The Internet Governance Forum wrapped up its seventh highly participatory gathering in Baku, Azerbaijan last week, from 6 to 9 November 2012.  We streamed through many of the verbatim accounts and wondered.  Are there alarm bells off in the horizon?  That is, in the clouds somewhere?  The multi-stakeholder quality of the annual Internet Governance Forum has developed what appears to be somewhat of a fortress mentality, building up the defenses from the threatening forces of intergovernmental control and regulation.  A lot of naval gazing occurred on the future of the IGF and on developing a compendium on principles of governance for the Internet without actually calling anything by that name.  The Forum had sessions on multi-stakeholder relations with the UN Commission on Science and Technology for Development, on the lack of adequate funding for the Forum and a secretariat to support it, the problems of regulatory convergence between the broadcast media and the internet, and the hordes of the International Telecommunications Union bearing down on the Internet by way of broadening the reach of its telecommunications regulations.  The Forum also addressed domain names and critical internet resources, security, openness and privacy in data capture and retention, economic and social empowerment, and enhanced cooperation.  It was generally agreed that the participants want to see the Internet “stay global, stay self-regulated, and stay multi-stakeholder with everyone working together” and that there are threats from both within and external to the IGF for the dragon-slayers to fight.   See the verbatim report of the closing session here. 

In contrast, the ITU Secretary-General Hamadoun Touré issued his opinions on the forthcoming World Conference on International Telecommunications thus:  The ITU wants to improve online access and connectivity for all and not just for those who can afford it, to advance full transparency in pricing in order to finance networks universally, and also to promote cybersecurity against pornography and other bad things.  See his statement here.   Mr. Touré emphasized that everyone has the right to be connected.  The WCIT meets in Dubai from 3 to 14 December 2012.  See more information here.  See also the US position statement here.

From the CMBD News 12 November 2012

The preparations for the annual Internet Governance Forum are pretty much in place, and we would like to encourage interested parties to look at setting up a “remote hub” to link up to the Forum’s location in Baku, Azerbaijan, where it is meeting from 6 to 9 November 2012.  We would be interested in joining such a remote hub.  So let us know if you are interested or have put one together already.  The basic theme of the IGF this year is “Sustainable Human, Economic and Social Development”, and we will be interested in following the debates that are always lively and stimulating at these IGF events.  We can imagine, of course, that developmental questions are linked to the kinds of access and equity issues that were raised last week by Director-General Tokayev on global governance in a transformative era.  But there will also be lively issues on cybersecurity and anti-counterfeiting and freedom of the internet, too.  We note that a newly appointed Multi-Stakeholder Advisory Group continues to reflect a strong private sector commitment to the IGF, with our friend Ayesha Hassan from the ICT Policy group at the International Chamber of Commerce leading the way.  She is joined by new appointees from AT&T, Nokia Siemens Networks, Sify Technologies from India, the Walt Disney Company, WITSA from Nigeria; and continued service of representatives from Verizon Communications and Lockheed Martin Corp.  At the IGF itself, the advance registrations show large delegations from Google and Microsoft as well as a rather large Chinese contingent. Take a look here for the programme and related arrangements.

From the CMBD News 29 October 2012

We participated in the annual gathering of the Internet Governance Forum USA, held at the Georgetown Law Center in Washington, DC on 26 July 2012.  This was an inspiring reaffirmation of the multi-stakeholder nature of what is happening in the realm of Internet governance.  And, as one would expect from an endeavor that touts transparency as a fundamental principle of governance, the IGF-USA website has detailed reports of the event.  The multi-stakeholder actors cited by the organizers of the US Forum include “civil society, government, technologists, research scientists, industry and academia” joining together in “partnerships, coalitions and dialogues”.  As one of the concluding speakers at the Forum observed, we are in “the middle of a multi-stakeholder explosion”, and the questions is how to ensure that the direction this takes is productive and goes in the “right direction”.  And of course, the message from the participants at this Forum is that the “right direction” means opposing any increase in government control over the Internet.  This is the position, furthermore, of the US Government as it anticipates the negotiations on updating the Telecommunications Regulations at the International Telecommunications Conference of the ITU in December.

