[WSIS CS-Plenary] [IGP Announce] IGP News

[Internet Governance Project]

September 19, 2008

Internet Governance Consultations in Geneva

In Geneva: The Debate About "Debate"

No Free Lunch: Fast-track ccTLDs require contracts

New Book: "Internet Governance: The New Frontier of Global Institutions"

Search "IGP" via Brenden in Google Reader

 
________________________________________________________

 

* Internet Governance Consultations in Geneva - http://feedblitz.com/r.asp?l=36672019&f=175425&u=11399690
 
 

We are in Geneva for a flurry of Internet governance related meetings. Monday morning ICANN held one of its consultation sessions on “Improving Institutional confidence.” The topic of discussion there was “completing the transition,” which is about whether people think ICANN is accountable enough to be released from U.S. supervision. ICANN is holding half a dozen of these sessions around the world. In the original documents and negotiations creating ICANN the concept of a “transition” meant completing the privatization of DNS governance by ending the US Government oversight role. However, the US pulled back from that in 2000 and has since insisted on its intention to keep its hand on the root zone and the IANA contract indefinitely. At the consultation I asked whether the “transition” meant nothing more than an end to the Joint Project Agreement, or something more. Both of the Presidential Strategy Committee members were unable to answer that question.

• Email to a friend • Article Search - http://www.feedblitz.com/f/f.fbz?Search=175425;12422;Main Page;Internet Governance Consultations in Geneva;415713 • •

 
 
 

* In Geneva: The Debate About "Debate" - http://feedblitz.com/r.asp?l=36687101&f=175425&u=11399690
 
 

Tuesday the Internet Governance Forum held its consultations about the 3rd Forum at Hyderabad, India. I am sorry to report that there are still intense pressures to sanitize the IGF program and to prevent the Forum from grappling with the real global governance problems. In what was clearly an orchestrated move, key people from multinational business groups, the Internet Society and a few Anglo-American governments tried to change a plan to organize plenary sessions around policy debates. These groups insist on viewing debate of controversial Internet policy topics, and systematic consideration of specific policy proposals, as a threat that needs to be contained rather than an opportunity to make their own case. You can see the full transcripts here. 

It is well-recognized that the main sessions of the Forum are a failure. The reason is that the programming for these sessions has been totally neutralized by the politics of the IGF’s Multistakeholder Advisory Group (MAG). The MAG is dominated by status quo oriented representatives of the Internet Society, who are keen to prevent these sessions from becoming anything like a policy-shaping institution. Although governments are more numerous on the MAG, they are also more passive, less well-informed, and perhaps losing interest in the Forum. (Indeed, one new MAG member, YJ Park, commented on the absence of governments from MAG discussions and session programming at the consultation.) And so the Forum annually wastes its most precious opportunity: it brings 1,500 – 2,000 of the world’s most important and well-informed Internet governance experts and advocates into a single room and then subjects them to generic, TV-talk-show discussions that lead nowhere.

• Email to a friend • Article Search - http://www.feedblitz.com/f/f.fbz?Search=175425;12422;Main Page;In Geneva: The Debate About "Debate";415713 • •

 
 
 

* No Free Lunch: Fast-track ccTLDs require contracts - http://feedblitz.com/r.asp?l=36593719&f=175425&u=11399690
 
 

After three weeks (and a little good-natured prodding) our letter expressing concern about the conditions under which nation-states will be given top–level domains in multilingual scripts under the proposed “fast-track” received this three-line response from ICANN CEO Paul Twomey: “Thank you for your thoughts concerning the deployment of IDNs. ICANN is still working through the process of deployment of IDN TLDs and you will have the opportunity to review the implementation program when it is public.”

Thanks, Paul. Perhaps he was in a hurry and didn’t choose his words carefully, but it’s hard not to notice what the response does not say. It does not say, “you will have an opportunity to comment upon and request changes in the implementation program when it is made public.” Nor did it say “I understand and sympathize with your concerns.” 

We fully expect to review any plan – and also to comment upon it, critique it and mobilize opposition if appropriate. There are major issues at stake here. The most important issue, one on which all the others rest, is whether governments will be given these new domains carte blanche, with no contractual obligations. We think any recipient of a new TLD must be required to sign a contract with ICANN.

• Email to a friend • Article Search - http://www.feedblitz.com/f/f.fbz?Search=175425;12422;Main Page;No Free Lunch: Fast-track ccTLDs require contracts;415713 • •

 
 
 

* New Book: "Internet Governance: The New Frontier of Global Institutions" - http://feedblitz.com/r.asp?l=36592334&f=175425&u=11399690
 
 

Routledge Press recently published "Internet Governance: The New Frontier of Global Institutions" by IGP's John Mathiason. Released in the UK on July 30, it will be available in the United States soon. The expansion of the Internet has been called the most revolutionary development in the history of human communications. It is ubiquitous and is changing politics, economics and social relations. Its borderless nature affects the roles of individuals, the magic of the marketplace and the problems of government regulation. As its development has increased apace, contradictions have arisen between existing regulatory regimes, private interests, government concerns, international norms and national interests. Unlike most areas where there are global institutions, and the role of governments is predominant, the Internet is a field where the private sector and civil society each have a role as important – or sometimes more important – than governments. 

Based on international regime theory, Mathiason's book analyses how the multi-stakeholder institutions have grown along with the Internet itself. Starting with an examination of how communications were regulated under the Westphalian system, John Mathiason shows how governance of the Internet started as a technical issue but became increasingly political as the management of critical resources began to conflict with other international regimes. The book covers international aspects of Internet governance from the beginning of the Internet through the second Internet Governance Forum in Rio.

• Email to a friend • Article Search - http://www.feedblitz.com/f/f.fbz?Search=175425;12422;Main Page;New Book: "Internet Governance: The New Frontier of Global Institutions";415713 • •

 
 

 

 
 
 
 
 
 
________________________________________________________
Unsubscribe from all current and future newsletters powered by FeedBlitz - http://www.feedblitz.com/f/f.fbz?EmailRemove=_MTEzOTk2OTB8fHBsZW5hcnlAd3Npcy1jcy5vcmd8NDE1NzEz_
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mailman-new.greennet.org.uk/pipermail/plenary/attachments/20080919/b3e7ea50/attachment-0001.htm