Consultations on the convening of the IGF

17 February 2006

Selected EXCERPTS

F.Muguet V0.1 13 March 2007

Corrected for typos and minor errors.

Important statements in bold.

Explanatory notes in italic.

Most upper case letters are removed.

Note: The following is the output of the real-time captioning taken during the Consultations on the Convening of the Internet Governance Forum, in Geneva on 16-17 February in Geneva, Switzerland. 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.

>>KOREA: ../.. With respect to the structure of Internet Governance Forum, we believe that it is necessary to have multistakeholder steering committee to prepare the Internet Governance Forum and facilitate the decision-making process. And they must be lightweight and cost-effective. ../..

>>AMB. MASOOD KHAN: ../.. As mentioned in the statement made on behalf of the group yesterday, WSIS belongs to the series of U.N. summits that focused on economic and social development issues. The primary objective of the summit in all its aspects, including Internet governance, was to create, and I quote, a people-centered, inclusive, and development-oriented information society. The group would like to reiterate that the Internet Governance Forum we intend to create must help realize this vision of a development-oriented information society. The mandate, work, agenda, structure, composition, frequency, and venues of meetings of the IGF must be geared towards achieving this shared objective in the post-Tunis phase. . ../..

I would like to refer once more to paragraph 65 of the Tunis Agenda, which clearly underlines the need to maximize the participation of developing countries in decision regarding Internet governance in a manner that should reflect their interests. This paragraph needs to be operationalized through the IGF. It must also be noted that this paragraph is not limited to capacity-building issues. It casts the net wider, to highlight the systemic perspective of development-oriented Internet governance. The Group of 77 and China would like to mention this, because we noticed that many interventions yesterday adopted a reductionist approach to the development aspects of Internet governance, limiting it to capacity-building. The issue is more complex and has been addressed in a number of paragraphs in the Tunis Agenda, including paragraph 49, which affirms commitment on the part of the international community to turning the digital divide into digital opportunity by ensuring harmonious and equitable development for all and addressing issues like international interconnectivity costs, technology know-how, transfer, multilingualism, and providing the users with choice of different software models, including open source, free, and proprietary software.

>>SENEGAL: ../..How many official African delegations do we have here out of the 51 which should be here? How many associations and NGOs from African civil society are present in this room? Maybe four or five. And, finally, how can you imagine initiating inclusive practices for the developing countries if they are left on the touch line from the very outset ? ../..This means that the forum needs an operational Secretariat, as we've already had in the Working Group on Internet Governance. It doesn't need a cumbersome, inefficient administration. The bureau of the forum should be the same sort of thing, lightweight and operational. ../.. I think it would be useful to reproduce models which have shown that they can do. We could refer to the implementation of the bureau and that sort of thing. Although they have been criticized, these structures have produced appreciable results for the mandate of the forum. As long as the causes why the forum was created are still with us, it seems to me that we need to keep in place and improve, if possible, and necessary, the agenda must factor in problems related to developing country participation.

>>BERTRAND DE LA CHAPELLE: ../.. the IGF should be established in the most pragmatic and self-organizing manner possible../..

>>RAUL ECHEBERRIA: thank you, Mr. Chairman. My name is Raul Echeberria, as you said, and I am the executive director of LACNIC, the registrar of addresses for Latin America and the Caribbean, and I am the chair of the NRO, the number resources organization. ../..I agree with those who have taken the floor to say that the forum should not have a bureau but, rather, it should be headed by a program committee. We support that approach. Of course, it being understood that this committee, program committee, must be multistakeholder and the conditions for participation for this committee must be the same conditions for all the stakeholders. In this respect I would like to repeat something that has already been said in this room; namely, the importance for the technical community to be involved, which was recognized in paragraph 36 of the Tunis Agenda. So the technical community is a valuable stakeholder, and they have made extremely valuable contributions to the current situation of the Internet.../..

>>BRAZIL: ../..I told you yesterday, Mr. Chairman, that Brazil favors at least five days. And I think it's a reasonable thing, if we can think together with our Greek colleagues. For them there will be not much trouble because the amount of resources they are going to put in place if we stay there one or two days more for them, there will be no difficulty. ../.. I think we could profit from our experience in the WSIS. We used to have -- used to have three bureaus. We used to have the government bureau, private sector bureau, and the civil society bureau. We could have something similar there. Now, three bureaus, 15 representatives in each bureau, which makes a total number of 45. In the governmental bureau, that I understand a little bit more than the other ones, we could have -- we have five regions, we could have three representatives per region making 15 representatives. It's reasonable. It worked in the first phase. In the second phase I think we increased the number of representatives from the regions. But it's manageable. Then the Brazilian proposal to the format of the bureau, which is different from the Secretariat, as I told you, I would like to see you there along with Mr. Markus Kummer heading the Secretariat, we could have the three bureaus, and manage to have a way to exchange information among the three bureaus and take decisions on how to do, how to proceed, which topics to select and things like that.