IGF-USA is an example of the regional and national forums that have spread across the world as complements to the global IGF.  These are providing yet another avenue for multi-stakeholder engagement in the process.  They are also helping to bridge the digital divide between developed and developing countries.  Of course, the IGF-USA is in the most developed of developed countries with regard to expansion of the Internet, but participants here did express concern about the challenge of increasing access from the 2 billion people today who are connected in some way to the Internet, to the rest of the 7 billion mostly living in developing countries who do not yet have access.  We were surprised to learn about the higher cost of access in many developing countries.  These costs operate as a significant barrier, especially in hard-to-reach rural areas such as South Sudan.  So the challenges are there to bridge the digital divide and, perhaps more importantly, to learn to embrace the momentum towards “inevitable and irresistible transparency” and to make this commitment to transparency work for both creativity and the right to freedom of expression.  We extend our thanks to our friend and colleague Marilyn Cade, the chief organizer of the IGF-USA, for including us in this invaluable forum.

From the CMBD News 31 July 2012

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On the heels of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) conference, which brought geeks galore to Geneva, to swap tales of tech advance and opine about policies and regulations on security, freedom of speech, access, band width, women and ITC, green ITC, and a host of other matters; our attention turned to the meetings of the Commission on Science and Technology for Development — the CSTD. The fifteenth session of the CSTD met from 21-25 May, to review and follow-up on progress made at the WSIS ( the outcomes document is available here ), to include a special focus on improvements to the Internet Governance Forum (CSTD meeting details are available here).  Priorities of the CSTD were elaborated in two areas:

• Innovation, research, technology transfer for mutual advantage, entrepreneurship and collaborative development in the information society
• Open access, virtual science libraries, geospatial analysis and other complementary information and communications technology and science, technology, engineering and mathematics assets

We watched a parade of spokesmen and women expound on the achievements and progress of their countries — particularly in providing access to the internet, in moving toward universal cell phone coverage, and in promoting ITC technology for development in many areas, some quite innovative.  The speed at which even the poorest of the least developed countries have advanced in these areas is at once staggering and impressive.

There is an elephant in the room, however, and it is called Governance.  The less developed and emerging economies are calling for an international governmental organization, under the UN umbrella, to replace the current multistakeholder format of the Internet Governance Forum.  The IGF they claim gives the large developed economies along with big business interests far too much say in Internet issues, and less developed and emerging economies too little.  Wrapped up in this debate is wariness among the Western stakeholders that an international governmental approach would stymie Internet freedoms and innovation. In addition, the smaller nations say they are being left out when it comes to technological advances, which take too long to reach their level and at too great an expense. These issues are not to be resolved in any definitive way by the CSTD, to be sure, but the meetings of the Commission provide a useful review of WSIS outcomes and serve as a forum for the airing of concerns.  And these can be and are taken up by the Multistakeholder Advisory Group (MAG) as it advises the Secretary General and host country (Azerbaijan this year) of the IGF on the programme and schedule of the Internet Governance Forum meetings.

From the CMBD News 29 May 2012

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At the plenary of the Human Rights Council meetings late last month, panelists had established that there was no need for any new human rights standards on freedom of expression; that the existing standards in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Covenant of Civil and Political Rights (Article 19) were written to anticipate “any means” of communication. The only new element of the Internet is that it is interactive in real time. Challenges are mounting, though, especially with censorship by governments, as raised by the Google executive, but also with the role of the state to protect individuals from interference of their other fundamental rights as well as protection from criminalization. Some even suggested that a new set of rules might be needed, in spite of the adequacy of the basic standards, to address such issues as the right to development and cultural diversity, or establishing a global mechanism against censorship or filtering. As for a business role, references were made to voluntary corporate standards in the Global Network Initiative, the Internet Coalition, and the Silicon Valley Standard. The Turkish delegate provided some clarity by suggesting there were two issues – first the elementary issue of access, where the Turkish government has been partnering with the private sector to place computers in every school to ensure access; and secondly, to ensure freedom of expression itself through a legal framework to tighten definitions and restrictions for exceptions. There seemed to be widespread acceptance of the Google position that intermediaries should not be liable to regulate content, and many delegates spoke about working together against censorship.

