Consultations on the convening of the IGF
23 May 2007
Selected EXCERPTS
from the official Transcripts
in relation with the IGF procedural process
F.Muguet V0.1 24 June 2007
Corrected for typos and minor errors.
Important statements in bold.
Explanatory notes in italic.
Note: The following is an excerpt of the output of the real-time captioning taken during the Consultations on the Convening of the Internet Governance Forum, Although it is largely accurate, in some cases it may be incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors. It is posted as an aid to understanding the proceedings at the session, but should not be treated as an authoritative record.
>>CHAIRMAN DESAI: ../.. I just wanted to inform that you the new Secretary-General has asked me to continue as the special advisor on this matter until the end of this year. And it's in that capacity, in my capacity as a special advisor on Internet that I'm taking this meeting for an open consultation on this issue. The other part of it was the Advisory Group. Again, there has been a process of -- how shall I say? -- reshuffling going on in New York which has delayed matters. My understanding is that it is in the final stages. And I don't know when, at what point, at what hour, the decisions will be taken. But it's in the works. ../.. What we are really advising the Secretary-General on is what he is responsible for, which is the convening of the meeting. This is my job. This is the job also of the Advisory Group. I also wanted to say that the discussions with our Brazilian hosts have been progressing. A team from the United Nations secretariat visited Brazil in March and will be visiting Brazil again next week. So as far as the organizational and logistical arrangements are concerned, they are well in hand and there is no delay of our conclusion on that front.
>>SECRETARY KUMMER: ../.. We also have made provisions so that remote participants can send in questions and intervention via e-mail. There are two monitors there. Adam Peake and Kieren McCarthy will take any questions and will interact with remote participants. We did send out a draft program outline for the Rio meeting about a month ago. And that was very much based on the input we had received during the consultations and the preparatory process of that stock-taking of Athens in February. Clearly, the aim would not be a repetition of the first meeting, but the aim would be to have something that is a little bit more, that is, Athens plus. The general feeling in February was that the structure for the Athens meeting had actually worked well, and there was a general sense that the basic meeting structure should be retained. There was a sense that best practices should be given more prominent space throughout the meeting, through the thematic meetings, but also maybe in separate meetings. ../.. And in addition, we picked up an idea that was first used by the ITU in an intergovernmental context, that was to have -- I think the ITU called it speed exchanges. We call it here "speed dialogue." Innovative format which was taken from the American Bar Association. They experimented with it. And we have a representative of the American Bar Association in this room who may give his explanation. But this is not supposed to be a decision-making, preparation session, as it was used by some organizations ../.. . We also made some suggestions for possible content for the main sessions. And these suggestions were not invented by the secretariat, but they were taken from the summary we had of the Athens meeting. And we also, to conclude, we said we could hold another round of open consultations in September, and talking to various people, I feel they, on the whole, see the necessity to do that. We have already reserved facilities. We don't have much flexibility, as the U.N. will be very busy this fall. But there is a slot in the first week of September where we could hold other meetings. ../.. And on the whole, I'm pleased to note that the reactions were rather positive. There were, of course, a few dissenting voices. And there were also contributions that, again, raised the more fundamental questions related to the role, the mandate, and the functioning of the IGF. With regard to the content, there was, again -- clearly, some contributions pointed out the need to address critical Internet resources and also called for a kind of meta discussion on the global architecture, the global framework.
>>EL SALVADOR: Thank you, Chairman. The Latin American and Caribbean group, GRULAC, would first of all like to thank you and the secretariat for the draft program and schedule which were published on the official Web site of the forum. GRULAC has made a study of the mandate of the Internet Governance Forum, henceforth referred to as a forum, contained in paragraph 72 of the Tunis Agenda for the information society, again, the results obtained at the first forum, held in Athens, and the drafts prepared for the second forum in Rio of this year, which we would like to share with you. Before going into details, please allow me to highlight the fact that GRULAC believes that the forum must fulfill the entire mandate which was handed to us by our heads of state and government to take each subparagraph of paragraph 72, GRULAC would like to state the following. With regard to debating issues, public policy issues relating to key elements of Internet governance, with the aim of contributing to sustainability, solidity, security, stability, and Internet development, the forum has made progress. We might even consider that all discussions contribute to this subparagraph. We should mention that subparagraph A will be relevant throughout the rest of the process. And we need to include all the key elements relating to Internet governance, and we know that this is a long list. With regard to facilitating the dialogue between bodies which deal with cross-cutting and Internet-related international public policies and debating issues which are not
included in the mandate of existing bodies, the open fora for all the main organizations which deal with the issues relating to the Internet for this year could be a first step in the right direction. GRULAC would invite these organizations to take advantage of this space in Rio to increase their visibility, and as an action that would contribute to fulfilling the governance principles reflected in paragraphs 29 to 31 of the Tunis Agenda for the information society. The relevant results of these sessions could be fed into the topical session and/or the year-in-review session in addition to being dealt with in the reporting-back sessions. As far as facilitating communication with the appropriate intergovernmental organizations and other competent institutions are concerned, we would like to say that the work and results of dynamic coalitions can contribute to the construction of such interfaces. ../.. GRULAC believes that the forum must do everything possible to involve the current entities which deal with Internet governance mechanisms to take advantage of the space offered by the forum to increase their visibility and the
level of awareness, particularly among the different stakeholders of developing countries. ../.. As we said before, as far as GRULAC is concerned, topics relate to go critical Internet resources and the internationalization of Internet governance principles are as important as access, openness, security, and diversity, and must be treated equally, although the reasons for their level of importance are different. ../.. In Athens, the representation of our region stood at 5%. We, therefore, need to actively seek better geographical balance as far as participation is concerned, which will not only facilitate the successful carrying out of our work in forum and later fora, but also the legitimacy of the Internet Governance Forum.
>>CHAIRMAN DESAI: I thank you very much for that very thorough and very
thoughtful contribution. ../..I would also request people, if they have any written contribution -- I know we have the transcript, but it will also help if the written contribution is there for somebody like me, who has lost the habit of reading long transcripts now, and would welcome something like this, which gives me a sense of where people are.
>>GERMANY: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I am speaking on behalf of the European Union. ../.. For us, it is in particular important that the multistakeholder approach be the guiding principles. Mr. Chairman, we equally appreciate that the content of the draft program outline reflects the continuation of the themes brought up in the first IGF in Athens. In particular, with regard to security and openness, as well as the development orientation of the forum which we find of high importance. The European Union is fully committed to continue cooperation with all stakeholders. A number of its member states have embarked on active participation in dynamic coalitions. ../..
>>BRAZIL: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Allow may to speak on behalf of the governments of Brazil and Argentina. .First, I'd like to say that we fully support the statement that has been just delivered by El Salvador on behalf of GRULAC. Our governments are committed to the full implementation in all fora of the results of the World Summit on the Information Society. ../.. The governments of Brazil and Argentina consider essential that the mandate established by the Tunis Agenda regarding participation, scope, thematic agenda, and possible results expected from the IGF be fully observed. No subject that may be relevant to Internet governance show a priori be excluded from the agenda. ../.. As established by paragraph 78 of the Tunis Agenda, the secretary-general of the United Nations should take balanced regional representation into account in the convening of the IGF. Balanced regional representation is essential for the legitimacy of possible recommendations as provided by the IGF mandate. We invite the international telecommunications union and the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, ICANN, to lead the discussion on topical issues related to Internet governance. The ICANN President's Strategy Committee report and the ITU resolution 102 could be a good starting point for discussions. The basis for introducing such topical issues is the Tunis Agenda, paragraph 72j,which provides that IGF shall, inter alia, debate issues regarding the management of critical Internet resources, as well as paragraph 72b which asks the IGF for facilitating discourse between parties dealing with different cross-cutting international public policies regarding the Internet and discuss issues that do not fall within the scope of any existing body. We also support that time be allocated to exchange good practices of Internet management at national level. As regards the structure of the IGF, we are in favor of the installation of a multistakeholder bureau office outlined by paragraph 78b of the Tunis Agenda. It is understandable, considering the open nature of the IGF, that the composition of a bureau poses challenges to the traditional practices within the United Nations. ../..
>>CHINA: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for convening this consultation. The Chinese government attaches great importance to this IGF process. And we have the following points to make. First, we believe that the second IGF meeting should be an expansion of the previous one, the Athens meeting. And we are glad to hear that Mr. Kummer also believes it should be Athens plus. ../..
>>IRAN: ../.. This is where paragraph 72 of the Tunis document, Tunis Agenda for Action, provides us with a list of items within the mandate of IGF; indeed, of major concern for many of us. Many of those items are a matter of major concern for many of us within this room and out there. As we recall, a number of stakeholders during the previous consultations proposed a multi-year program of work to be established in order to enable us to avoid the controversies that we are having around the themes for each meeting of the IGF. And that was to conduct open -- that the proposal of establishing a multi-year program was in a way helping us in these open consultations to do our job in more efficient manner to avoid controversies. It is interesting for us to note the conclusion that if we establish a multi-year program, we would be behind technology called progress and that cannot be accommodated within such a framework. This is why among the issues for the consideration of the IGF in paragraph 72 of the Tunis Agenda for Action we have a theme on emerging issues which does not contradict with establishing the multi-year program of work at all, to our mind. ../.. We wish to clarify, like many others, the necessity of addressing public policy issues related to the key elements of the Internet governance, as well as discussing inter alia issues related to critical Internet resources as stipulated already in paragraph 72 of the Tunis Agenda. There is no point to avoid that. And in fact, the question is, how long we want to avoid discussing those issues. According to paragraph 13a of the WGIG report, which to our mind is the outcome of a full-fledged multistakeholder process, and we have been part of it. ../..
>>SAUDI ARABIA: Thank you, sir. On behalf of the kingdom of Saudi Arabia,Syria, and Kuwait, ../.. We support most of what we heard by the representative of El Salvador on behalf of GRULAC and Argentina, China, and Iran. ../.. As to the other questions that I would like to make, those revolve around the people who are going to be invited to attend, that is to say, the panelists, the moderators, and the chairmen of organs. What is the mechanism that is going to be adopted to select them? I hope that transparency is going to be observed, as well as geographic distribution, as well as the ideas that they carry, and also an indication of the circles that they come from or belong to. I hope that this is going to be decided sufficiently early before the forum, not less than four months before the forum is held. Fourth, we also would like to know what method is going to be utilized in order to prepare for upcoming fora. The fora are going to be held utilizing the same method or that is going to be discussed in Rio, and then we could emerge with a generalized conception for how to prepare for upcoming fora..
>>CHAIRMAN DESAI: Perhaps I can respond to the specific questions that you have raised together. They are fair questions, and I would certainly -- but just one quick comment on the whole question of panelists and participants. I would strongly encourage everybody present here to actually send names. Because, naturally, it's good to have names in front of you of people with competence in different areas who could be invited as panelists, et cetera. So it is always very difficult to collect these names at the last minute. So I would strongly encourage to -- everybody here to send names, particularly in order to ensure fair regional representation from all sides, to send them to the secretariat. And we will completely welcome this exercise. May I suggest quickly on the last point, at the present stage, right now, we are only talking about Rio. And certainly on the last question, I think we have to think as to whether future forums will necessarily be organized in the same way. And that is, I think -- we are hopefully -- is hopefully going to be written into the present constitution. So I just want to assure you that we are taking this, if you like, one step at a time. And are fully aware of the fact that we have to always keep under review how we actually handle these things in future also.//..
>>RUSSIAN FEDERATION: ../.. The Tunis summit reached an agreement that the Internet is a basic element of the structure of the information society. And it is now no longer an R & D tool, but a public resource of global dimensions which requires new approaches. ../.. Now, Mr. Desai said that today in New York, a decision is being taken on the work of the Advisory Group on Internet use for the preparation for the forum. Now, this is an issue that we already raised in February of this year. But I'd like to repeat it now. And the issue is the following: It's about the principles of setting up the new Advisory Group, the membership, the terms of reference, the procedure for candidates from governments and international and nongovernmental organizations. We advocate equal representation of all parties in this body. And the final question, well, yesterday, day before yesterday, it was said that in a few days, some meetings would be planned. Could you please tell me more about that. Will there be some meetings or not ? Or will these extra meetings only be held in September ? And what will be the format of these meetings ?.
