Friday, January 28, 2005
Internet Governance - a virtual war in a real battle
By Steven Lang
A new, virtual battle in a real war over who should run the internethas already begun in a gathering known as the Working Group on Internet Governance or WGIG. The nondescript title belies the potential importance of its recommendations - will the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) continue to coordinate registries, or will a UN agency be given overall control ofthe internet?
WGIG is important enough to have its own dedicated web site, whereinterested parties can monitor the progress - www.wgig.org/
The working group was convened under instructions from Kofi Annan, theUN Secretary General, after heads of state gathered at last year's World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) were unable to come to any useful agreement on the concept of internet governance.
Paragraph 50 of the WSIS Declaration of Principles states:
50. International Internet governance issues should be addressed in a coordinated manner. We ask the Secretary-General of the United Nations to set up a working group on Internet governance, in an open and inclusive process that ensures a mechanism for the full and active participation of governments, the private sector and civil society from both developing and developed countries, involving relevant inter-governmental and international organisations and forums, to investigate and make proposals for action, as appropriate, on the governance of Internet by 2005.
The group was instructed to develop a working definition of internetgovernance; to identify relevant public policy issues and to makerecommendations on the respective roles and responsibilities ofgovernments and international organisations. As an afterthought, anadditonal requirement of promoting multi-lingualism on the internethas appeared on the WGIG mandate.
At the first meeting of WGIG, the forty members representing governments and civil society, agreed that it would be very difficult to come up with a definition on of 'internet governance', so they put that task on to the back burner.
Nitin Desai, chairman of WGIG, made a point of saying that in spite of the tremendous diversity of interests represented in the working group, "There was no atmosphere of confrontation." He described the meeting as very scuccessful "in that a certain chemistry was achieved".
Broadly speaking, internet governance has two main tracks - the first is purely technical and therefore less controversial, while the second track concerns public policy and is naturally more contentious.
The technical element of internet governance means maintaining registries of internet numbers so that millions of computers around the world can communicate with each other. Public policy concerns freedom of expression, spam, child pornography and other 'cybercrimes'.
In an apparent effort to steer clear of controversy, ICANN routinely defines itself as a technical organisation with no public policy mandate. It has guardedly offered its support to WGIG, while two ICANN insiders are members of the working group. It appears that ICANN would be comfortable if a UN body were entrusted with internet public policy provided that it could continue with its existing administrative role.
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A new, virtual battle in a real war over who should run the internethas already begun in a gathering known as the Working Group on Internet Governance or WGIG. The nondescript title belies the potential importance of its recommendations - will the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) continue to coordinate registries, or will a UN agency be given overall control ofthe internet?
WGIG is important enough to have its own dedicated web site, whereinterested parties can monitor the progress - www.wgig.org/
The working group was convened under instructions from Kofi Annan, theUN Secretary General, after heads of state gathered at last year's World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) were unable to come to any useful agreement on the concept of internet governance.
Paragraph 50 of the WSIS Declaration of Principles states:
50. International Internet governance issues should be addressed in a coordinated manner. We ask the Secretary-General of the United Nations to set up a working group on Internet governance, in an open and inclusive process that ensures a mechanism for the full and active participation of governments, the private sector and civil society from both developing and developed countries, involving relevant inter-governmental and international organisations and forums, to investigate and make proposals for action, as appropriate, on the governance of Internet by 2005.
The group was instructed to develop a working definition of internetgovernance; to identify relevant public policy issues and to makerecommendations on the respective roles and responsibilities ofgovernments and international organisations. As an afterthought, anadditonal requirement of promoting multi-lingualism on the internethas appeared on the WGIG mandate.
At the first meeting of WGIG, the forty members representing governments and civil society, agreed that it would be very difficult to come up with a definition on of 'internet governance', so they put that task on to the back burner.
Nitin Desai, chairman of WGIG, made a point of saying that in spite of the tremendous diversity of interests represented in the working group, "There was no atmosphere of confrontation." He described the meeting as very scuccessful "in that a certain chemistry was achieved".
Broadly speaking, internet governance has two main tracks - the first is purely technical and therefore less controversial, while the second track concerns public policy and is naturally more contentious.
The technical element of internet governance means maintaining registries of internet numbers so that millions of computers around the world can communicate with each other. Public policy concerns freedom of expression, spam, child pornography and other 'cybercrimes'.
In an apparent effort to steer clear of controversy, ICANN routinely defines itself as a technical organisation with no public policy mandate. It has guardedly offered its support to WGIG, while two ICANN insiders are members of the working group. It appears that ICANN would be comfortable if a UN body were entrusted with internet public policy provided that it could continue with its existing administrative role.