>>E.U.: ../..In this context, we support the idea of a slim workable and representative program committee working in an open and transparent manner../..

>>MOROCCO: ../.. It would be desirable for the number of participants in the bureau to be sufficiently large to allow developing countries to be represented and also allow all stakeholders to take an active part in the forum meetings. And, thus, if we are talking about regionalized organizations, we ought to maybe descend, then, to the subregional level, which would allow regions to express their development needs in terms of ICT, needs which could then be consolidated and classified on the basis of an approach yet to be defined.

>>CUBA: ../..The forum is a product of the summit. I would like to underscore that. And this is the process of follow-up for this meeting, especially with regard to Internet governance. So we're not starting from scratch. We have enough material to continue our work on this topic. For example, there is the report of the Working Group on Internet Governance, in which there are specific issues that could be dealt with by the forum. Furthermore, we must not lose sight of the fact that the forum is an outcome of the inconclusive discussions we had in the summit on Internet governance. So some questions are still pending an outcome. We are waiting for answers. And we hope that the forum will enable us to think more deeply on these issues. And we hope that the forum will provide recommendations. In other words, we see the forum as an extension of the Working Group on Internet Governance, but with a broader format and more extensive participation. ../.. Therefore, in relation specifically to the structure and the format of the forum, we believe that we can continue -- we can follow the model of the summit. With regard to the bureau, we also believe that we should follow the successful model of the summit, and that the respect we found very interesting what was said by the delegate from Brazil. With regards to the -- how long the meeting should last, the forum, we would say four to five days.

>>ABDULLTEEF AL-ABDULRAZZAQ: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, this is Abdullteef Al-Abdulrazzaq, chairman of Kuwait information technology society,../.. The U.N. rules and procedures have so far contributed to the success of the WSIS, and seeing it implemented once again in terms of the participation mechanism of the IGF will definitely reflect positively on its activities. Furthermore, a combination of thematic regional conferences and open consultation meetings that would lead to an annual meeting of the IGF will enhance its process. Establishing national IGFs or local community IGF with open participation for all stakeholders will help the IGF process to be more focused. ../..

>>NORBERT BOLLOW (the Foundation for Free Information Infrastructure ) : Thank you. I would like to react to the statement of Brazil that the Internet Governance Forum could take many days so that we can wait -- so that we can afford to waste an entire day. I would like to emphasize that technical experts don't think that way. If a lot of patience for political speeches is required, they will simply not come. So the position of FFII is that the IGF should be at most two days, although I suppose we could live with three. There is,of course, the concern that it may not make sense to travel a long way just for two days. And for this reason, I would suggest to schedule the Internet Governance Forum back to back with a technical conference which is of interest to the leading thinkers that everybody has been emphasizing should be attracted to the Internet Governance Forum. And such technical conference would also give diplomats and everyone else here the opportunity to set your feet into the world of how technical experts think and interact with each other. Thank you.

>> Francis Urbany: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My name is Francis Urbany with BellSouth corporation in the United States. ../.. The earlier discussions were held under the procedural rules of the United Nations and intergovernmental organization. Those rules, Mr. Chairman, in my opinion, are not suitable for the ~~intergovernmental~~ Internet Governance Forum, which is of entirely different nature. It is not an intergovernmental meeting. It's a meeting of all participants. Therefore, the rules of participation to allow people like myself and others here to speak freely and present views is really what is needed. In other words, the traditional rules of intergovernmental organizations are really not applicable to the Internet Governance Forum.

>>ISOC: ../.. the IGF should be a neutral, nonduplicative and nonbinding process, and therefore should merely present findings for consideration by interested parties. With regard to the multistakeholder bureau, ISOC believes the bureau should be renamed into a program committee as many here have said, that the term bureau has specific connotations in the U.N. System. ../.. The Internet society and other organizations, as you have heard, believe that the Internet community should be recognized as a distinct principal stakeholder in the Internet Governance Forum for a number of reasons, not least of is which was the technical and academic communities recognition in theTunis Agenda in paragraph 36. This request for recognition as a distinct principal stakeholder is, we believe, more than warned given that the Internet community, including many tens of thousands of individuals and thousands of organizations, comprises inter alia organizations responsible for operating and managing the Internet. Standards setting organizations, international, regional, national, and local organizations responsible for the management and physical distribution of global resources. Organizations responsible for the long-term development of the Internet, and organizations such as the Internet society with 20,000 members and more than 80 chapters around the world, not forgetting the thousand of Internet user groups across the globe. With regard to the program committee, we see it having an important role in reaching out and encouraging the participation of experts. In addition, we see the program committee as having an important role in encouraging the fullest participation across regions and stakeholders, with a particular emphasis on the developing world. ../.. We'd also like to just briefly comment on the question of the online virtual community that was raised yesterday also. ISOC believes that the forum's success will depend very much on the mechanisms for contributing to the discussion, and one of the best means of doing so would be through a Web-based work and communications space. Such a Web-based mechanism will encourage participation from across stakeholders. But it will be important that this collaborative workspace be appropriately hosted, given the need for consistency and stability. However, we would pose a caution. We should all be cognizant of the related time and resource issues. It is unrealistic to expect all stakeholders to be able to participate in multiple-layered list-based exchanges on a realtime basis.../..