>>UNITED STATES: ../.. Like the European Union, we believe the multistakeholder process within the Internet Governance Forum should continue to be a guiding principle. The United States supports the program outline as proposed by Mr. Kummer and the continued elaboration of the four themes from Athens. The United States would also like to reiterate its continued support for private-sector leadership in the innovation and investment that has characterized the development and expansion of the Internet around the globe to date. We believe that the genius of the Internet is that it has been decentralized and private sector-led, encouraging individual creativity, access, and value added at the edges of the network. ../..
>>WILLIAM DRAKE: ../.. The Internet governance caucus has been debating these issues online at some length, as you might guess, and has adopted two statements, one on substantive matters and one on procedural matters. ../..And then Parminder will get to the procedural one later on ../..I think we'd like to probe a little bit deeper into what is public
policy on the Internet and when do we need to use global institutions to establish it. After all, the Tunis Agenda distinguishes between technical and public-policy issues and between public-policy and the day-to-day technical and operational matters. What makes an Internet governance issue a public-policy issue and what happens when policy concerns are closely linked to technical administration? These are issues we think merit some consideration. ../.. We would like to see discussion of ICANN's status as an international organization, its multistakeholder representation of various constituencies and stakeholders, and the changing role of the Governmental Advisory Committee within the ICANN. Finally, we'd also like to see a main theme session on the role and mandate of the IGF. We've raised this issue in a number of contributions over the past couple of years. The view that, really, we should be taking seriously the agenda that is laid out
for the IGF in the Tunis document. In particular, we're interested in a dialogue around how Internet governance mechanisms promote and assess or how the IGF can help to promote and assess on an ongoing basis the embodiment of WSIS principles in existing Internet governance mechanisms. ../.. Last week, we had a meeting in this building on the ITU's efforts to open up to civil society. And in this context, we had a discussion about the fact that ITU, in thinking about how to promote more civil society participation, would benefit from understanding what other institutions do with regard to allowing civil society and the private sector to participate in their activities. I think the same type of approach could be followed here. ../..
>>ICC/BASIS: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My name is Ayesha Hassan, representing the International Chamber of Commerce and its initiative Business Action to Support the Information Society, BASIS. ../.. We think that the first IGF was successful in this regard, and part of that was due to the form and format, one being having sessions addressing broad topics that related to the ability to provide an inclusive, people-centric information society; and, two, by having a format that stimulated free and open discussions, recognizing that there would not be a need to prepare and negotiate a text, as has been noted in the written contribution of the Internet Society, which states, quote, "Athens worked because it was multilateral, multistakeholder, democratic, and transparent and it was an open environment free of the governmental pressures of negotiated texts and political maneuvering. Suggestions that might change the structure and nature of the IGF for Rio or future meetings need to be approached with great caution and carefully measured against both the IGF's mandate and paragraph 77 of the Tunis Agenda," end quote. ICC/Basis joins this approach. ../..
>> Ilkka Lakaniemi, Nokia Siemens Networks, representing the International Chamber of Commerce and its initiative, the Business Action to Support the Information Society. ../.. With this in mind, ICC/BASIS has carefully considered candidate topics and has offered some proposals relative to the discussion at the second IGF on the four Athens session topics. In addition, we just heard the consideration of emerging topics, and as these topics are being proposed, there is a list of questions which should be posed for each emerging issue.
>>ISOC: The Internet society's mission is to promote the open development, evolution and use of the Internet for the benefit of all people throughout the world. ../.. In the discussion so far this morning there's been a considerable amount of talk about the need for the IGF to address the entirety or totality of the mandate. There's been considerable focus on one particular aspect of the mandate but I would like to remind us that there are some other
elements that are equally important. Subparagraphs b, e, f, h, k, et cetera. Let me talk about one -- two, which is 2f and h, and they are related. At a recent event we hosted and sponsored in Abuja in Nigeria related to Internet governance, there was a vigorous discussion in the afternoon session in which we had a number of players from a number of stakeholders that talked about how one actually adds value at a local level from Internet governance discussions. A number of speakers pointed to the fact that while much occurs at the international level, there is very little to ensure that the momentum and
discussions in international meetings is driven forward at the local level. It was suggested that this is due in part to lack of suitable multistakeholder structures and technical and regulatory capacity in many countries. We would
like to suggest that time in Rio would be well spent fulfilling subparagraph h) of the IGF's mandate in which the forum should contribute to capacity building for Internet governance in developing countries, drawing fully on local sources of knowledge and expertise. This is an incredibly important aspect that we have not sufficiently addressed so far and it would add significant value to many of the participants who come to Rio, highlighting, for example, examples of successful multistakeholder Internet governance discussions at the local level would be a very useful step in this direction.
>>UNESCO: ../.. We particularly appreciate the proposal to organize an additional main session on emergent issues that would allow the IGF to react to the very rapidly changing Internet environment ../..
>>ENSTA (Francis Muguet ) (translated from French, the many errors in the official transcripts are fixed ): We are going to summarize some points of the legal study we did with regard to the legal process of the IGF. First of all, with regard to the mandate, we have noted that only one point of the mandate that is : establishing discussions was really covered. Now, not even the point of view of the publication of the proceedings was fulfilled, because the transcripts were an unformatted output and proceedings are much more formatted. If we look at certain points, for example, there is the advice identified in article 72, subparagraph g, it means that the IGF as an entity or as a body produces advisory documents. And this needs to be planned. Furthermore, and ISOC referred to this, we need to strengthen help, assistance. The IGF should provide the context for this. And furthermore, the IGF must make recommendations on emerging issues and this is important. So we see that so far the mandate of the IGF has not been fulfilled, really. Now, with regard to organization, the mandate, Article 78 and others of the Tunis Agenda, stipulate organization and it does not provide for the existence of a multistakeholder advisory group. But we need to set up entities that have been provided for in the agenda, and notably a bureau. Now, the wider problem of the legal framework globally of the forum, what is it? The forum is one which was convened by the secretary-general of the United Nations. It is also a forum that has resulted from an intergovernmental process of the United Nations. And consequently, it is a forum which exists within the public international law. Now, what is new about this forum is that it is a multistakeholder process, in that there are no observers, such as in the WSIS process. All the partners are on an equal footing from a legal point of view. It means that this is a new domain of public international law that the United Nations have given birth to and which poses some questions. Certain members of the civil society are extremely desirous to see this multistakeholder process being a formal recognition, legalization as it is recognized formally and legally because a forum where everyone can speak represents significant progress. But for it to be recognized legally, this would even be more significant. Now this brings us back to the creation of the bureau. And as a representative of Brazil said, this bureau must be a multistakeholder bureau. And as a representative of Brazil said, this bureau must be a multistakeholder bureau. In our opinion, it should be as inclusive as possible. In the study of the transcripts we have seen that there is the Internet community which would like very much to be recognized as a partner, a full-fledged partner, and this rightly so, because the community currently, which has the effective governance -- has the effective governance of the Internet. Consequently, it has been proposed that the bureau has at least four members, an intergovernmental component, a component from the private sector, one from civil society, and,lastly, from the Internet community. This would ensure that the process is as inclusive as possible, and that all partners are recognized equally from a legal point of view. Now, then, if there should be a bureau, then procedural rules, multistakeholder procedural rules could be established to ensure that the forum's mandate could be fully met. Otherwise, we would be faced with the problem of the chicken and egg. In other words, we couldn't effectively fulfill the mandate since there would be no procedure and as there is no body to establish the procedures, then we can do nothing. And the forum would remain a discussion forum. Of course, this would be multistakeholder, but this would not be in accordance with the WSIS texts. I would add something further. At these consultation meetings, this is not the place for us to renegotiate the WSIS texts. These are texts which were established by 172 member states with the participation or consultation of multistakeholders, and consequently, the establishment of a bureau should not even be an open issue. It is something that is already acquired. But the composition of the bureau is something that is worthy of discussion as well as the procedural rules, multistakeholder procedural rules. I would add that, among states, if we are to be logical from a legal point of view, among the states, it would be intergovernmental rules that would apply. ../..
>>COUNCIL OF EUROPE: ./..The Council of Europe Secretariat welcomes the opportunity to work with other stakeholders, including dynamic coalitions, in contributing to workshops and to main session discussions.../..
>> EUROLINC : I am speaking for Eurolinc, which is a nonprofit association for multilingualism on the Internet. My name is Louis Pouzin. I would just first take a short moment to commend the wonderful work accomplished by the secretariat for putting up Athens, one thing, but then now also on working very hard on organizing the Rio event. But as my colleague, Francis Muguet, already explained, we certainly have need to improve the mechanisms that contribute to the organization of those major events. The bureau, as he presented it, would be, apparently, as we think, a reasonable solution to a situation which is certainly difficult to handle, because it's a novelty, it's an innovation within the U.N. environment. A multistakeholder bureau is certainly something that has no existing model and which has to be invented somehow. Maybe we will appreciate very much if this proposal would beconveyed to the attention of the Secretary-General of the United Nations. Now, assuming that we have these institutions, this structure established, we think it would have the advantage to separate clearly the functions of administrative and clerical and secretarial support on the one hand and the handling of the IGF meeting contents on the other hand. The bureau could be very helpful in coordinating, for example, the actions of the different host countries for establishing a multiyear plan, as was already suggested by another colleague here, and also to balance the subjects which could be studied in each – balance the participation which could be looked for for the various events, for example. Athens was not very attended by the southern American people, so we might promote much better participation for the Rio event. But, now, on the contents I think what we need is something that's not clearly established yet, is, like in any international event in which we talk about subjects which are both intellectual and emerging and innovative, we need an International Scientific Committee, something which is quite classical in most scientific events. We need a group of 50 to 60 people who are selected due to their personal competence, personal knowledge, ability, in order to study the themes to be handled, to be treated and then prepare the appropriate contents for a call for tender, and then proceed as usual with the review of the proposals and so on. This is not something unusual in international events. And I think this would contribute very much to the reputation of the IGF as a major international event. It would also contribute to a much better balance of views in selecting themes and selecting speakers, allocating the appropriate time, and so on. We think that the organizational part is probably not the major problem, because host countries are very much equipped to handle most of the work, hand in hand with the bureau. But on the other hand, the International Scientific Committee doesn't have to be a permanent set of people. It could be selected year by year. That doesn't mean some people would not appear regularly, but it doesn't have to be the same body from year to year.
>>APC: Thank you, Mr. Chairperson. My name is Willie Currie. I'm the ICT policy manager for the Association for Progressive Communications. We have a written statement which we will submit to the secretariat during the course of the day, so I won't go into great detail. What we want to say is also that we support the statements and inputs of the Internet governance caucus. ../.. And that is that the IGF should have a standing annual interinstitutional dialogue session which focuses on Paragraph 72b of the Tunis Agenda, which is to facilitate discourse between bodies dealing with different cross-cutting international public policies regarding the Internet and discuss issues that do not fall within the scope of any existing body. And we would like to propose that out of the existing Internet governance bodies, that at the Rio event, ICANN, WIPO, and the WTO be invited to participate in such a dialogue. And in that way, the issue could be addressed. ../.. And we think that out of that, we could start to address 72(e), which says that, "The IGF should advise all stakeholders in proposing ways and means to accelerate the availability and affordability of the Internet in the developing world." In other words, we think that there should be debate and dialogue in the access plenary session, but there should also be some attempt to move beyond dialogue, towards the requirement in the IGF mandate to produce advice. Then on the subject of the bureau, APC is of the view that the combination of the IGF secretariat and the multistakeholder Advisory Group satisfies the requirements of paragraph 78b, and we wish to express full confidence in the current arrangements and in the IGF secretariat in particular. We are strongly opposed to the creation of a bureau, as it will cause unnecessary power struggles, particularly in civil society, and would be counter productive to the purposes of the IGF as a space for multistakeholder dialogue. We do have concerns that the multistakeholder Advisory Group has currently limited representation from civil society and needs to improve its reporting in the interests of greater transparency, as well as a need for it to be adequately financed to fulfill its tasks. However, we feel that the issue addressed by strengthening the IGF secretariat through greater resource mobilization and other approaches, such as secondments and internships. In addition, ad hoc multistakeholder working groups, which could work on preparation of themes and sessions, could be established and be open to broader participation. And we also have a view that the reporting format which the IGF uses to report on its activities should report against the specific requirements of Paragraph 72 of the Tunis Agenda. We will make the written statement available.
