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Forwarded message from Bruno OUDET -----

Date: Wed, 22 Sep 2004 09:50:37 +0200

To: [email protected]

From: Bruno OUDET

Subject: [info-smsi] premier compte rendu en anglais sur la reunion du groupe gouvernance

Il a été rédigé par Vittorio Bertola et publié sur la liste de la plénière de la société civile.

BO

I’m sending a quick report with my take on the two days of meetings in Geneva about the establishment of the WGIG. Please pardon the form, I’ve just got home now and I am definitely tired. Possibly others will correct/complete my notes.

First day, focused on "what is Internet Governance?". Everyone takes place in the big UN room, panelists at the centre, governments in the first rows, everyone else behind. You can recognize non-governmental people because they’re the only ones with laptops - unfortunately the wireless LAN does not work and there are just three power outlets in a 300-people room. Make note: let’s send a message to Kummer and stress that we need Internet-age instruments to work. I’d have liked to be online on an IRC channel to chat with whoever wanted to follow remotely.

Morning session starts one hour late, due to the quite inefficient UN accreditation system which kept most participants out in queue for one hour or so. First introductions, then Tunisia (ccTLD rep) and China (government). Then presentations - first focused on mapping issues and principles (Drake, Kurbalija, Mueller), then giving stakeholder perspectives (including Karen Banks from APC and Olivier Nana Nzepa with an African perspective, both much appreciated). Bill’s "soft power" concept (you shouldn’t rule the Internet by force, but by consensus and moral suasion) will be often quoted in many interventions.

Lunch break, then general discussion. First two hours almost completely occupied by country statements, then floor is also given to private sector and civil society. Most governments discuss whether the definition to be used is the narrow one (ie almost just ICANN) or the broad one (ie all the rest, including IPR, privacy, spam etc etc). Most speakers seem in favour of the broad one - surprisingly, even ISOC agrees. Many governments, UN agencies etc. exploit the opportunity to tell the world how well they are doing in ICT. Many governments already hint at the composition, and while no one seems to doubt that the group has to be multi-stakeholder, almost all governments push for governments to have at least half of the group. (More on this below) I speak towards the end of the afternoon, and try to shake the audience up a little by waving high my Creative Zen and a copy-protected audio CD and complaining that real IG issues are the ones about which real people care - such as buying stuff that doesn’t work due to anticopy protections. Oh well, the audience seemed to like my little show - at least I countered the WIPO intervention, that said that there are plenty of NGOs participating there, so everything is ok with IPR. Other good CS speeches by Izumi Aizu, Alex Pisanty, Wolfgang Kleinwaechter (about a distributed hierarchical network of institutions, I liked the concept) and certainly others I’m forgetting (pardon me, it’s midnight now here). Nice final intervention by the Youth Caucus rep, who introduces their contribution. Other people and entities who signed up to speak, including Bertrand de la Chapelle and Joseph Sarr (and ICANN...), are deferred to the following day.

At the end I chat a bit with a former Ambassador from Jamaica, he’s a little disappointed because no one mentioned Internet connection charges, which are a huge cost for developing countries - he’s right, we have to push this issue as well. Some governmental people complain that too few governments were on the panels :/ I also grab Mr. Kurbalija and tell him he should not use the term "hacking" to mean "cybercrime", he promises to update his presentation.

Second day, focused on composition and working methods of WGIG. A couple of governments present their positions, then Lynn St. Amour for ISOC (she explains the IETF and the other I* entities), then Jeanette (Hofmann) with a great presentation about the IG caucus statements. Many governments expressed appreciation for what she said, and I think we’re establishing ourselves as smart people.

Nonetheless, in the following discussion, most governments seem to agree that WG should have 40 members (other say 20 or 30), of which at least half should be governments (some, such as the EU, even say that UN agencies such as ITU etc do not count as governments, but should be counted in the other half). Many of us try to lobby their own governmental delegations to push for the "one third, one third, one third" subdivision we have been proposing in our statement. Informal feedback is: no way, but you’re likely to get one fourth, possibly 6-10 people depending on the final size of the group.

Anyway, even if in substance differences between countries are not huge, there are significant differences in wordings and attitudes. I take the floor again to make the case for the equal subdivision of the WGIG among stakeholders, mentioning DVD and Jon Johansen as an example of what happens if you make policies without involving users and taking into account what they need; also stress the importance of including Internet users and young people in the group. Unfortunately China takes the floor soon after me and stresses that equal number of members is absolutely unacceptable (but, as I said, in fact also the EU and other countries seem to agree on that). Other CS speakers include Izumi again about open meetings and multilingualism, and Veni Markovski stressing the need for money. Oh, and some governments’ only core message was "we want to be represented in the group".

There also seems to be more or less agreement on the usefulness of a separate "advisory group" (or "second tier") with experts on the specific issues.

Session ends at 5:40pm, let’s shake hands and thank Kummer for the fact that we actually had good opportunities to take the floor (much more than, say, in the NY meeting in March).

What next? Kummer presented a tentative timeframe, which is: by October, group is composed (which means that CS should submit its suggested names in the next ten days at latest); preliminary report to be released for PrepCom-2, possibly with a two days open consultation in Geneva just before PrepCom-2 starts; final report out in June, so to be considered for PrepCom-3. WGIG should possibly meet four times (late Nov, Feb before PC2, April and June), with regional/online consultations in the middle. Egypt already is planning one of them. Also saw announcements of a Public Voice meeting in Cape Town just after the ICANN meeting.

I surely forgot people, things, plenty of other stuff. Excuse me about that.
— ----- End of forwarded message from Bruno OUDET -----