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Who’s in Charge of the Internet: The WSIS Deliberations

Who’s in Charge of the Internet: The WSIS Deliberations. by Robert E. Kahn, CNRI 60 th IETF Meeting San Diego, California August 4, 2004. The World discovers the Internet. Virtually every country now views the Internet as critical to its future development

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Who’s in Charge of the Internet: The WSIS Deliberations

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  1. Who’s in Charge of the Internet:The WSIS Deliberations by Robert E. Kahn, CNRI 60th IETF Meeting San Diego, California August 4, 2004

  2. The World discovers the Internet • Virtually every country now views the Internet as critical to its future development • Education, public safety, public health, information access, freedom of expression, business, etc. • Words don’t always mean the same to everyone • In many nations of the world, the prevailing view is: • Some entity needs to be “in charge” • the UN is best suited to provide leadership • The US and most developed nations are in favor of leaving this issue untouched • The system isn’t broken and not in need of fixing.

  3. Current Approach • Has evolved over a period of 30 years: need to enable scientific progress to continue • Very decentralized system of cooperation, coordination, and interaction • Involving many organizations around the world • Critical elements are: • the protocols and procedures that make the Internet work • the standardization process that keeps it stable and evolving (IETF) • And the administration of Domain Names, IP Addresses and protocol parameters (ICANN)

  4. Current Participants • Service Providers • Network Equipment Providers • Computer & Software Manufacturers • Application Software developers • Specialized Firms (security, privacy, etc) • Standards & Administrative Bodies (IETF & ICANN, but also W3C, IEEE, ITU, etc) • Governments and their legal regimes • Lawyers • And many more

  5. World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) • Phase I held in Geneva on Dec. 10 – 12, 2003 • Organized by the ITU on behalf of the UN • Approximately 12,000 attendees representing most of the nations of the world, including business and civil society representatives • Internet Governance taken off the WSIS agenda during the final planning sessions • Sec’y General of the UN asked to convene a working group to address the matter in preparation for • Phase II scheduled for November 2005 in Tunis

  6. Some Interim Activities • ITU Workshop in February 2004 in Geneva • UN ICT Global Forum on Internet Governance at UN Headquarters in March 2004 • Planning sessions taking place around the world, including theme meetings • Secretariat for the UN Working Group established in Geneva – headed by Markus Kummer • Prepcom-1 in Hammamet, Tunisia 24-26 June 2004.

  7. Some Interim Observations • It will be hard to get agreement on a definition of Internet Governance • Focus instead on issues to be worked on and who can contribute in which areas (for example): • Privitization, interoperability, infrastructure development & financing, competition, IP, regulations, security, multilingualism, cybercrime • The special needs of the least developed countries • Leverage activities already underway in various areas including existing UN, Governmental, and private sector organizations (called “civil societies” in this context) • Even within the UN, many organizations have relevant activities – WTO, ITU, UNESCO, UNDP, UNCITRAL, UN ICT Task Force, etc.

  8. Some Reading Material • Millennium Development Goals -- www.unicttaskforce.org/mdg/default.html • WSIS Phase I: Declaration of Principles & Plan of Action -- www.itu.int/wsis/documents/doc_multi.asp?lang=en&id=1161|1160 • Remarks by US Ambassador David Gross at WSIS Phase I -- www.state.gov/e/eb/rls/rm/2003/27668.htm • Brief Summary of WSIS Phase I -- www.dlib.org/dlib/march04/lyons/03lyons.html • Chairman’s Report on the ITU Workshop -- www.itu.int/osg/spu/forum/intgov04/index.html • Presentations at ITU Workshop, including ICC Report on Internet Governance (see presentation by Ayesha Hassan) -- www.itu.int/osg/spu/forum/intgov04/contributions.html • Presentations & Press Conference at the UN ICT Task Force Global Forum (Audio & Video Archives) -- www.unicttaskforce.org/sixthmeeting • Informal Summary of UN ICT Task Force Global Forum on Internet Governance -- www.unicttaskforce.org/perl/documents.pl?id=1355 • “State of Play” as reported by Markus Kummer at PrepCom-1 (in preparation for WSIS Phase II in 2005) -- www.itu.int/wsis/documents/doc_mug=en&id=1252|0lti.asp?lan • WSIS Preparatory Meetings leading up to WSIS Phase II www.itu.int/wsis/preparatory2/index.html#prepcom • Decision of PrepCom-1 www.itu.int/wsis/documents/doc_multi.asp?lang=en&id=1253|0 • UNESCO WSIS Action Directory -- www.unesco.org/wsisdirectory

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