>>APRIL : Thank you. I have a procedural issue to raise. It might seem technical and organizational, but it does cover the essential issues discussed here. And it is about the knowledge from IGF, how it can be consolidated to help all public and private partners. All players have to express their opinion if the forum is to be meaningful, especially those from civil society. That is why, as regards physical meetings, is the -- the number of fora must not be limited. Intergovernmental documents are usually produced on a basis of negotiation. But we saw at the Tunis summit that the essential issues did not meet consensus. And that is why IGF was established. The other, diametrically opposed, option is to publish transcripts of each statement. But then the knowledge is diluted and not very easy to use, because we do not crystallize the main points. Neither of these two approaches is, therefore, a very good one. As to an issue for multistakeholder Internet, why shouldn't we use Internet practices as regards production of open knowledge? We all know about Wikipedia. This is a collaborative way of building synthesis documents which highlight points of convergence and divergence between contributors who agree on a joint drafting of points on which they agree and on -- and agree on the existence of paragraphs on points of disagreements. Access of all participants to a single, dynamic site to draft such a dynamic document for the forum would be a good symbol for openness, democracy, and inclusion in the forum. Use of free, open software to set up this document would be another strong signal. Thus, in my view, after the five years, the process of this forum could shed light on emerging Internet issues for all stakeholders. Thank you.
>>MARY RUNDLE:( Free Expression Online dynamic coalition ) ../.. This coalition celebrates article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which holds that everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression. ../.. the IGF can add value by emphasizing a multistakeholder and cross-dimensional approach in the development of technologies and technical standards, as these processes carry serious implications for civil liberties. ../..
>> Emily Taylor ( Nominet ) ../.. And as a representative of a manager of core resources on the Internet, I recognize that this is an issue which continues to draw keen interest, at least in the rarefied world of international Internet governance discussions. This is why I welcome the proposal for reporting sessions. This will support Paragraph 72(j) of the Tunis Agenda. However, building on the Council of Europe's intervention, I would very much support calls for a people-centered IGF. In my experience of trying to engage stakeholders on these issues for many years, they really don't care at all about the management of core Internet resources. In my experience. I note this is not a view shared in this room. But they do care about spam, security, child protection, access, the digital divide, many of the issues which we have seen discussed or started to be discussed in Athens. So it is worth recalling how far discussion of core Internet resources eclipsed these other important issues during the WSIS process. And though these issues are central to the IGF's mandate, in particular, security, Paragraph 72a, availability and affordability of Internet access, 72e, capacity-building, 72h, and sharing of best practices, 72d, this, of course, also supports paragraph 80 and is a particular area of interest for Nominet. ../..
>>SWITZERLAND: ../.. First of all, I would like to thank you and the secretariat and also the Advisory Group for the good work that has been done up to now. We would also like the second IGF in Rio to build on the success of the first IGF, but at the same time, join in trying to improve some of the weak points of the first IGF. ../.. There are reasons for having a session on emerging issues at the beginning of the IGF, because this one could look at the past year and see -- could refer to what was discussed under the emerging issues session at the end of the last meeting and see what has happened during this year and also hint at what and where discussions will take place during the current IGF. But there's also reasons for having an emerging issues session at the end of the IGF, where kind of we can do a stock-taking of what has been discussed and maybe identify issues that have not been discussed yet. So we could even think of having two sessions on emerging issues, one at the beginning and one at the end of the IGF. Like I said at the beginning, the IGF is basically a forum where a free and open interactive discussion and exchange of views and best practices should take place. And we think it's important that the IGF should stay like this. However, some people feel that the IGF should have an impact that goes beyond just discussing issues. They feel that the IGF should facilitate discussions, but also concrete solutions to challenges connected to the Internet and Internet governance. Now the question is how should this be achieved. At the first session of the IGF in Athens, a series of dynamic coalitions has been formed. These coalitions formed themselves in order to work between meetings to promote action that should emerge from the discussions at the IGF. This is a good idea, and I think – we think we have to support those dynamic coalitions, because if they do good work,they can help the IGF to have an impact outside the meeting rooms. And so we support the idea to give the dynamic coalitions space during the IGF to present their work and find others who join this work. But this is not enough. Those dynamic coalitions need more support and guidance with regard to what they can achieve, and they need clearer mechanisms of interaction between the dynamic coalitions and the IGF, but also with other fora. And they need more people who are willing to work on these issues, also between the meetings. Apart from the dynamic coalitions, we should find other ways that could be used to give the IGF more impact.
According to the Tunis Agenda, the IGF has a mandate to make recommendations to emerging issues. This is something that can be done. But we think that we have to be very careful when trying to do -- to make recommendations. What we certainly do not want is that the IGF is turned into an event where we spend the whole time negotiating on some final paper on which everybody has to agree. However, we would basically support that there is some kind of visible outcome of the IGF.
In this context, we would like to recall the proposal made by Wolfgang Kleinwaechter, I think it was at the last consultation, that the IGF should, rather than try to agree on recommendations, come up with a list of messages. These messages could even be controversial or contradictory and not everybody would have to agree on all of them, but they would be something that people would take notice of and that people would continue to discuss at other fora. In any way, we think it will be important that the IGF remains a platform for an open and free discussion among all interested stakeholders. But at the same time, one or more members should be found that what happens within the IGF has more outreach to other fora and existing mechanisms where similar or the same issues are dealt with and decisions are made. With regard to the proposal brought up by some speakers that the IGF should focus more on public policy issues, especially those that are linked to the coordination/management of critical Internet resources, we think that basically there is no subject that is forbidden to be addressed in the frame of the IGF. But if we remember right, then in the discussions of last year, there was the idea or the understanding that there were two separate processes that have resulted from the Tunis summit with regard to Internet governance. One is the IGF, and the other one is the so-called process of enhanced cooperation that was supposed to be started by the U.N. secretary-general by the end of the first quarter of 2006. Unfortunately, this process has not been very visible up to now. But since we think that the development with regard to this second process will have an impact on the discussion about what issues should be dealt with at the IGF or should be dealt with elsewhere, we would very much like to know more about the development of the second process. And we would express our interest in the proposal made by WIllie Currie from APC just a few minutes ago about having a standing annual dialogue between relevant existing mechanisms with regard to the public policy interests on Internet governance mechanisms. And finally, Switzerland who has supported WGIG and the IGF Secretariat from its beginning would like to join those who call on all stakeholders for better funding of the IGF and its Secretariat. Thank you.
>>CHAIRMAN DESAI: Thank you very much, and I want to take this opportunity of thanking the government of Switzerland particularly for the consistent support it has given this process and particularly the financial support and of course lending us Markus Kummer, as being the most important bit of support that you have given us.
-------- AFTERNOON SESSION ---------
>>PARMINDER JEET SINGH: This is a contribution from the civil society Internet governance caucus. You heard a contribution in the morning by Bill Drake, my colleague, which dealt with the substantive issues. And this contribution mainly deals with issues of the process at IGF and up towards IGF. Though there are a couple of substantive issues as well, which I will add at the end. The caucus wishes to express its satisfaction with and great appreciation for the widespread and genuine adoption of multistakeholder principle for all activities of the IGF. And we hope that this practice is kept up and strongly institutionalized in the IGF as its key constituted principle.If we are able to do so, along with delivering real outputs from the process, an issue which has been spoken about here, IGF will become a path-breaking innovation in global governance, which we really look forward for it to become. We are, in general, also satisfied with the openness of the IGF process, with its regular processes of regular consultations like this one, and taking in of phone inputs and compilation of these inputs for the various meetings. As for the main sessions and the workshop structures, we are for a greater connection between the various workshops, an issue which has already been highlighted in the draft program outlines. And we follow the proposal of having official reporting back from the workshops into the main session a very useful proposal.
We also find the proposal of open sessions for all major organizations dealing
with Internet governance-related issues to discuss their activities very promising, and I think this would go a long way to fulfill the Tunis mandate of
IGF in 72b and 72c, of facilitating discussion between these two bodies and
interfacing with them. However, it would be useful if the IGF specifically requests and encourages some of these bodies which have important IG implications to hold such open forums. We heard APC speak about an institutional dialogue forum which could in some way be related to these open forum. And this is something which we would like to look at as well. We are also strongly of the opinion that there should be no limitations on the number of the open workshops as far as possible and within very broad limitations of logistics, as long as they conform to the overall mandate of the IGF as per the Tunis Agenda. We would like all the sessions and workshops to be more interactive rather than a series of panel presentations. We would like to see further development of online processes for remote participation for the participants to keep track of parallel events and for greater inter-sessional activity of the IGF. And in this regard, we'd like the IGF to develop into a continuing process using its various online and offline components rather than just a single annual event. We also appreciate many comments which are looking for strengthening the process of dynamic coalitions within the IGF process, and we appreciate (inaudible) stand that more support and guidance is needed for the dynamic coalitions to become an important device of delivering outcomes within the IGF. We are also happy to see that the draft program outline mentions that the preparatory process for Rio meeting will be as open and as inclusive as possible. In this regard, we have some comments to make on the composition and the role of the multi-stakeholder Advisory Group.
We note that the proportionate representation of stakeholder groups in the cross-cutting technical and academic communities was not openly and transparently discussed prior to its appointment. And we think that if clear terms and rules can be established by the Advisory Group between now and Rio through an open process involving all participants in the IGF as a shared foundation for our common work and if these rules are in place, it will be possible for the Secretary-General to do the actual process of selection of the Advisory Group members in close, direct, open, and transparent consultations with the stakeholder groups themselves. We also express dissatisfaction with the very limited representation of civil society in the first instance of the Advisory Group, which amounted to about five members over about 40. We think that the significant part, especially of civil society and individual users, as proved by the WGIG, is key to making Internet governance a success both in practical and political terms, and thus we would like to see such participation expanded to at least one-fourth of the group, if not one-third, which would be at the same level of the private sector and the Internet technical community. We also -- the Commission on Science and Technology notes that the main task of the Advisory Group was to prepare the substantive agenda and program for the first meeting of the IGF. And this is a quote from the submission. It was made clear that any decision to -- how to prepare subsequent meetings and how to further structure in future working methods of the IGF would be taken in light of the experiences made during the preparatory process for the Athens meetings. We are not clear what is being done in this regard, though we noted the clarification by the chairperson that we are -- the IGF secretariat and (inaudible) is going a step at a time. We appeal that all the changes which are made to the process are transparent, open, and involves all the stakeholders. On the issues of the logistics of the IGF meeting in Rio, we hope that the host country and all those responsible for organizing the event will ensure that all participants, specifically those from the civil society and other under-resourced groups face no difficulty speaking, specifically from the experience of Athens, we specifically request that adequate, inexpensive arrangements for lunch be made available at the venue and inexpensive accommodation is made available close to the venue with adequate transport facilities, and we request adequate wireless connectivity with enough number of computer terminals, something which we do really hope that the committee will take care of. While the separate statement on substantive issues took up the four main issues which we would like to be taken up in the main sessions, the two specific issues I will add to the ones which we have mentioned, one is to join many delegates here to express dissatisfaction about the lack of transparency and inclusion in the so-called enhanced cooperation process, which was agreed at Tunis that it should discuss these matters in a multistakeholder fashion. We ask that prompt communication is given to all stakeholders about the status and the nature of this process and that steps are taken to include the full inclusion of all stakeholders in this process. The second substantive point which we would like to make is that we would like to see human rights, which are a set of fundamental rights that are a prerequisite for development of individuals, groups, as well as nations, to be included as a cross-cutting theme along with development theme for the Rio meeting. We end with a note of thanks for Mr. Desai, Mr. Kummer, and all members of the multistakeholder Advisory Group, as well as for the IGF secretariat, for their hard and often thankless work in developing the IGF processes thus far in such a successful manner. We greatly look forward to the Rio meeting of IGF to take these processes further to enable the IGF to meet its full mandate. This was the agreed statement input to the process. With the permission of the chair, I would like to make two comments which are about the issues which have been taken up during the discussions here. One is about taking up the issue of Internet core resources for discussion during the IGF. And I'm unable to see what could be the real nature of opposition to take these issues up, because it's only a matter of discussing those issues and not a matter of making a policy on those issues. And, normally, it's agreed that even if one-third, one-fourth, or one-fifth agrees for an issue to be taken up, generally, the issue does get taken up. So for me, I'm not able to understand the nature of the opposition for just even discussing an issue. And I would appeal to my colleagues that this opposition may not stay, because -- and I would – there was some -- there were some reasons which were proposed here that why should these issues not be taken up. And one of the reasons taken up by one of the speakers was that in her experience, the people who really use Internet are not really concerned with these issues. And I think I would greatly differ with this issue, and I think it's -- this statement is at the same level as to say that people who suffer ill health are not worried about issues of I.P. or generic drugs. They are not because they don't know about those issues. But those
issues directly affect them. And I think this kind of separation doesn't work,
and our organization, who works in the field among poor people in ICT projects
know that these issues do impact them. And I think they can take the word of
the developing countries that these issues do matter to the people who use
Internet and who are denied access to the Internet. And the second -- second
logic which is given for not discussing Internet core resources is this process
of enhanced cooperation whereby at one -- it's treated as there are two different processes which came out of WSIS and this somehow should be kept separate. So while enhanced cooperation should probably not be discussed at IGF, critical Internet resources and public-policy implications should not be discussed at IGF because they are supposed to be discussed at the enhanced cooperation process. But I do not think that this separation between two outputs of WSIS is on the basis of issues, is on the basis of what processes – what kind of working would happen in this IGF is space for discussion, and enhanced cooperation is a space for developing policies. And the separation is on this count and not on the count of issues, whether one issue should be only taken up at one place and it should not be taken at another place. To end my intervention, I would like to make a clarification, I was told by my colleagues that some civil society members here proposed a bureau structure for the IGF and some government delegates were inquiring whether that is the official position of the Internet governance caucus. And I would like to clarify that Internet governance caucus right now do not have any position on that. They have not considered the issue. And that is the opinion of some members who directly expressed the opinion on their own behalf or on the behalf of the organizations they represent.