>>VITTORIO BERTOLA: ../.. The purpose of the campaign is to ask the United Nations to lead an open, inclusive, collaborative process involving all stakeholders, both online and offline, to draft and adopt a Bill of Rights of the Internet, stating rights and duties of the users of the net. So to set a common founding basis at the level of principle necessary to address the numerous methods related to Internet governance that have been raised during the WSIS and WGIG processes. We think that the new Internet Governance Forum is the natural place to host this discussion, ../..

>>CHAIRMAN DESAI: ../.. I also am impressed by the fact that there's general agreement on the need for a relatively organized multistakeholder management process for this, and for -- to avoid confusion, I'm proposing to just refer to it as the program committee. Because I think to use concepts from intergovernmental negotiations, words like "bureau" and so on, adds to confusion. Whereas I think "program committee" makes it very clear, its job is to manage the program. And so there are -- I think there is a general agreement on the need for a multistakeholder process for this program management. And I will call this process the program committee. I would like to say that there is agreement on how this will be constituted, but, frankly, there have been many -- people have not given a very precise idea on what they would see this committee as. One notion has been a committee with balanced representation from all of the stakeholders, governments, civil society, private sector, Internet community, also ensuring geographical balance across all of these sectors. Another concept which has been put forward is the notion of three bureaus, à la WSIS, but presumably the three bureaus would have to work together if it is a multistakeholder process to arrive at a decision. But by implication of that three bureaus, it would mean that any one stakeholder group, so to speak, would -- that all stakeholder groups must decide that this is worth doing. That's, I think, the implication as I read it of the three bureau concept which has been put forward. But nevertheless, there are differences in terms of how this Program Committee should be put together or constituted. And also, people are not entirely -- have not been entirely explicit about how they see it being constituted. I would look forward to seeing any further comments that you have on this, because I think it is valuable to constitute this Program Committee -- agree -- that I would like to be able to say that there is general agreement. ../..

We have to be creative in this process. The reason I'm stressing that we discuss a little, the whole question of the Program Committee in the afternoon and see whether we can get to some -- whether there is some further ideas which I could convey to the secretary-general, is because it's possible that the next round of further consultations would really be done by the Program Committee, who would then -- who would have the responsibility for managing the forum itself. There have been many references to how close or how far it should be from the U.N. I think in certain respects, we have to recognize that this is a forum which is born out of a U.N.-based process; that it is the U.N. later which will be looking into its functioning as well as the various decisions, as we were reminded yesterday. But nevertheless, it's not a U.N. intergovernmental forum. The language is very clear. It is an Internet Governance Forum. It is not a classical U.N. subsidiary body of any sort. That is -- and this is certainly the legal opinion as far as I look. The point, however, is we have to see what aspects of the connection with the U.N. would be of use and value in this whole process. For instance, if we are to have host countries for this, as we have now, and this is probably almost unavoidable, because since nobody has a budget for this forum, it is going to depend very much on host countries and on voluntary funding. It would seem to me that it's useful to use some of the practices of the U.N. when it comes to the -- that aspect. I think as far as other aspects are concerned, it could be done, as things evolve. There are some other aspects of U.N. work like the working in six languages which perhaps is something which also may be desirable for the forum to continue with, because it is meant to be a global forum, and if you start getting involved in the discussions in the forum on how many languages we should have, it will become too difficult. Whereas here you have a standard, the six languages of the U.N. You work with that. And let's live with that practical approach. So there are aspects where I believe the forum could gain. But are there other? Can people be a little more explicit and elaborate what other aspects of U.N. practice which they think would be of value, which other aspects are not of value? Because it's worth keeping in mind. I don't think this needs to be decided now, but it is something as a small matter which we wish to look at. I think the funding issue is important. As I said, none of us have a budget for this in the U.N. At the moment, a small Secretariat -- and let me be clear, the Program Committee is the management committee, like the political management committee for the forum, the Secretariat is just right now three of us, and I'm very part time. I work roughly 20 days a year for the Secretariat, whereas Markus and his assistant are there all the time, so it is pretty lightweight. If it is any lighter than that it will disappear [ Laughter ]../..