issue in CS priority document

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

Début du message réexpédié :

> De: Wolfgang Kleinwächter <bkleinwaechter@web.de>
> Date: Lun 14 juil 2003  13:23:45 Europe/Paris
> À: "Meryem Marzouki" <marzouki@ras.eu.org>, <ct@wsis-cs.org>, 
> <plenary@wsis-cs.org>, <hr-wsis@iris.sgdg.org>, 
> <governance@lists.cpsr.org>
> Objet: Rép : [WSIS-CT] ICANN and the public interest issue in CS 
> priority document
>
> Dear Meryem and others,
>
> the point is here, that the understanding of ICANN has changed over the
> years. While it was seen a couple of years ago as "something like the
> government of the Internet", ICANN 2.0 has a much more limited mandat 
> with a
> more or less clear technical function. All discussions, at the same 
> time,
> articulated that the techical issues have political and social and 
> economic
> implications, that is "public policy implications". The Marakesh 
> resolution
> (2002) of the ITU says that while "private corporations" (like ICANN, 
> ITU
> refused to mention ICANN in its documents) could deal with technical 
> issues,
> it is the ITU which is responsible for the public policy implications. 
> The
> GAC did not jump into this boat directly. The GAC Chair explained this
> during a ccTLD Workshop in Geneva immediately after WSIS PrepCom2 in 
> early
> March 2002 (also in conttrast to the ambassador of Syria) with the 
> argument,
> that, while in the ITU only the PTT ministries are represented, GAC
> representatives come from a broad range of different ministeries - from
> foreign affairs to economcy, technology and even culture - and 
> represent a
> broader view of the government and have to take a wider look, dealing 
> also
> with "other stakeholders". So the ball was back in the governments 
> groups to
> clarify their inner discussion, which ministry should speak on behalf 
> of the
> whole government. Between the governmental ITU and the private (US
> dominated/although the US dominance is more de jure than de facto) 
> ICANN,
> there is a growing grew zone with undefined issues and 
> responsibilities.
>
> The first proposal for a "GIG" tried to take this discussion on a new 
> level,
> that is to introduce the proposal of a New (open and transparant
> multi-stakeholder) Organisation (I call it the Global Information 
> Society
> Observation Council/GISOC) which could take care of "new emerging 
> issues"
> and "invite existing organisations" or "propose the establishment of 
> new
> organisations" to deal with the open questions. I know this is very far
> forward looking, but WSIS is a right time and a right place to start 
> such a
> discussion and to escape from the ITU vs. ICANN debate. We live in the 
> 21st
> century and not only priorities have shifted, also enemy images, 
> models and
> approaches. All this is work in progress.
>
> Best
>
> wolfgang
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Meryem Marzouki" <marzouki@ras.eu.org>
> To: <ct@wsis-cs.org>; <plenary@wsis-cs.org>; <hr-wsis@iris.sgdg.org>;
> <governance@lists.cpsr.org>
> Sent: Monday, July 14, 2003 12:41 PM
> Subject: [WSIS-CT] ICANN and the public interest issue in CS priority
> document
>
>
>> Hi all,
>>
>> It seems that we have a serious point of disagreement in the "Global
>> ICT governance" section of the draft CS document. The sentence at 
>> stake
>> in the document is:
>>
>>> "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."
>>
>> A/ Those who request the deletion of this sentence - mostly members of
>> the governance working group who are participating to the ICANN
>> process, some of them having been elected at ICANN board - argue that,
>> although ICANN is far from perfect, such a sentence would be a call 
>> for
>> the governements to take over the Internet management system, while
>> they consider that nothing would be worse than an intergovernmental
>> management.
>>
>> B/ Those who want this sentence remaining in the document - members or
>> not of the governance working group but certainly not having any
>> responsibility within ICANN process - argue that the current status is
>> that ICANN has been and still is in the hands of the corporate
>> interests, and that ICANN final decisions are in the hands of the US
>> Department of Commerce, to which ICANN reports and without which it
>> doesn't make any important decision.
>>
>> In other words, this sentence is here to say that :
>> 1/ The whole issue should be reexamined, not to put ITU in place of
>> ICANN, but to have everything reexamined and discussed on new bases
>> 2/ Any discussion should inlude the full participation of all
>> stakeholders
>> 3/ Any discussion or decision should serve the public interests and
>> should be compatible with human rights standards
>> 4/ When governements are in, we favour multilateralism among
>> unilateralism (i.e. in this case the sole US governement decision),
>> specially in order to give equitable voices to the South
>>
>> It is also amazing to see how a general sentence intended for the 
>> whole
>> ICT/Internet governance issues to ask for the promotion of public
>> interests, human rights and the sustainable democratic development of
>> the information and communication society seems to be understood by
>> some as solely directed to ICANN.
>>
>> To my knowledge, this is the only specific issue in the document where
>> there is such a strong disagreement, while at the same time other 
>> parts
>> of the CS document also promotes the public interest, human rights and
>> the sustainable democratic development, and even multilateralism over
>> unilateralism.
>>
>> One can then reasonably wonder what is exactly at stake here.
>>
>> Best regards,
>> Meryem Marzouki
>>
>> _______________________________________________
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>> Ct@wsis-cs.org
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>> Civil Society Plenary: http://www.wsis-cs.org/
>> Content & Themes Documents:
>> http://bscw.fit.fraunhofer.de/pub/bscw.cgi/0/42953798
>>
>
>