>>RIAZ TAYOB: I am from the Third World Network which enjoys representation in Asia, Latin America and Africa and deals with issues of concern to developing countries. Chairman Desai, congratulations on your reappointment as special advisor to the secretary-general. The points I wish to raise should not detract from the excellent work and commitment shown by the Secretariat. We would prefer that they be taken in the spirit of safeguarding the Internet Governance Forum as one of the legitimate fora that is able to discuss internet related issues. Recalling our previous submission to the February consultation where we placed on record our serious concerning the Margization of our concerns to developing countries, the handling of the discussion of critical Internet resources during a plenary session and we emphasized the need for all individuals, materially associated with the IGF process to disclose their interests -- in particular, the after affiliation or links to institutions currently in charge of critical Internet resources. We trust that your review of the transcript confirms our assessment regarding our concerns on the plenary discussion. As we were called alarmist in many quarters for that statement, it is with great hesitation that we make the following intervention but we feel it is incumbent for us to do so. We trust the good offices of the Chair and the Secretariat to purposely interpret the statement and the mandate in the Tunis Agenda for the forum, particularly Article 73 which requires that the IGF be democratic and transparent, and by implication, includes all the attendant good governance principles. We therefore wish to emphasize, given the serious concerns raised by the civil society, Internet Governance Caucus on the composition of the advisory group that the Secretariat in all its operations and executions of functions must not only be neutral and transparent but must be seen to be so.
Let me explain. We support the proposals for critical Internet resources to be included on the Rio agenda explicitly. We therefore believe it is inappropriate for people or institutions with vested interests or otherwise to play a critical role in the Secretariat's operations given the sensitivity and importance of this issue to developing countries and civil society organizations. Even at this meeting there are critical roles assigned to people with strong links to the institutions currently in charge of critical Internet resources. This is inappropriate and we believe that the Secretariat should protect itself from any perceptions of a lack of neutrality To avoid being misunderstood and personalizing the matter, I am sure that the individuals tasked with such responsibilities are above reproach and will faithfully deliver on their mandate to the Secretariat. I emphasize, it is a matter of principle and is a call for adherence to the letter and spirit of the multilateral Tunis Agenda. However, given the lack of balance and improprieties alluded to by us and others, this does not sit comfortably with us, and we call for greater prudence in substance and in form. The discussion on critical Internet resources at the IGF must be a Frank and open debate, coupled with the availability of institutions currently charged with governance to be present at the IGF. I hasten to add that it is not sufficient to rely purely on the mandate in article 60 of the Tunis Agenda. The Tunis Agenda and the integrity of the process requires adequate incorporation into the agenda of Article 65, as well as there is no reason to limit the limit to article 60. Article 65 bears mentioning. We underline the need to maximize the participation of developing countries in decisions regarding Internet governance which should reflect their interests, as well as in development and capacity building. And we have heard from developing countries regarding their interests on this. Therefore, we hope to see institutions charged with critical Internet resources governance enter the legitimate space of the IGF and engage in that forum. And that the perception and substance of the IGF is free from gerrymandering in the process leading up to Rio, the agenda, or through any other means. Since the IGF is a legitimate multilateral forum accepted by all, and in addition is multistakeholder, there should be no constraints to discussions on this topic and neither should there be any excuse for institutions charged with critical Internet resource governance to be fully and unconditionally available to the forum. We are repeatedly reminded that the current arrangements are satisfactory, so full open and you unconditional participation by these institutions is the acid test for these assertions. In addition, we hope that a report regarding enhanced cooperation will be tabled and open for discussion at the Rio IGF. We look forward with further work with the Secretariat and reiterate our openness to the Secretariat for any further elaboration on the issues raised here.
>>CHAIRMAN DESAI: Thank you very much for your comments, but I would say that I find your comments about Secretariat depending on people who have connections et cetera, et cetera, quite unacceptable. There are two of us. I don't think any of us have any such connection. This process has been run openly, transparently and squarely. And I think this type of language which alleges gerrymandering and so on is completely uncalled for, at least as it app place to the processes that we have been following for Athens or for the process here. And I can assure you that the Secretariat consists of just Markus Kummer and one other person, and that's me, and none of us have any connection with any such process. We are here simply to facilitate this whole exercise.
>>RIAZ TAYOB: Yes, Mr. Chair. I said I was available for clarification. Let me clarify, because this was not directed at neither you nor Mr. Kummer, but it's the discomfort with the persons ( Adam Peake and Kieren McCarthy ) who are handling the online question and answer.
>>CHAIRMAN DESAI: Why don't you do it? You do it? No problem?
>>RIAZ TAYOB: Well, I have done it, sir.
>>CHAIRMAN DESAI: Do it. I hereby request you also to join in, in monitoring the online conversation, right now. I am inviting you to join in monitoring the online conversation, and you come up with, as others would, anything which comes up on the online conversation which you think we need to know.
>>RIAZ TAYOB: Sure.
>>SOGO FUJISAKI (Fujitsu ) ../.. with Fujitsu, Limited today representing Nippon Keidanren, one of the major industry organization with more than 1,600 corporate members in Japan. ../.. We have been involved in the IGF process,closely working with ICC/BASIS and other industry partners. Mr. Masanobu Katoh, an advisory group member, is heading the Keidanren's effort regarding IGF. ../.. In order to raise the awareness of the IGF in Japan and participation, we held a Tokyo IGF event on May 9th. The United Nations GIIC, the Ministry of Internal Affairs Communication kindly supported the event. We had 180 participants, most notably Markus Kummer, ICANN, ICC participate in the event from overseas. We had multistakeholder participant at this conference, including very senior officials from the Japanese government and national broadcasting company, and Adam Peake from civil society. ../.. First, most of the audiences who were not familiar with IGF issues but thanks to Mr. Kummer's kind keynote addresses, many of them finally understood the development aspect of the IGF and also the importance of an interactive dialogue among multistakeholders. ../.. he Keidanren would like to pursue this type of promotion in Asia where the IGF 2008 will be held. And we will submit the summary of this event to the IGF Secretariat soon. ../.. Regarding the best practices, we believe it is important to make such information available to other interested groups by establishing database in systematic way. Of course, we need to pay attention to the views from the developing countries and small and medium-sized enterprises.../..
>>DAVID OLIVE ( Fujitsu ): ../.. We are pleased to work with ICC/BASIS, and you have heard detailed comments from our representatives concerning preparations for the Rio conference in November. I'd like to just point out some of the other events that we're doing to help get interest in and participation in the IGF process. As we reported in February, the Global Information Infrastructure Commission, GIIC, which also hosted a workshop in Athens, had IGF as a main topic of its annual meeting discussion in London. And this was led by Mr. Katoh of our company. In addition, before coming to Geneva I was in Malaysia attending a conference of the World Information Services Alliance, WITSA, at a meeting in Malaysia hosted by the Malaysian I.T. association, and again a major topic of conversation was the IGF and its process. That was led by the I.T. association president from Kenya, Mr. Wado (saying name) and also Mr. Kofi of the Bangladesh I.T. association. WITSA, of course, will host a global public policy meeting in Cairo in November, the 4th through 6th, and this will also be a topic of discussion, status and previews of the Rio meeting in our conference in Cairo. Fujitsu, through its involvements, tries to encourage other groups to comment and provide input to the IGF Secretariat through the Web site and directly on position papers. And in that regard, we are also a member of the information technology association of America, ITAA, and they asked me to inform you that they are sending comments as well on the agenda and Rio preparations. In conclusion, we at Fujitsu hope that these additional efforts which complement the ICC/BASIS and other business and multistakeholder groups are doing to raise awareness of and encourage participation in the IGF that will produce a successful meeting in Rio.../.. I listened carefully this morning to the discussion, and I think the multistakeholder forum with the flexible structure we have today is the best approach for our preparations for Rio. The four themes with greater details and the emerging topic section as indicated by our Basis colleagues is a good way forward. Points made this morning by some are worthy of further discussion as frank and constructive exchanges are key and hallmark of this consultation process. But to begin to change our advisors, our format and our structure at this stage may be counterproductive to our efforts to encourage interest in and participation with members throughout the world at the Rio conference. So let us work together to make Rio a success, and then we can evaluate how best to move next steps forward for next IGF meetings.
>>CANADA: ../.. As Markus said, an Athens plus. That plus can be achieved very well by deepening our discussions of particular aspects of the four broad themes we started with in Athens. In this respect, I would like to voice my support for the very helpful framework outlined by ICC/BASIS this morning and also for the contribution of ISOC which I found particularly thoughtful. We would like to express our sincere thanks to you, Nitin, Markus, and to your extremely small team for all of your work on this. Like the speaker from the APC this morning, we believe that the Secretariat and the multistakeholder advisory group are effectively serving the role that is called for in paragraph 78 where it mentions a bureau, and I with mention it's bureau with a small "B." We strongly agree with the sentiment widely expressed this morning that the IGF needs to address the issues referred to in the forum by the WSIS. ../.. But I feel it is necessary to raise a note of caution. Going into Athens, we were not sure what the Internet Governance Forum would be. We found it provided an environment where different stakeholders could talk together about difficult issues as well as finding agreement on less difficult issues. And I think we have learned from that. We believe we are ready to move to a deeper level as others stated this morning. But for Canada, I can say we do not want to recreate the acrimonious atmosphere we faced in getting to the Tunis action plan. We believe we are now trying to put ourselves in an exploration and solution-finding phase of the Internet governance discussions. I think there is a shared perception that we will need to discuss critical Internet resources. I would say the same about the need to discuss Internet interconnection costs. Both of these consistent with the WSIS text. But in the interest of making progress, I believe we should take those difficult issues on in discrete pieces. Perhaps this year we should tackle one of those contentious issues in real depth and make an effort to create a genuine dialogue around that issue. One way to do that is by talking about the issue from a real perspective, perhaps a user's perspective, as Emily Taylor (UK Nominet) suggested. That approach makes sense to me, because it will lead to a discussion grounded in reality rather than in some commonly expressed now theoretical arguments. Dealing with issues in terms of their real effects will allow us to enhance our understanding. I would even go so far as to say that reality-based discussions are the only way that we are likely to achieve an enhanced cooperation model among all the stakeholders. For example, careful consideration of case studies with a view toward developing a menu of tools that can be implemented by the appropriate stakeholders at the appropriate national, regional, or global level is the best outcome from a multistakeholder, collaborative and non-negotiating forum such as the IGF. Finally, we believe that it is vital to increase participation in the IGF, particularly the participation of all stakeholder groups in developing countries. Canada is taking concrete action to try to make that happen. I am pleased to say that we have been able to place $100,000 with the ITU to provide fellowships to experts from developing countries to participate in the Rio meeting. We firmly believe that our dialogue will be enhanced by the participation of developing country experts in the discussions in Rio. We also see this as a positive way of encouraging the ITU and the IGF to cooperate in a very real way. I hope to see other stakeholders in this process finding ways to join us in making concrete contributions to the effectiveness of the forum.
