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

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

Début du message réexpédié :

> De: "William Drake" <wdrake@cidcm.umd.edu>
> Date: Lun 14 juil 2003  14:01:48 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: RE: [WSIS-CT] ICANN and the public interest issue in CS 
> priority document
>
> Hi,
>
> I agree with Meryem that the paragraph as written is entirely 
> reasonable.
> But the problem is not with what it says, but rather with the context 
> in
> which it is being said and read, so I share Adam's concerns.
>
> The government ministries and national telecom administrations that 
> control
> the ITU have long been demanding that control over names and numbers be
> moved from ICANN to the ITU.  Unless there was simultaneously some
> fundamental changes in the ITU's membership and procedures, this would 
> be a
> disaster for civil society organizations (which are unable to 
> participate
> there, unlike in ICANN) and probably for the Internet more generally.  
> Bear
> in mind that most ITU members were heatedly opposed to the Internet 
> when it
> first emerged as a global mass medium because they viewed it 
> (correctly) as
> a threat to their monopolies, and that they have been trying to use 
> the ITU
> to assert control over it ever since (e.g. by demanding the regulation 
> of
> Internet telephony and the imposition of archaic telephone-style 
> accounting
> and settlements practices, influencing standards for ENUM, and so on). 
>  They
> have issued non-binding declarations on this score at several ITU 
> meetings
> over the past five years.  The language they've inserted in the WSIS is
> simply an extension of that long-running battle.
>
> In this context, these players could attempt to argue that a CS 
> document
> questioning the current management of names and numbers (which is only 
> one
> small piece of "Internet governance") demonstrates global CS support 
> for
> their turf claims.  The question is whether we want to be so used.
>
> Perhaps the addition of a last sentence making clear that this call for
> reexamination is not necessarily an endorsement of any 
> intergovernmental
> organization's turf aspirations would have been a simple solution.  
> Since
> it's probably too late to reach agreement on something like that, 
> perhaps
> the CS folks who will take the floor in Paris could simply make this 
> clear
> orally?
>
> It should probably be added that there is absolute zero possibility 
> that
> anything said in the WSIS process or the ITU more generally will 
> affect the
> management of Internet identifiers.   This may matter for CS and its
> evolution toward shared perspectives on ICT global governance, but it 
> won't
> matter for the larger world.  The US will never transfer control from 
> ICANN
> to ITU, full stop.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Bill Drake
>
>
>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: ct-admin@wsis-cs.org [mailto:ct-admin@wsis-cs.org]On Behalf Of
>> Meryem Marzouki
>> Sent: Monday, July 14, 2003 12:41 PM
>> To: ct@wsis-cs.org; plenary@wsis-cs.org; hr-wsis@iris.sgdg.org;
>> governance@lists.cpsr.org
>> 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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>> Content & Themes Documents:
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>>
>
>