Internet Governance report holds no surprises
By Steven Lang
13 July 2005

Luxembourg- The Working Group on Internet Governance, (WGIG) will cease to exist when it officially launches its report to the world in Geneva on Monday. The as yet un-released report was the subject of a session at the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) conference in Luxembourg today(Wednesday).

Internet governance concerns technical as well as public policy aspects of the way the internet is managed.

After the first phase of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) failed to reach consensus on internet governance, Kofi Annan, the UN Secretary General, asked his special adviser Nitin Desai to convene WGIG to come up with a report containing specific recommendations on what should be done about internet governance. Desai explained the mandate as he understood it, "Our real job was to clear the undergrowth of confusions."

The report has now been completed and together with a number of other reports, will be one of the main topics of debate at the third WSIS preparatory committee meeting set for Geneva, in September.

Markus Kummer, the executive coordinator of WGIG, previewed the report for the ICANN delegates and it became clear that the group had failed to produce a recommendation on the stickiest outstanding issues - ''who should manage the internet?' and 'how should it be managed?'

He pointed to the successes of WGIG, saying that it had produced a report as per mandate and had successfully created a climate of trust among the members of the group. In an effort to channel possible disappointment over the absence of specific recommendations on the future of ICANN, Kummer said, "Internet governance is not just names and addresses."

He said that internet governance includes issues such as multi-lingualism, data protection and interconnection costs. This last factor is of great relevance to internet users in Africa where the exorbitantly high cost of connecting the network in one country to that of another is passed on to the end user. This is one of the reasons why internet access is more expensive in Africa than in most developed countries.

The ICANN factor
The issue at the heart of the internet governance debate is the broad international unhappiness over the fact that ICANN, a body directly answerable to the United States government, effectively manages the internet. Many governments and non-governmental organisations feel that as the internet is a global resource, it should be administered by an international body - preferably within the UN framework.

Kummer said that the WGIG report proposes four alternative models for the future mangement of the internet. The first one - dubbed status quo plus - means that the existing situation would be maintained and only modified to include evolutionary development. Whether this model accepts US government oversight was not made clear.

Details of the remaining three models were not laid out before the ICANN members, however, Kummer explained that they implied varying degrees of international (government) monitoring - ranging from very little oversight to almost complete control. He said that WGIG has produced the four alternative models and will ask the Geneva Prepcom to select which of the four models is most appropriate.

Proposals that a new internet regime could include a sliding scale of international/governmental oversight do not provide any new insight into the impasse. The reason why the internet governance issue was not resolved at the Geneva phase of WSIS in December 2003 was precisely because delegates could not reach agreement on which end of the sliding scale was most appropriate.

WGIG and its final report will have limited impact because the key player in debate, namely the US government, was not represented on the WGIG, and will therefore not feel bound by any of its outcomes. The US position was highlighted earlier this month when Washington announced that it was going back on its word to relinquish control over the thirteen root servers currently used to keep the internet going. The US government once again cited security reasons for its decision to retain control of the servers.

Building capacity
The WGIG report recognises the debate on internet governance is far from over. It says, however, that there is an urgent need for such issues to be discussed at national level. It says many countries do not have any kind of internet or ICT policies in place.

In an effort to address this need, on Tuesday, the day after the official launch of the report there will be a one day workshop in Geneva to focus on national policies related to internet governance and to highlight the importance of a coordinated approach at the national level. The report recommends that support should be given to particularly African entities that wish to promote internet usage in their respective countries.

WGIG recognised the importance of building capacity in developing nations. Karen Banks, of GreenNet, London and a WGIG member said, "It's not as if this is the first time that we're looking at this. There is an acknowledgement that this is a huge problem."

The report also proposes a permanent forum to carry the internet governance debate forward. Kummer said the forum, with a secretariat of two or three people should be multi-stakeholder body that would allow any accredited person or organisation to participate in its activities. They suggest that a total of 45 minutes per day should be allocated to 'other' participants.