[Random-bits] HuffPo: The UN launches the Internet Governance Forum, in Athens

[James Love]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/james-love/the-un-launches-the- 
inter_b_33498.html

November 7, 2006 The Huffington Post
James Love 	

The UN launches the Internet Governance Forum, in Athens

Last in Athens, the UN hosted it's first "Internet Governance Forum,"  
or IGF for short. It is a model for global governance. It is also a  
work in process.

The differences between the IGF and previous UN bodies are  
significant and several. I will focus on the few that seem most  
important.

The IGF is formally a "multi-stakeholder" body. That means the actors  
include not only government officials, but also businesses, NGOs of  
various types, academics, journalists and individuals. This appears  
to be pretty fundamental to the way the IGF operates, including equal  
participation and access to panels, workshops and social events.

Formally, the IGF was organized under the UN by Kofi Annan. The small  
Geneva based secretariat is run by Markus Kummer, a career diplomat  
from Switzerland. There is also a "multi-stakeholder" advisory board,  
which serves one year terms, now headed by Nitin Desai, an Indian  
national who is the United Nations Secretary-General's Special  
Adviser for Internet Governance. So far the rules for the IGF are  
very minimalist.

In a typical UN body, much of the focus on the events are to shape  
high-level declarations, statements, resolutions and other decisions,  
that are approved either by consensus or through more formal voting.  
People coming to Athens were surprised or in some cases disappointed  
to see very little emphasis on this type of activity, at least in  
this first meeting. Instead, the IGF has created a space for  
governments, interest groups and individuals to work together in much  
more bottom-up and unsupervised way.

The primary opportunity for norm setting at the IGF appeared to be  
through the formation of something called "dynamic coalitions" -- a  
term that was unfamiliar to everyone I talked to. Apparently IGF  
deliberately avoided the term "working groups," because that would  
imply that the groups were speaking for the entire IGF. These dynamic  
coalitions, on the other hand, do not claim to represent the views of  
everyone - only their own membership, or the parties that endorse  
specific proposals.

The IGF secretariat decided to allow these dynamic coalitions to self  
organize in Athens, around topics that were relevant to the various  
panels and workshops. In Athens, several were formed, each with a  
different mission and style.

The IGF approach was not an accident. The IGF was created by a much  
more conventional UN effort, the "World Summit on the Information  
Society," WSIS, that was concluded in Tunis in 2005. There were deep  
divisions at the WSIS on several topics, including those related to  
free expression, censorship, human rights, intellectual property  
rights, free software, funding for needed capacity building and  
infrastructure development in the poorest countries, and many other  
issues, including perhaps the most contentious issue - the debate  
over who should control the Internet root servers and other key  
technical standards and resources.

The WSIS could not reach consensus on many of these topics, but there  
was recognition that the topics were important. The IGF was created  
to continue the conversations, but with the understanding it would  
not have broad powers to set "hard" global norms.

What the IGF could do has been the subject of discussion and debate,  
much of it below the radar screen of the press and the wider public.

The United States government, which now controls the Internet root  
server/domain name system, is anxious to prevent the IGF from having  
too much power. So too are many large companies, fearing the IGF  
could introduce new regulations of Internet activities, including  
those relating to consumer protection, privacy and regulation of  
content.

Many developing countries, such as Brazil, have pushed for a  
continued debate over how the Internet root will be controlled, and  
many national governments, academics, corporate entities and NGOs are  
pushing to raise other issues that are directly or indirectly related  
to the Internet.

The IGF was created with a mandate to explore these issues, but it  
starts without much top down authority. What it does provide,  
however, is space where like-minded parties can work together to  
create "soft" norms, or agreements between each other to take action.  
These efforts, through the so-called IGF "dynamic coalitions," are  
very open and bottom up. Because the IGF itself is not ready to begin  
making global policy, from the top, it has created a structure that  
does not block conversations and norm setting - from the bottom.

The consequences of this may be profound. At other global trade fora,  
such the UN's World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) or the  
World Trade Organization (WTO), decisions and agendas are fairly  
tightly controlled, and it is very difficult to move a proposal,  
because it requires either a super majority or a consensus of  
governments. At the IGF, on the other hand, the bottom up norm  
setting can get started whenever there is even a small conspiracy to  
do something.

We have participated in the creation of two such dynamic coalitions -  
one on open standards for software and information technologies, and  
the other on Access to Knowledge (A2K) and free expression. Dynamic  
coalitions have been formed on the control of Internet root servers,  
privacy, and other issues.

The memberships of the dynamic coalitions created in Athens are  
diverse - including governments, businesses, academics and NGOs. The  
French government will be hosting a meeting of the Privacy coalition  
in Paris. The coalitions on open standards hope to have face to face  
meetings in three cities, and develop best practices models for  
government procurement of software, between now and next year's IGF  
meeting, which will be held in Rio.

It is quite early to see how these efforts play out, but it is  
interesting. Can we think of global governance as a process that is  
open, even to NGO and individuals, and not coercive at the global  
level? For the Internet, this is perhaps the right way to start.


---------------------------------
James Love, CPTech / www.cptech.org / mailto:james.love@cptech.org /  
tel. +1.202.332.2670 / mobile +1.202.361.3040