China’s delegate contributed to the debate with an intervention that was endorsed by some twenty other Council members, and that emphasized the need to balance the right to freedom of expression with other fundamental economic and social rights including specific articles of international law against the undermining of the rights of others – those that protect others from speech that is inflammatory, criminal, corrupt or disruptive of cultural values. There continued to be an ebb and flow of ideas about how to apply existing interpretations for balancing these rights with the fundamental right to freedom of expression and who should be called upon to assume greater responsibilities. Several delegates referred to an important private sector role for this, while the Google executive reiterated the importance of a common platform or code. One delegate spoke about the importance of agreeing on how NOT to control the web and the need to answer the question WHO has the right to regulate what aspects of it. Finally, the issues of how much information might be legitimately accumulated by Internet providers and how to protect copyright and trademark and related intellectual property rights were touched on but not prominently featured in the debate. But this is only the beginning of the Human Rights Council’s role in this area, and we can certainly expect further deliberations and resolutions to define an expanded role for human rights impact assessments in Internet policy debates, codes and other mechanisms, whether they are at the Council or at the Internet Governance Forum or the follow-up process to the World Summit for the Information Society or at the International Telecommunications Union or even the UN General Assembly.

The best internet policy people in the world are attracted to the Internet Governance Forum, an anuual event that is officially no more than a talk-shop but in reality is the Internet world’s equivalent of the World Economic Forum in Davos – without the hefty fees or invitation-only environment.  Anyone can go to the IGFs.  Over 2000 apparently turned out in person for the Sixth IGF in Nairobi, Kenya last year – with an additional 1000 effectively connected via remote hubs.  The WEF boasted a record 2600 registrants for its 2012 gathering, but with only 17 percent women, one might add.  While it is not clear from a superficial perusal of reports what the gender balance was at IGF6, it would appear that close to half of the participants in Nairobi were women.    We follow the IGF through its informal consultations which are regularly held in Geneva to plan these major gatherings, but all plenary sessions are available as video webcasts, and all other sessions by audio.  The IGF itself has rotated around the regions (Athens, Rio, Hyderabad, Sharm El Sheikh, Vilnius, Nairobi) and will meet this year in Baku, Azerbaijan, sometime in November.  The informal consultations were overdue this time around – they should have started last November – but there were various hiccups about the future of the IGF that delayed the launching of the preparatory phases until now. Other differences on referring to IPR versus only patents, derivatives and disclosure also remain in the latest draft. 

The Multistakeholder Advisory Group of the IGF (the MAG) has four stakeholder groupings.  Governments hold the most seats (25), but are a minority of the total, with ten representatives each for the private sector, civil society and the academic and technical community.   We are impressed with this format, since the private sector representatives are part of the process and meet together with the other groupings in a common venue.  Even at the various UN gatherings that are more open to multi-stakeholder participation, there are “major groups”, for example, in the Rio+20 Summit process – in this case nine of them including Business and Industry as one of them – they do not meet together are equal participants with governments.  Instead, they present their individual positions to the intergovernmental representatives who are the sole decision-makers.  So the IGF is different.  We are aware that some governments are proposing to replace the IGF with a more formalized intergovernmental structure, and we know that the main private sector representative to the IGF, the BASIS coalition from the International Chamber of Commerce, strongly opposes this in favor of a non-policy making, non-regulatory body like the IGF.   We are encouraged that the IGF consultations are back on track and were convened a few weeks ago here in Geneva.

We poked our head into the closing moments of the meeting of the MAG and caught the spirit of the participatory setting.  We understand that participants discussed the major theme for this year’s IGF, with some strongly favoring a human rights emphasis (reflecting both gender concerns and the impact of the Arab Spring) and others preferring a sustainable development emphasis (reflecting the Rio+20 orientation of a new concept of sustainability and its implication for the Internet).  In 2011, the Nairobi theme had been “The Internet as a catalyst for change:  access, development, freedoms and innovation”.  One can expect that the human rights and sustainable development dimensions will somehow be combined for the 2012 IGF in Baku.  The participants in the consultations also discussed the newer emerging issues of network neutrality and the mobile Internet, but also the interplay between the Internet and “conflict minerals”.   Other applications for the Internet in a “smart grid”, and in healthcare delivery were also mentioned.  These are all potential sub-themes to allow for a wide variety of participatory programmes.  Cross-border issues are certainly becoming prominent as the SOPA/PIPA controversy in the US illustrates, but this also gets into social networking, ethics, and new models of sharing content.  Although there are also the extremely techy kinds of issues like “IPv6 implementation” or “DNS security”, the emerging issues of tension between open space and intellectual property rights, between security and privacy, between access and diversity are all making this a place for business to be looking at the implications for the global economy and marketplace.  All of the meetings are fully recorded and available on the IGF website here.  The next consultations will occur in Geneva on 15 to 17 May 2012.