>>CHAIRMAN DESAI: May I take this opportunity of thanking Canada for this contribution because it will certainly go a long way towards improving
developing country participation
>>ADAM PEAKE: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Adam Peake. I work for a research institute in Tokyo. I was also a member of the advisory group last year, and I was one of the volunteers who helped take comments remotely, so I must be evil, according to one of the earlier presenters. Back to the thought of the bureau for a moment. I am a member of the Civil Society Internet Governance Caucus, and in my view, the caucus does not in any way support the concept of a bureau, and it is somewhat distressing that there is this misunderstanding that we might do. My personal thoughts on this is that a bureau is the exact structure that would take us away from this concept of multistakeholder dialogue that is essential to the IGF and I think we have all supported. A bureau would be a mistake. Following on, and I mean bureau with a big "B" in that sense. Following on from Emily Taylor's ( UK Nominet ) comment before lunch, I like the idea of closely linking workshops to the main themes. ../.. A couple of weeks ago I was at the local consultation in Japan that Mr. Fujisaki mentioned and one of the questions on the panel and I am embarrassed to say I couldn't really answer the question is what should we discuss under the diversity theme in Rio.../.. About the issue of critical Internet resources, I do think it's important that we discuss this, if we can, as a main session issue in Rio. I'd like to suggest that we perhaps adopt an approach of trust and critical infrastructure. The Internet is still relatively new, and it didn't develop in the government sphere. It's developing and changing all the time, and I think if there's one thing we did learn out of WSIS is that the Internet has definitely become critical infrastructure. Our economies run on it and businesses depend on it, and I'm sure it's an essential part of all of our ordinary lives. So I think the IGF has to be a place where we can have a discussion about how the Internet work, how it will continue to work and how we can have trust in it as an infrastructure that is becoming more and more critical by the day. I do agree, however, with the comment that it's not going to be of interest to the vast number of users of the Internet. All the same, it's obviously of interest to the people who have been involved in this process to date, and I think it justifies a presence in our discussions. It's also an essential element of the mandate of the forum. ../..
>> Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am Walda Roseman of Compass Rose International, and I am speaking on behalf of ICC/BASIS. We wish to respond to your invitation to comment on other suggestions. In particular, three structural or procedural issues. We have been hearing here today, and actually since Athens, strong support for the success of the Athens meeting. It is our belief that the IGF advisory group and the work performed, of course, by the Secretariat were key to the success to that meeting. And when something works, it's our experience that it's important to build on that foundation. So we therefore join APC, Canada, and others on this point and oppose the proposal that we have heard by some to establish a bureau. We believe, as well, that the open multistakeholder nature of the Athens meeting provided the essential building block for its success, and that it will similarly be critical to the success of future IGFs. Moreover, the open exchange of information among all stakeholders planted many seeds for growth, even since Athens, of new and enriched approaches to meeting the challenges of expanding the benefits of the Internet to everyone. ICC/BASIS also supports APC's suggestion that there be an annual dialogue among organizations with responsibilities for aspects of the Internet. This was, in fact, the reasoning behind the ICC/BASIS proposal that there be a single reporting session in Rio where Internet related organizations could update and engage each other and the larger community in discussions. ../..
>> I ( ? ) am speaking on behalf of the dynamic coalition on open standards. The dynamic coalition on open standards, DCOS, was created at the Athens IGF in November 2006. Our mission is to provide government policymakers and other stakeholders with useful tools to make informed decisions to preserve the current open architecture of the Internet and the World Wide Web, which together provide a knowledge ecosystem that has profoundly shaped the multiplier effect of global public goods and improved economic and social welfare. In that spirit, we welcome the joint statement made today by Argentina and Brazil in favor of open standards principles. I.T. standards, although not created by legislators, states or courts, create regulatory structures that transcend international boundaries, affect numerous public-policy issues, and impact developing countries and many stakeholders who do not have an equal voice in their creation, management, or adoption. There are significant problems in our global I.T. standardization ecosystem. In many regards, ICT standards are being privatized and there has been little public debate on this development. Ultimately, this hurts consumer choice, equitable access, competition and innovation. One point of evidence to the growing problems are the requests by the People's Republic of China to the WTO technical barriers to trade committee and the Asia-Pacific economic cooperation for these groups to review the issue of intellectual property licensing in international I.T. standards. Another point of evidence are the series of international policy oriented conferences on the subject, such as the recent standards edge conference at Georgetown University in the United States that explored the economic role of I.T. standards and government policy responses. We believe that these issues are not being adequately addressed, and that they are outside the scope of any existing body. Thus, we believe they fit firmly within the mandate of the IGF, and we continue to ask that the IGF work with appropriate groups, including consumer groups and civil society, governments, the private sector, standards organizations, and intergovernmental organizations to ensure that global ICT standards ecosystem regains its health and its standards remain inclusive, nondiscriminatory, and supportive of interoperability. We request that a DCOS representative speak as part of the general plenary session. We would also like to host a break-out session to update attendees on our work and widen DCOS participation. As per the synthesis paper from the last IGF consultation, we believe that exclusive use of proprietary formats in documents, the Internet cafe, Webcasts, are inconsistent with WSIS principles. ../.. DCOS will hold its first formal meeting on July 9th in Geneva, Switzerland. This meeting will be devoted to reviewing the team's progress, including key principles, current policy responses to competition requirements, I.T. standards in ICT and an outline of best practices in countries to improve competition and lower trade barriers in I.T. Part of our goal includes the preparation of two documents ready for distribution in Rio, the first being a paper on principles of openness in I.T. standards, and the second a paper on best practices and implementation of open I.T. standards. On July 10th, the next day, DCOS will host a briefing open to governments, press, and other interested parties. We've also created a new Web site that details our mission and provides updates on our work on open standards. And I can tell -- give you that information after this meeting. On February 4th, some members of DCOS met informally at the Yale Law School to conduct a stock-taking of activities at the tail end of the Yale Information Society Project's Open Standards International symposium. At this meeting, DCOS members committed to holding a session at the Rio IGF that would present current best practices in government procurement policies that support full competition in I.T. and a paper articulating our platform's positions on principles of open standards. The members of DCOS are grateful to the IGF secretariat, advisory board and all IGF supporters for their thoughtful attention to the pressing issues of Internet governance, ../..
>>FATIMATA SEYE SYLLA: ../.. I am Fatimata Seye Sylla, president of a Senegalese NGO which uses ICT to educate young people and also to support women in training, as well as for income-generating activities. I am speaking in the framework of ACSIS, which is the African Civil Society on the Information Society Summit. ../.. thanks to the support of the international Francophonie organization. We should like to support the statement made by ISOC, as well as other civil society organizations, concerning the participation of developing countries, with particular stress on the continent which we represent, that is, Africa. We can note here the lack of effective participation of African civil society, and especially the women from this continent, in the discussions on Internet governance, in spite of the communication mechanisms which have been put in place. ../..
>KEN LOHENTO: But I am from Benin. And so it's important for me to point this out to you. So my name is Ken Lohento. I am making the statement on behalf of the CIPACO project, the West African organization in which I work. We work on ethical policies regarding new technologies in west and central Africa, but we're based in Senegal. I'm also a member of the civil society network ACSIS, which works on the issues relating to these issues. I'd also like to thank Mr. Desai. I would like to thank Canada for their statement, and, in particular, with regard to their support of developing countries. I'd like to thank the Francophonie organization, which allowed me to participate in this meeting and other IGF meetings. It clearly appears that access is the most important issue for Africa or for developing countries, in particular, Africa. There are many local issues regarding access, but it would be useful for the IGF to continue to discuss the question of access. It is important for all possibilities of accessing the Internet be dealt with. I'll just give some examples. The setting up of effective multistakeholder mechanisms in Africa and at the international level; access to public information. This should be promoted and respected. The possibility offered by radio association, which is new in some parts of Africa. The radio and Internet association should be explored. It is important for the liberalization of technology -- telecommunications be properly dealt with to give an important place to the private sector for the creation of services so that liberalization be well regulated. The open access should be achieved through the improvement of infrastructure. Multilingualism should be stressed. As you know, sometimes, in some developing countries, it is not easy to include civil society in decision-making with regard to governance in general. Finally, with regard to access, it is important to deal with this issue so that the IGF be well-targeted so that there is no duplication. Now, as far as security's concerned, it is important to ensure that the freedom -- freedom of expression is not brought into question because of policies that are focused on security. We need to highlight the role of the IGF so that the conclusions can be satisfactory to all players, especially developing countries. The forum must come up with concrete results to be useful. Even though it might not be a decision-making body, it should ensure that the IGF clearly lead to concrete outcomes. Perhaps we should further encourage dynamic coalitions to have specific outcomes and especially for developing countries, remote participation for persons who cannot attend meetings should be better promoted and ensured. I should like to thank the secretariat for their efforts in ensuring remote participation of actors. But for the moment, we still have some technical problems in ensuring this participation. In particular, we need to see how we can use all technologies so that we are not locked into any one particular technology. The secretariat should have greater resources. We noted last year that there were several problems in that regard. And these resources will help the secretariat to better carry out its work and perhaps better contribute to developing countries participating more actively and physically at meetings. With regard to the draft program, it has been proposed that we have a speed dialogue session. It would be useful to ensure that this session be well-prepared, perhaps to have a dry run before Rio. It is important to ensure that this session is not just an additional session, but that it can really effectively bring about results.
>>AUSTRALIA: Thank you, chair. I'd like to make a contribution to give an Australian point of view, which will include some positive comments about the
topics to be discussed, and also to offer some cautious reactions to some of the ideas floated about process and structure at this meeting. First, on enhanced cooperation, it's really a separate track from the IGF. But I would like to offer a different point of view from what's been heard so far. In our view, enhanced cooperation was envisaged as a bottom-up process, not a top-down process directed by the U.N. Secretary-General or by any particular agency. And we think it's important to give credit for what has been done. We can look at UNESCO, ITU, ICANN, and in cooperation with many other organizations, each of these have taken steps to respond to the WSIS outcome and to work openly and more constructively with each other. And the lack of a bureaucratic superstructure should not obscure the good work that's been done. More can be done, of course. But the commentary has been almost uniformly critical and has not given recognition to the efforts that have been made in these and in other forums. Then I come to process and structure. With regard to the proposals to add new structures and processes to the IGF framework, I must say that we've not heard any proposals that are more attractive than continuing to work with the present very open arrangements that we have. We are genuinely pleased to see your continued involvement, Chairman, and similarly appreciate the role of Markus Kummer in the secretariat and the role of Switzerland for that. Of course, we can learn from mistakes and we should look to make improvements. But we on the other hand should certainly not undo the very good start that was made in the Athens process. Then to the question of topics for the next IGF. ../.. But we agree that discussion can be more focused within those topics and that all the topics mentioned in the Tunis Agenda, particularly paragraph 72, we all have our favorites, but they're all legitimate subjects for discussion at the IGF. The challenge, really, is to select the topics that work best for each forum and within the broad themes. ../.. We had expected, really, that management of domain names and related issues would be discussed at the next IGF. There was some discussion in Athens, but I guess we always expected further attention in Rio. And we are happy to support that. ../.. I should say that since the Athens IGF, in Australia we have completed our own review of the local domain name administration, and we would be happy to share experience and lessons learned. I have to say, though, that from an Australian point of view, these are not the most interesting or the most challenging issues facing government. In fact, the management of domain names is a rather dull issue in comparison with many others. Much more challenging issues have been raised that would benefit from discussion in the IGF, and these include improving access, which always seems to be number one; and then the problems that come with access, security and child protection perhaps chief among them. These are the issues that appear in the newspapers every week and that represent real difficulties facing all stakeholders, including the ministers in countries all around the world and the various private sector and community interests that share those concerns.
