Sixth Unoffical personal report of ad-hoc working group of Internet Governance, PrepCom III, WSIS (fwd)

[Chun Eung Hwi]

Date: Sat, 20 Sep 2003 00:15:34 +0900 (KST)
From: Chun Eung Hwi <chun at peacenet.or.kr>
To: plenary at wsis-cs.org, ct at wsis-cs.org
Subject: Sixth Unoffical personal report of ad-hoc working group of
    Internet Governance, PrepCom III, WSIS

Five minutes is not enough for arguing something, but it is very possible 
time for effective communication rather than biting so much time for 
duplication and repetition of the same words in the name of country 
delegation. And now we are talking about global information and 
communication society meaning more feasible, more desirable, more 
efficient, more valuable communication rather than the discommunication 
arising from cliche. Will government delegates know this?

Even today, Bertrand Chapelle demonstrated this effective case of 
communication for making better world. Only for five minutes allowed for 
civil society group, he commented once again on key points of the issue. 
Maybe, those who read my fifth unofficial report may have the compromise 
text as one outcome of ad-hoc working group of Internet Governance. He 
made three comments on that text.

The first one was to point out the word - "multilateral" still surviving 
even after his repeated comments should be replaced with multi 
stakeholder, and the participation of all stakeholders in the 
international management of Internet should be kept at the first bullet 
sentence. 

Regarding the 3rd bullet sentence, he expressed one surprise that the 
prior "ccTLD" (country code top level domain name) related phrase had 
completely disappered and the present text is saying more broader and 
expanded scope of "Internet-related public policy issues" language 
replaced it. Anyhow, he reiterated the importance of the decision or 
participation of local internet community (LIC), (but not simply by 
governments)

Again, today, he pointed out bullet sentence 1 and bullet sentence 4 are 
intercontradictory because bullet sentence 1 is saying the all 
stakeholders' participation, but bullet sentence 3 and some phrases of 4 
is saying only governments. 

By leaving out of the meeting place, Bertrand requested to be called on 
when ten minutes briefing is to be held before the closing time. And he 
put down his mobile phone number to the secretariat. I asked the 
secretariat person when the predefined closing time is. Then, his answer 
was that it is open-ending meeting, so we cannot guess it, but it might be 
around five o'clock. (The beginning time of this session was two o'clock. 

Today, even though Friday, in the morning all comments on draft Action 
Plan document has finished. So, there is no afternoon session. And 
tomorrow and Sunday, we don't have any session. So, many frinds of mine 
have already left for looking around the city. But unfortunately, due to 
my small self-decision for recording what is happening in Internet 
Governance working group of PrepCom III, WSIS - seemingly very foolish 
decision, now I am keeping the gate of the meeting room. Bertrand left 
because he had two more promised meeting. He was not sure whether he could 
come back or not. I could be only one watchdog here. At the front of my 
desk, one African guy is sleeping in his seat. Is WSIS a torture to him? 
In the midst of his sleeping, he might communicate with their family 
members free from this torturing world. 

After looking around the gate a couple of minutes, I decided to enter into 
the meeting place. If I would not intervene with the meeting, I would not 
be recognized. As I entered into the meeting place, the most heating 
debate has already gone away. With regard to hot debate point, I could 
hear only one speech of Brazil delegate. He said that together with all 
other countries like Egypt, Iran, Bangladesh, China …, we respect the 
private sector. Private sector has their own affairs. They can do that by 
self-regulation. On the other hand, each government have their own public 
policies, and for the coordination with other governments, governments 
should do their own affairs. We have no intention to disturb private 
sector's affairs. We, as governments, want to do our own affairs. This is 
very legitimate

And the other discussion was concerned with multilingual domain name. 
Indian delegate proposed the specific language of "internationalized 
domain name" rather than "multilingual domain name registration" for the 
bullet sentence 5. And for the time being, there was some confusing talks 
on this - somebody wanted to use the term of "regionalism" and some 
confusion of RIR (regional internet registry) and domain name, confusion 
of language and technical code scheme. Sharil (Chair of GAC/ICANN)'s 
clarification … Diop's technical explanation (Diop was the national 
delegate of Senegal, but he was financially supported by ICANN for this 
participation, he is now one of board members of ICANN. I have already 
described him in my 3rd Unofficial personal report. After very confusing 
long discussion, all participants agreed to the addition proposal of 
"taking into account multilingualism" at the end of the first bullet 
sentence. For the time being, there was chaos talks on multilingualism and 
internationalized domain name. 

After the closing of the meeting, Bertrand came back and asked some 
questions to the Chair. He raised up the severe danger of the bullet 
sentence 3 - because it could be abused as contents regulation by state. 
He also requested the change of situation of observers' attendance at 
least next week. Chair promised to try to do so, but still the answer was 
very unclear.

I don't know what happens in the discussion among governmental
delegations. Fortunately, one lady is present in the meeting as a member
of national delegate. She disclosed what is happening in the other mailing
list for Internet Governance. It shows up one severe schism - one bloc of
U.S. EU, Japan, Norway, Canada, Malaysia, Senegal, (prefer
multistakeholder and "international") and the other bloc of Mali,
Mauritious, China, Uganda, Brazil, Saudi Arabia (prefer
"intergovernmental") In closing remark, Chair reminded the spirit of WSIS,
bridging the gap of digital divide and appealing the narrowing down the
gap between extremes, and to seek compromise. And Closed. Bye bye up to
next week Monday.!!!!!

------------------------------------------------------------
Chun Eung Hwi
General Secretary, PeaceNet | phone:     (+82)  2-2166-2205
Seoul Yangchun P.O.Box 81   |   pcs:     (+82) 019-259-2667
Seoul, 158-600, Korea  	    | eMail:   chun at peacenet.or.kr
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From: "jeanette hofmann" <jeanette at wz-berlin.de>To: 
governance at lists.cpsr.orgReply-to: jeanette at wz-berlin.deCc: 
wsis at ilpostino.jpberlin.deSubject: [Governance] report of governance 
working groupDate: Fri, 19 Sep 2003 16:00:41 +0200
Hi, everyone,
 
The crucial bone of contention of today was 
item/bullet point 4, which was already very 
controversial yesterday. Below you find the 
different versions discussed yesterday:
 
 
4.Internet issues of an international nature 
related to public policies should be coordinated 
    a)[between governments and other 
    interested parties.] 
b)  [through/by appropriate 
    intergovernmental organizations under 
    the UN framework.]
    c)[as appropriate on an intergovernmental 
    basis.]
    d)[through/by appropriate international 
    organizations.]
    e)[through appropriate and mutually agreed 
    international organizations.]
 
 
  List of countries that spoke up on this issue today: 
 
EU: a or d
Japan: d
Canada: d
Norway: a or d,
Mali: b
Mauricius: b
China: b
Uganda: b
Brazil: b
Australia: a
Saudi Arabia: b
US: a (only)
Mexico: a
Zimbabwe: b
Senegal: a or d
 
As you can see, no consensus was possible. As a result, item 4 is 
put into additional square brackets. All in all, there are now 2 levels 
of square brackets. One applies to the whole paragraph 44, the 
other to item 4. For option c and e, a third level of brackets was 
discussed but finally dismissed. Now, the whole para will go back 
to plenary next week. I don't see that another plenary discussion 
will be of any help. 
 
I am most likely not allowed to post this information, please keep it 
confidential and by no means forward it with my name or email 
address attached. Also, no guarantee that I got all the votes right, 
we have a language problem here and just Richard Hill (surprise, 
surprise, as an interpreter.
 
Best, je