>>HENRY JUDY ( American Bar Association, a single society association that is the largest association of law office in the United States ). Most specifically, I am with the section of business law, the largest section within the ABA. Let me comment on two levels. The first level is the level of practical organizational arrangements, and the second is the level of the substance of the Rio meeting. My practical comments deal with the matter of speed dialogues or speed exchanges. Markus Kummer, in his opening remarks, noted that the concept came from the American Bar Association via the ITU. Speed dialogues can be organized in various ways, but the description that I have seen in the secretariat's material is typical. It is a technique, and like any technique, it is more or less useful depending on the outcomes that you wish. My experience is that it has the following advantages: First, it introduces a large number of people to one another who might otherwise not have spoken to one another. It is a great networking tool, and it stimulates networking, and thus it would strengthen the multiparticipant orientation of the forum. Secondly, it is a great equalizer. The great and the small are at the same table and must listen to one another Third, it forces people to speak crisply. You do not have time for the extended use of diplomatic code, euphemisms, and circumlocution. Fourth, it is useful for synthesizing the state of opinion and emotion in the group. Among the downsides are the following: First, it depends on each table having a reporter who can represent the views at the table in the summary in a skillful and disinterested manner. It is not easy to find a Markus Kummer for each table. Second, it requires a high degree of prior planning and instruction on the part of the organizers as well as a high degree of compliance on the part of the participants. Otherwise, it can become a confusing and unproductive exercise in herding cats, if I may use the English expression. I have heard it said that the likelihood that the technique will be successful is directly proportional to the tendency of the group to start its meetings on time. Third, it tends to work less well as the group becomes larger. So I would conclude on this procedural point with two general comments. First, I have never participated in such a dialogue in a multilingual environment, and it is possible that if it is done in such an environment in Rio, extra steps will be needed from an organizational point of view. Secondly, on the whole, I would advise some degree of caution in the use of this technique, and, at a minimum, a lot of careful prior planning.
On the -- as far as the substance is concerned, I would like to associate myself with the comments of the Free Expression Online dynamic coalition earlier today and with the point of the previous speaker from Australia as to the great importance of freedom of expression in this connection. Lawyers, when they are at their very best, deeply care about freedom, freedom of expression, of association, of communication, all of the fundamental values that are deeply embedded in U.N. documents, ranging from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, to the statement of millennium goals, to the WSIS declaration, and down to the theme of openness in the documents of this forum. In that regard, it is disturbing to see that the Internet, which is and must continue to be a tool of liberation, is being misused as a tool of exclusion, of repression, and even as a weapon. We would express the hope, Mr. Chairman, that the Rio meeting could be organized so that the themes of openness and security from misuse animate the proceedings.
>>THERESA SWINEHART (ICANN): ../..The four themes of access, openness, security, and diversity we think reflect important areas, each of which have numerous subcomponents that prior speakers have addressed. These themes themselves identify and form an integral set of issues that address the different issues that make up the Internet and its use by users. They're important and they need to be addressed in a multistakeholder approach. And some of the issues of interest that ICANN has responsibility may be subcategories of some of these different areas. But, again, there's a wide range of issues and a wide range of subtopics that are important to address that all stakeholders have an issue with. We look forward to participating in the upcoming IGF respective sessions and welcome, in particular, the suggestion put forward in the secretariat's draft program outline of having open forums for all major organizations dealing with Internet-related issues to present and discussion their respective activities. We think this is a very good initiative. We believe that this is also a very important new addition to the upcoming IGF meeting and an important piece of information sharing and will do our best to contribute towards that process.
>>EGYPT: ( IGF 2009 host country ) ../.. I think we need to be realistic in the preparation of that meeting. In that context, I should like to mention certain points. It seems to me that there are disparities with regard to the objectives of the meeting. From what I've heard from the various speakers, it depends on the interpretation we make of the different points. I'd like to recall that the summit document was very detailed with regard to the mandate. And we think it is necessary to have some amount of flexibility. And this depends on the goodwill of the international community, as well as the Internet community, with regard to the preparatory work. This should be more efficient. And let me say that I don't know what will come of the suggestions and proposals that have been made today. Will they be taken into consideration in Rio? Which body will transform these proposals into something concrete? This should be done so that they are in conformity with what has already been stated in the documents. And the Advisory Group should also play a very specific role. I'd like to recall what you said during the closing session in Athens, when you said that perhaps it would be preferable to provide working documents in the -- at the Rio meeting that would be prepared well in advance of the meeting. I don't know if this is still on the table, but I think it is a proposal which is practical and which is in keeping with Paragraph 72 of the Tunis Agenda. Consequently, all stakeholders should have the feeling that this forum effectively represents the points of view of everyone. With that, we should take into consideration the fact that at each stage, we should move on the basis of preceding stages, and we need to work in keeping with the objectives of the Tunis Agenda. And this is totally in line with what one speaker said. I think the replies that you will supply, the answers that you will supply, will answer our questions on aspects relating to the preparatory phase. I think there is a consensus on the addition of certain points with regard to the list adopted in Athens. I think these should be taken into consideration. It will be necessary perhaps to have a setting to look at these new questions. And I would like to ask, who will make a decision on those issues?
>>ECUADOR: ../.. First of all, I should like to endorse the statement made by El Salvador on behalf of GRULAC as well as that of Brazil and Argentina. However, I should like to emphasize the fact that the region has been making significant efforts, through its regional strategy for the development of the information society, ELAC 2007. And this regional strategy has just included a permanent working group on Internet governance. This group should have an active participation and constant coordination with the process of Internet governance. This is why the secretariat should have more close coordination with this regional initiative which has a focal point throughout the region of Latin America and Caribbean.../.. They have significant views which should be taken on board. The private sector, through its initiative basis, has put forward a number of views which should be considered, and prior to Rio, these views should be examined at the preparatory meeting as a step forward to the Rio meeting. Subjects such as geographical balance, the selection of the advisory group, are, I believe, fundamental and should be dealt with clearly before the Rio meeting. The advisory group has a considerable challenge before it ahead of the Rio meeting, and that is to try to reflect the points that have been raised here in these consultations. Not only in the Rio program, but also in the procedures which will be adopted in the future.../..
>> UNECA ( U.N. economic commission for Africa ) ../.. We have established an African action plan on the knowledge-based economy. Internet governance is very important in this context, and we are working with AfriNIC and AfNOG on our Internet governance plan. In Africa, we have been holding consultations with the Egyptian government, and we have got a discussion list which is ongoing to discuss the feasibility of having an African forum, which we could establish. We're discussing this now. And we are planning to hold a preparatory meeting for Africa before Rio so that we can discuss the topics which will be debated at Rio. And we're going to come up with some key elements for the African continent to put before the forum. And our meeting will be held sometime between July and September. We're looking for a host country at the moment ../.. and we would like the Secretariat to participate. For Rio, we are going to be organizing together with ICANN and the Diplo Foundation and the support of the CPRC Canada and OIF training for French-speaking countries for Internet governance. A similar training course was held in Addis Ababa last year for the English-speaking African countries, and this time we are going to have one for the French-speaking African countries. And we are going to have this preparatory forum for Rio as well, as I just said, which we will organize before October. Also, I'd like to inform you all that the African network of the global alliance on ICT and development has been inaugurated in Addis Ababa, and this network, which is called African Guide,will be implementing a project on infrastructure and the community with support from ITU and with cooperation from the Secretariat in New York.
>>ROBIN GROSS: ( A2K dynamic coalition whose purpose is to support and expand access to knowledge and promote freedom of expression in the realm of information and communication technology). Our coalition is particularly concerned with the impact that unbalanced intellectual property rights have on the Internet as a tool of free expression,innovation, education, and development. ../..
>>GEORGE SADOWSKY ( executive director of the Global Internet Policy Initiative ) ../.. And I would like to align myself with Emily Taylor's comment and suggest that 99.99% of the people who are interested in the Internet don't care what we say in this room. These are issues that will affect them, and if we do our job well, it will affect them positively. If we don't, it will affect them negatively. They simply want access to ICT resources so that they can do the job that they want to do for themselves, by themselves,if they can. ../.. There was an expression earlier regarding the possibility of what I would consider undue influence by people who associated with organizations that have responsibility for critical Internet resources. And there is -- that is, by and large, true. But why is that? How could that possibly be allowed to happen? And I suggest that there are a cadre of individuals, a tradition in ICT, in computer science, and related fields, of people who have a long history of wanting to take this technology, even prior to the Internet, the growth of ICTs, the declining costs, the possibility of applications was very real and incredibly exciting, and there were a lot of people who were involved in other things who saw it and wanted to spend their time bringing these innovations, bringing these extraordinary tools to developing countries for purposes of economic and social development. 20 years ago, you would have found them in the IETF or the IAB or in the U.N. system, the specialized agencies doing this work. When the Internet society was formed in 1991-1992 some of these people gravitated to there because they thought the slogan "internet for everyone" was a remarkably good goal that they wanted to spend their efforts to achieve. And more recently they have affiliated with organizations that have something to do with critical Internet resources. So when you see people with substantial experience in ICTs in positions of giving advice, just like we all do, to the Secretariat here regarding the Internet's core resources, it shouldn't come as a surprise. They are there because they want the Internet to succeed in its mission of transforming the world. And is there any possible reason to oppose their inclusion in such a role? I think we need a reality check here.
>> Iran: ../.. To our mind, IGF and enhanced cooperation are two mutually supported -- supportive mechanisms to do the follow-up for Internet governance. They go hand in hand. And both are of high importance for us, and I suppose for all the stakeholders. We would support IGF within its own limits as much as we support enhanced cooperation. Yet we – all participating parties in the Tunis phase know well that it was a matter of a balance that we arrived at having both IGF and enhanced cooperation in a package, and it was the very last portion, I suppose, if you recall, the last portion of the package that we agreed to in Tunis. So it is a matter of just following the saying that says no one goes without the other. I have actually nothing to add to the clarity which is already there in the Tunis document, and just let me read some of them. First of all, on the question of if it is top-bottom or bottom-up, and I don't want to discuss it at this moment, and I think it is not wise to do so, enhanced cooperation is there according to the Tunis document to enable governments on an equal footing to carry out their roles and responsibilities in international public policy issues pertaining to the Internet, and to the end of the paragraph. Secondly, according to paragraph 71 of the Tunis Agenda, enhanced cooperation consists of two segments, clearly The one which was supposed to be started by the U.N. secretary-general involving all relevant organizations by the end of the first quarter of 2006, to involve all the stakeholders in their respective roles, to proceed as quickly possible, consistent with legal processes and to be responsive to innovation. As we all know, there has been -- and I think there is no doubt that there hasn't been any movement in this regard. At least we are not aware of it. The second portion of paragraph 71, which is the second segment of enhanced cooperation, is the one which relates to relevant organizations. Who should commence the process towards enhanced cooperation involving all the stakeholders, proceeding as quickly as possible and supportive and responsive to innovation. I suppose this segment has been the basis of the interpretation that we had a while ago. And what I would like to say here is we should avoid confusing these two segments. They are both part of the same body, but they are two segments, separate legs. But mutually related. Even on this segment we are not sure if such a process has been started in any intergovernmental organizations like ITU or UNESCO. And on that, I was part of the negotiations of resolution 102 of the ITU plenipotentiary conference in Antalya last November. And just briefly I would read to you what was the situation. I think the same conviction was there for people. According to the section of that resolution, the plenipotentiary conference resolves to instruct the secretary-general, paragraph number 4, to take the necessary steps for ITU to play an active and constructive role in the process towards enhanced cooperation as expressed in paragraph 71 of the Tunis Agenda. And this is the enhanced cooperation process which is supposed to be initiated by this U.N. secretary-general. And paragraph 5, to take necessary steps in ITU's own internal process towards enhanced cooperation on international public policy issues. So you see the same conviction is there, even in other fora. I just wanted to clarify the situation, at least from our point of view, that when we talk about enhanced cooperation, we should be very clear what are the linkages with IGF from one hand and from the other hand the two segments, mutually supportive segments of the enhanced cooperation one to be started by the U.N. secretary-general, the other one, the one which is supposed to be internally followed within intergovernmental organizations.
>>CHAIRMAN DESAI: I would like to clarify that this is not a consultation on enhanced cooperation. ../..
>>RALF BEUDRATH: This is to provide with you a brief update on the work of the dynamic coalition on privacy. We have met continuous interest since the Athens meeting and now have participant from more than 60 entities, including government, civil society, business and international organizations. The coalition has participants from all world regions at the moment. The fullest and more information about the coalition, including an updated progress report, can be found at IGF2006.info. Participants in the coalition have met in Geneva in February 2007, in Montreal in May just a few weeks ago, and again in Geneva yesterday to discuss some issues we are focusing on and our prospective on the Rio meeting. The major part of the work, of course, is being conducted through a mailing list. ../.. On the format of the meeting, we think to have a main session on emerging issues in Internet governance is certainly a great idea, but we would suggest to have it at the beginning of the meeting. This would be different from issues that emerged at the IGF, which, of course, should be addressed at the end. ../.. On the rollout mandate of the IGF, we agree that the IGF must move beyond a pure discussion event and see how and if it can agree on recommendations and other output. We again refer to Paragraph 72g of the Tunis Agenda, which mentions as part of the IGF mandate to make recommendations. We therefore suggest to have the final IGF plenary consider any recommendations that may arise from the ongoing work of the coalitions or from the workshops and discussions in Rio.
>>UNITED STATES: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to make an intervention based on a number of interventions given today promoting one type of software over another. I would like to point out to stakeholders that paragraph 27 of the Geneva declaration of principles promotes a technology-neutral environment. It says, "Access to information and knowledge can be promoted by increasing awareness among all stakeholders of the possibilities offered by different software models, including proprietary, open source, and free software, in order to increase competition, access by users, diversity of choice, and to enable all users to develop solutions which best meet their requirements." Of course, stakeholders are free to debate the merits of different types of software within the Internet Governance Forum. In fact, perhaps such debates should be encouraged. However, my delegation believes that the IGF should follow the patterns set by the WSIS documents in being a technology-neutral forum.
>>CHAIRMAN DESAI: I assure you that a novice like me will continue to use what he can use. So we will probably -- it will probably remain technology-neutral, because a lot of us are technology-incompetent, so we will probably have to do that. [ Laughter ]
>>GERMANY (European union) : ../.. We believe, Mr. Chairman, that the IGF should continue to be a forum for an open exchange between all stakeholders on public-policy issues related to key elements of Internet governance. In this context, there should be no a priori exclusion of topics. At the same time, we think that there is value in following the structure of Athens with four main topics and capacity-building as the overall theme. The management of critical resources, we have seen the IGF in Athens addressing in various formats, for example, during workshops. The IGF also, at its upcoming meeting in Rio, is a well-suited platform to continue to devote attention to this issue at the appropriate level, obviously, as a discussion forum and not with an oversight function. Mr. Chairman, the European Union strongly supports providing appropriate space for dynamic coalitions in Rio de Janeiro to report on their work, as they address important questions of direct importance for everybody, for everyday users,including the example freedom of expression, privacy, and identity, and open standards. We see the main benefit of the IGF in enabling an exchange among all stakeholders on an equal basis. The Tunis Agenda sets the framework for this by outlining that the IGF should be a non-binding process. Mr. Chairman, we attach great importance to balanced geographic representation. We think that the existing preparatory structures have worked well and we commend, in particular, the secretariat for its excellent work. And, finally, we support the reconduction of the existing multistakeholder Advisory Group for the Rio meeting for the sake of efficiency.
>>KIEREN McCARTHY: It's a quick statement on of what of the dynamic coalition for online collaboration which I think will address some of the points that people were raising a second ago. The coalition was formally announced at February's consultation meeting. Its broad approach is to identify effective methods for online group working and participation and to evaluate the various technical options that are available. Since February, the coalition has developed a structure and a work plan in order to achieve as much as possible in time for the Rio meeting. It is hoped that the coalition will be seen by other dynamic coalitions and the IGF secretariat itself, as well as other online collaborative activities, as a useful store of information, knowledge, and experience of online collaboration tools. The coalition will share its experience and provide advice where requested on which tools are most effective in which circumstances. Much of the coalition's advice will come in the form of reports covering individual tools, although the coalition may also provide a more formal report in Rio. Full details will be available, will be provided to the IGF soon -- the IGF secretariat soon, complete with the address of a new dedicated coalition Web site. The coalition is open to all, so we would encourage anyone who is interested in improving and aiding both online collaboration and participation to sign up and get involved.
>>CHAIRMAN DESAI: The -- Are there any others? Okay. Let me begin first by a word on something which is not the subject matter of our discussion. And that is enhanced cooperation. I had reported to you a little earlier. Basically, if you look at the text of what came out of Tunis, unlike in the case of IGF, in the case of enhanced cooperation, the process was not specified. It was just said, "Launch a process." Nothing more was said as to what sort of process or what was expected. There's absolutely no indication given, unlike in the case of IGF, where it's very clear, where there's a whole long paragraph specifying terms of reference. A lot of things were specified in the case of IGF. So, essentially, what the Secretary-General did was to start a process of consultation, which we did. For six months, I personally met with people to find out whether there could be some basis, some common ground which could be found for a process, leaving it very flexible and elastic as to what this process could be. And, essentially, I have sent the report of that to the Secretary-General, the then-Secretary-General. And the fact is that there isn't that common ground as yet. So I think we'll have to try something different, a different approach. So let us see. At the moment, the -- as you know, there is a certain state of change in New York, not just in terms of the Secretary-General, but even the key department which is handling this, there will be a change at the end of June. So I -- and perhaps that may lead to certain movement beyond that point. But the real difficulty that we face there is the fact that nothing more was said beyond the word "process." Unlike in the case of IGF, where, in a sense, the marching orders are reasonably clear. There was not that much scope for modification, interpretation, and so on. So what we did was essentially a good offices function. And as you know, in diplomacy, the best you can do in good offices is provide those good offices. You can't necessarily assume that they will lead to a successful result. But I do accept that this is an area where we will have to ask ourselves, what do we do, at some point.
Let me turn now to the subject of our discussion, which is the IGF meeting itself. And let me, since perhaps there's been a little more discussion
on issues of how it is organized and process issues than before, I would like to clarify one thing, which is that the Advisory Group has been constituted by the Secretary-General simply to advise him. It does not really have any other legislative basis than that. We could have done everything that we did without a formally constituted Advisory Group, simply by consulting those individuals individually as a U.N. secretariat. But we chose to constitute it as an Advisory Group precisely because we felt that it was important to get people involved in the process who were connected with the broader community from which they came. And that is why in both the original working group which was constituted, the subsequent group which was constituted for Athens, the group which will be constituted now, fairly extensive consultations have taken place, with missions, with stakeholder groups, before the Secretary-General takes a decision. In fact, one of the reasons for the delay is that this time, there are also extensive consultations taking place in New York, not just in Geneva, but also in New York, there have been extensive consultations. But nevertheless, however widely we can consult, I would accept that this is simply a group constituted by the Secretary-General to assist him. That's it. It is not like a bureau in the usual sense of the term. It does not have any status other than a group advising the Secretary-General. I, too, am only an advisor to the Secretary-General. I don't have any executive responsibility in actually deciding this, that, or anything.
>>BRAZIL: ( host country of the next IGF ) ../.. We are aware that the IGF, due to its format, its procedural mechanism, and to its participation criteria, presents itself as an innovative process. So creativity and innovation is required from us if we are really committed to the fulfillment of its mandate. ../.. one of the refinements that perhaps is needed for this next meeting in Rio is the establishment of a structure that would support the chairman of the IGF in conducting the meeting. Now, as you said, the Advisory Group is to provide advice to the Secretary-General in organizing the meeting. And that's perfect. But who then, will help the chairman in conducting the meeting? So the Advisory Group had a fundamental role in preparing for Athens, and its work is commendable for the success of the Athens meeting. But it had at the same time no role at all during the Athens meeting. So one possibility that we perceive as becoming a strong demand is the possibility of having some sort of conclusion or report of the meeting, which is, of course, understood to be non-binding because of the nature of IGF itself. As in many other international fora, there is always the possibility of, for instance, a chairman's report. But the chairman alone would not have the required legitimacy to prepare such a report without the help of a representative, multistakeholder, and regionally balanced group. So how do we call such group? Friends of the chair? Bureau? Supporting committee? I think that there are many options. What we believe is that we need to have this kind of support. Otherwise, the chairman alone will not be able to deliver to the expectations that are already created by the international community. So we would encourage very much that in this preparatory process, we further discuss this necessity, which we believe is vital to the proper conduct of business in Rio and in subsequent meetings. Now, as I -- I'm having the floor, I would also like to add that on the program, I would like to bring forth the need that relevant organizations, like ICANN, ITU, and others, take active participation at the Rio meeting, not only to exchange information about what they are doing, because we are all aware of that already, or are supposed to be, but, rather, to join in a substantive discussion on a particular issue that is relevant to public policies. For instance, their present and future role as part of the international structure of Internet governance in light of the WSIS outcomes. Or another example, how they are dealing with public-policy aspects related to the management and security of the domain name system, or to the administration of critical resources. Or any other theme to be agreed by us, in the spirit of paragraph 72(B). Well, these were my comments for the moment. And I appreciate you for giving me this opportunity before concluding.
>>SAUDI ARABIA: Thank you, sir. Thank you for giving me the floor. I have two comments. The first comment, I heard that there should be solutions to the matters which will be discussed in Rio, otherwise, we will not be able to
discuss them. And I believe that the discussion of these issues in Rio will certainly allow us to find solutions to these matters. This is one point. The other point is that you -- the point you don't want me to raise, regarding enhanced cooperation. I believe that both the forum and enhanced cooperation do not have specific details as to their mandates. However, there are certain salient points. If we take, for instance, enhanced cooperation, we see that the main theme for enhanced cooperation is to enable governments to draw up international public policies for Internet. And it is quite clear who should initiate the process. This process should be initiated by the Secretary-General. The idea is that the process should start, and during the process, we can develop the details, as was done during the forum. In fact, I was reassured when you mentioned that this matter will be revisited and will be dealt with in a comprehensive manner.
>>CHAIRMAN DESAI: In any case, I don't wish to get into a detailed debate on this, but there is a difference between the terminology. The word used in the second case (Enhanced cooperation) is just "launch a process." The word used in the first case (IGF) is "summon a meeting." There's a big difference in diplomatic terminology between these two phrases. That was the problem. We are not discussing enhanced cooperation.
And let me revert back to what we are discussing. Basically, please, remember this, that part of the motivation behind this group is something which George Sadowsky referred to. We are working and preparing for this with very limited secretariat. It's just Markus Kummer, with whatever help he can mobilize. Chengetai is there right now, and sometimes he has an intern or two. And that's it. Nothing more is available. So to some extent, let me assure you that what the group was doing -- And, incidentally, it is not true that the group did not do any work in Athens. They did a lot of work in Athens. And we, frankly, could not have done Athens had it not been for the unpaid labor that we got from this group. All of them pitched in, in different ways. And part of the contribution that they make is simply in terms of being able -- having access to a group of people who know what the issues are, who can help in actually just the simple process of actually running a meeting, not deciding this or deciding that, just the simple process of actually running a large meeting with lots of parallel events going on. And I would like to recognize the enormous amount of work which all of them did, totally free, for the U.N. And because the U.N. does not have the resources to support this process with a reasonable size secretariat. So the role of the working group, the role of the Advisory Group has been a very supportive one, a facilitative one. And I am absolutely convinced that we could not have done the Athens meeting without the commitment -- not just the advice, the commitment, and the hard work which was put in by all of the members of the Advisory Group. It is not a political group in that sense, in the way in which bureaus are political. But it is a group
which is vital to the success of that meeting. It is a group which was put together carefully, with some thought for reasonable balance, for balance between different groups. People will have complaints saying that there are too few of this group or that group. And that will always be the case when you have a limited membership body, that somebody will feel that they should have been there when -- but, by and large, it was a group which was put together by a lot of consultation and discussions. I'm stressing this because in some ways, we will be working with a similar structure for the Rio meeting. But I do recognize that there are questions of a longer-term nature, looking at the five years of meetings ahead of us, which does require us to look at how this meeting is organized, what its outcome is, a dimension that was just mentioned by the delegate from Brazil that it's okay, you have a group that assists the secretary-general. But what if the Chair wants support? Where does the Chair get that support from? And do we simply say the Chair relies on whatever the Secretariat can mobilize or is there some elasticities there? These are issues which I'm sure we are need to look at and consider. So there are, I think, clearly questions about the way in which the organization of this meeting is structured which we will have to address. There are also deeper questions about IGF which one should ask. The nature of the substantive preparatory process. So far we have relied largely on a meeting like this -- or before I go on, let me just say that in terms of the actual advice which gets passed on to the secretary-general, I will say from my experience now that the meeting which is most influential is this open consultation. That even for Athens, it was the open consultation which basically defined the structure and the parameters of the meeting, including the themes. And the role of the advisory group was more the fine tuning, the actual scheduling and this and that and trying to shape it into some coherent plan. But the actual structuring and thematic or development of principles of the Athens meeting were really set by the discussions in this open consultation. And I think you will find it even in the case of Rio, your experience will be very similar. This is in some ways the most influential body, and it is totally open. The door is not closed. Anybody is free to walk in and contribute and listen. So the actual process of fixing this, how the secretary-general finally issues an order saying this is the meeting that will be held on such and such date, these will be the themes, et cetera, the body that is most influential in shaping that is this open consultation. And I'd like to you keep that in mind. The role of the group is --because moving from a discussion like this to actually putting down for or five pages of paper with a schedule, with titles for the themes and things like that is where the group starts coming in. And then the group helps in the actual running of the meeting. Because you need -- you just need bodies, basically. You just need bodies. So please, somebody has to manage all of the events which are taking place in that hall. Markus can't be around all over the place. So this is what they do. So I would urge you to keep a sense of balance about the role of the advisory group The real role is of this large body which meets regularly. And that is why we always persisted with the process of this open consultation. And again, when we meet in September, we will have this open consultation. We have always had it. We had it for the working group and we always had it after that, because this is our substitute for the process. In the sense, this is what lends it a certain legitimacy and credibility. That what the secretary-general finally ends up doing at the meeting in terms of themes and so on is something which has been -- does not come as a surprise to the member states, to the different stakeholders. That is basically what the purpose of this whole exercise is. There have been questions which have been raised about participation of different groups,different countries, et cetera, in the whole process, and I would say that I'm sure we could take that into account. I give you an invitation now. Particularly in terms of the participation in panels. ../.. Can we rely simply on this open consultation type modality or do we need something more than that? Do we need something more structured to prepare for an IGF? Unlike other U.N. meetings, there's no preparatory process in a substantive sense here. Now, one thought, which I just want to place before you as a possibility, if there are hosts, if there are people available is the possibility of regional meetings. This was mentioned, the fact -- the regional exercises which are underway in Latin America. ../.. Because it also would address one issue ../.. that is the contribution and participation of people from developing countries. To run three, four, global preparatory meetings does not help developing countries. They don't have the resources to participate in global meetings, but it is possible, perhaps, for them to participate in regional meetings, which would be much less expensive for that whole process. So can we think of that. Obviously we don't have time for the Rio conference but maybe we can think of it for the next one. So I think one of the things we may need to think through a little more, maybe we will revert to this issue in September when we meet, is do we need a stronger sense of substantive preparation as we go into a meeting. It will all have to be done on a voluntary basis because we don't have a budget line for this. But I have a feeling that for regional meetings, it maybe possible to mobilize support and so on. So we can try and do that.
There is a whole question of outcomes. I appreciate the concern that you cannot run a big meeting like this simply as a talk shop. It must be something which is seen to have an effect on something. And yet, the IGF is not a body of people. It's an event. So when we say the IGF must have an outcome, what do you mean? An event doesn't have an outcome. It's a group of people. There is no defined entity there which you can say decides that this is a resolution or a text. Who decides? The people present in the room? Who negotiates? There is no basis for this. It's not like our intergovernmental process where we know who has a right to sit at the table to negotiate. There are no rights in that sense defined in an IGF process. So do not walk into this lightly, because you have to think through these issues as to who -- if you are going to have outcomes, then who is going to decide this? If you are going to have agreed recommendations, who are the people who will have a right to sit at that table ? To recite this? Because we do not have a membership defined for IGF, because we only defined it as an event. And in a multistakeholder environment, there is a genuine problem in talking in terms of membership. Are you going to say all those who are present? Then let's be very realistic. With the underrepresentation that you will always have, continue to have from developing countries, all those present will probably give you a geographically unbalanced mix. It will also vary depending on where the meeting is held. The meeting is held in India, you will get heavy representation from India and maybe very little from Africa or Latin America. The meeting is held in Africa, you may get.... So I'm not sure that we have talked through these issues. But I appreciate the concern. Now, in Athens one thing happened. The dynamic coalitions came. It was at least something more than just a talk shop. Something came out of it which had some actual results. Maybe we can look further and see how the strengthening of a chairman's summary which was mentioned maybe a different, another type of thing. But at the same time we must recognize that this is not a forum designed for negotiating text or outcomes. It is not designed for that. There are other spaces and places where this can be done. But the IGF is not really designed for that. Its influence has to come through its -- the one thing it has, which is that it is bringing together people who do not otherwise meet with each other. This is the message that I got from Athens, from a lot of people who attended, saying we found ourselves talking about issues with people with whom we do not discuss these issues normally. That, I think, is its selling point. That is its strength. So it's very important that whatever we do in IGF, we maintain its multistakeholder character. That is its real strength. Because for individually, people have other forums. Governments have many fora in which they can negotiate and discuss these things. So does civil society. So does industry. So does the Internet community. If they just want to meet amongst themselves, they do not need the IGF. If governments want to meet amongst themselves, they do not need an IGF. The IGF makes sense only if there is value in people meeting across these boundaries. And in this particular case, it's terribly important, because the nature of the medium is such that because it develops in a bottom-up fashion, because it developed essentially outside the framework of governmental infrastructure provision, this is an area where bringing together people from these different segments, the Internet industry, the governments, the civil society, and so on, becomes very, very crucial. You will not be able to address issues of things like Spam or cyber security and issues of that nature unless you have all of these actors at the table. It will not be possible to address these issues unless you have all of these actors. So use that strength. But Iappreciate the concern that it has to become more than a talking shop. Without, at the same time, becoming a negotiating forum, because it cannot become a negotiating forum. It was not designed for that. It has no mandate for that. So let us explore ways. We had some movement in Athens when we talked of dynamic coalitions. Hopefully we will get something in Rio. So we will try and keep moving and see how we can keep improving the setup. The themes. I will say that the one message which comes across to me is that there is an expectation that we will be discussing issues relating to Internet core resources in the main session. This has come, some people have talked about it as something they definitely want. Quite a few have said that they are more or less reconciled to the fact that it will be discussed. But the general sense I get is that there is an expectation that this will be discussed there. I think one of the challenges that will be faced by us for the next two days is to flesh this out, how. There are several suggestions which have come on how best this can be done. And I think one of the challenges is to see how is this done. But I think it's important that we recognize the signal, this message, which is what I take away from this, that there is a -- there are many other things that have been said about the other themes, which I'm sure we have taken note of, of which we will again look through a little more carefully. One lesson that I derived from Athens is that we must try and focus. We must -- We cannot do everything at every meeting. Unfortunately, we haven't done what was suggested by Iran which is a multi-year program of work. So we could say, okay, we are not planning to talk about this in Rio because we are planning on talking about this next year in Delhi or the year of that in Cairo. But unfortunately, we don't have that. So there is therefore often a tendency to put everything in every year. But let's try to avoid that. And perhaps one way of avoiding it is by focusing on topicality. Within each area, let us pick the themes which have become of particular concern during the course of the year. Markus mentioned one, the distributed denial of service attack, and how do you cope and live with it. Now, this is something which has happened and it's worth asking. Okay, what are the mechanisms which can prevent it? So I think this is one of the challenges that we face of trying to be a little more focused in our discussions under the individual themes. But I do take the message that in addition to all of the themes that we had listed in Athens, there is an expectation that there will be a discussion of a theme relating to Internet core resources. And different suggestions have been made on what exactly should be covered under that. And we will, in any case, be reverting to that when we meet in September. There are many issues that were raised -- not issues, but I would say suggestions that came about the structuring and organization of the meetings. I think they're all very helpful suggestions. I'm, incidentally, not, Markus, entirely persuaded that speed dialogue is well-designed for the U.N. I am not persuaded that we have the culture or the capacity to actually run a speed dialogue, particularly because of the multilingual nature, the need to preserve a certain degree of diplomatic protocol in our work. So I'm not very sure. But we can – nothing need be ruled out. We can probably try it as an experiment rather than as an integral feature. Let's attempt it somewhere. And if it works, we'll pick it up. If it doesn't work, we'll chalk it up as a bad idea and forget it for the future. The most important thing that I would like to stress here is that the IGF as a multistakeholder forum will not work unless there is a certain cultural change everywhere. Governments, for instance, will have to become ready to accept that when they are participating in the forum with NGOs and the others, some of the statements made, language used may be a little more vigorous than what is normal in diplomatic life. But at the same time, I think NGOs will have to accept that their normal sort of tendency to sort of put a point vigorously because that is the only way you could make an impact when you are participating an as observer, may have to change. Because now you're going to be talking to people with whom you are -- as an equal. So it has to be a two-way exercise. It's not just that the governments have to become more tolerant. I think it's equally important that the others in civil society also have to become a little more flexible, more tolerant, not necessarily given to the way they would --have in the past operated, out of necessity, because that's the only way they could get attention, was by being outspoken, vigorous, sometimes even rude. But that has also to change. And equally, I think there are changes required in industry, amongst international organizations. So I think there are -- it's the cultural change which is going to be the most difficult to realize. Overall, I think there must be a level of trust. There must be a level of trust and an acceptance that the people who are participating in this are doing so out of sincerity, and are doing so honestly. Ad hominem arguments saying someone is doing this because so-and-so is from X or from sector Y must be avoided. That is not a dialogue of good faith. And that is why I objected very strongly to the statement which came from one person, which was an ad hominem argument about individuals. And that, I don't think, is on. And the idea that you can somehow have -- and incidentally, nobody is under judgment here. This is not a judicial body which is adjudicating whether X is doing his job well or Y is doing his job well. This is not our job. Our job is to find common ground for action amongst different stakeholders. And, to me, it seems that this is the greatest challenge that we face. The challenge is not structure. The challenge is not even the selection of themes. The challenge is to be able to run a multistakeholder process as a dialogue of good faith, where we come, we respect other people's right to have views which are different, we treat them as people who are holding those views honestly and are articulating them honestly and do not dismiss anything on ad hominem grounds at all. So this great change that has to come about, which is probably the greatest challenge that we face. ../..
>>GREECE: ../.. I had one stakeholder approach man tell me, "Well, you did an excellent job in organizing the meeting, but you did not keep a high political profile." So my answer is that, first of all, I think that we were members of the Advisory Group, and we noticed that it captured the spirit of Tunis as to what exactly it wanted to happen in Athens. So we didn't intervene because we think that things went very well there. And also, our positions were covered throughout the process by the presence of the European Union. So we concentrated on organizing and giving a good meeting. ../..