1. 1 The World Summit on the Information Society: The Internet Governance Perspective APTLD Meeting 23 rd August 2003 Busan, Korea

2. 2 Outline Background to WSIS The WSIS Process The Internet Governance issue Observations Recommendations

3. 3 Background to WSIS Objective: “To develop and foster a clear statement of political will and a concrete plan of action for achieving the goals of the Information Society, while fully reflecting all the different interests at stake.” Origin:  Initiated by the ITU (1998), endorsed by the UN General Assembly (1999)  Framework proposed by ITU (2001) and endorsed by UNGA (January 2002) Process:  Two Summits involving Heads of State will be held. One in Geneva (Dec 2003) and one in Tunis (2005)  Three Preparatory Committee Meetings to prepare for the Geneva Summit will be held in Geneva  Regional Consultations will be held to obtain widest possible input and buy-in

4. 4 The WSIS Process July’02 Geneva Feb’03 Geneva 15-26 Sept’03 Geneva 10-12 Dec’03 Geneva 2005 Tunis PrepComm1PrepComm2PrepComm3 Summit (Phase1) Summit (Phase2)

5. 5 The WSIS Process July’02 Geneva Feb’03 Geneva 15-26 Sept’03 Geneva 10-12 Dec’03 Geneva 2005 Tunis PrepComm2PrepComm3 Summit (Phase1) Summit (Phase2) PrepComm1 Election of Adama Samassekou (Mali) as President of PrepComm Decided on the Rules of Procedure for future PrepComms Agreed that nations are full participants and each have a vote. Accredited entities (business sector, civil society and others) may attend as observers only. Identified “principles” and “themes” (but bullet points only) for further deliberation at PrepComm2

6. 6 The WSIS Process July’02 Geneva Feb’03 Geneva 15-26 Sept’03 Geneva 10-12 Dec’03 Geneva 2005 Tunis PrepComm2PrepComm3 Summit (Phase1) Summit (Phase2) Fleshed out the “principles” and “themes” (i.e. substantial content) for further deliberation at PrepComm2 PrepComm1 Informal Meeting on Content & Themes 16 th Sept’02, Geneva

7. 7 The WSIS Process July’02 Geneva Feb’03 Geneva 15-26 Sept’03 Geneva 10-12 Dec’03 Geneva 2005 Tunis PrepComm2PrepComm3 Summit (Phase1) Summit (Phase2) African Regional Conference [25-30 May 2002, Bamako (Mali)] Pan European Regional Conference [7-9 November 2002, Bucharest (Romania)] Asia-Pacific Regional Conference [13-15 January 2003, Tokyo (Japan)] Latin America and the Caribbean Regional Conference [29-31 January 2003, Bávaro (Dominican Republic)] Western Asia Preparatory Conference [4-6 February 2003, Beirut (Lebanon)] PrepComm1 Various Regional Consultations

8. 8 The WSIS Process July’02 Geneva Feb’03 Geneva 15-26 Sept’03 Geneva 10-12 Dec’03 Geneva 2005 Tunis PrepComm3 Summit (Phase1) Summit (Phase2) PrepComm2 Two “non-documents” were tabled: the President’s summary of principles and issues, and a compilation of the Declarations from the Regional Consultations After much debate, towards the end of PrepComm2 a sub-committee was created to consider both “non-documents” and draft two new documents: the Declaration of Principles and the Plan of Action Due to insufficient time, both documents were placed in “square brackets” (i.e. the whole document is still open for debate) and it was decided that an additional meeting was necessary to develop some consensus on the content PrepComm1

9. 9 The WSIS Process July’02 Geneva Feb’03 Geneva 15-26 Sept’03 Geneva 10-12 Dec’03 Geneva 2005 Tunis PrepComm3 Summit (Phase1) Summit (Phase2) InterSessional Meeting 15-18 July’03, Paris Both the Declaration of Principles and Plan of Action were considered paragraph by paragraph but with great haste. Whenever a very contentious issue arose, the Chair (Lyndall Shope-Mafole of South Africa) set up drafting groups around the main contenders charging them with developing an acceptable paragraph. The Internet Governance paragraph was drafted by a group led by Kenya and consisting of approximately 20 countries and several observers. PrepComm1PrepComm2

10. 10 The WSIS Process July’02 Geneva Feb’03 Geneva 15-26 Sept’03 Geneva 10-12 Dec’03 Geneva 2005 Tunis PrepComm1PrepComm2 Intended to finalise both documents (i.e. take them out of “square brackets”) Intended for Heads of State to agree to and sign the two documents Intended for follow-up of the Action Plan, including measurement of progress PrepComm3 Summit (Phase1) Summit (Phase2)

11. 11 Internet Governance in WSIS (1) Article 44 of the Declaration of Principles (18 th July version) [The international management of the Internet should be democratic, multilateral, transparent and participative with the full involvement of the governments, international organisations, private sector and civil society. This management should encompass both technical and policy issues. While recognizing that the private sector has an important role in the development of the Internet at the technical level, and will continue to take a lead role, the fast development of Internet as the basis of information society requires that governments, take a lead role, in partnership with all other stakeholders, in developing and coordinating policies of the public interests related to stability, security, competition, freedom of use, protection of individual rights and privacy, sovereignty, and equal access for all, among all the other aspects, through appropriate [intergovernmental/international] organisations.]

12. 12 Internet Governance in WSIS (2) Article 44 of the Declaration of Principles (18 th July version) Alternative text 1 for 44 [Internet governance must be multilateral, democratic and transparent, taking into account the needs of the public and private sectors as well as those of the civil society, and respecting multilingualism. The coordination responsibility for root servers, domain names, and Internet Protocol (IP) address assignment should rest with a suitable international, inter- governmental organization. The policy authority for country code top-level-domain names (ccTLDs) should be the sovereign right of countries.] Alternative text 2 for 44 [The international management of the Internet should be democratic, multilateral and transparent. It should secure a fair distribution of resources, facilitate access for all and ensure a stable and secure functioning of the Internet. It should respect geographical diversity and ensure representativeness through the participation of all interested States, including public authorities with competence in this field, of civil society and the private sector, with due respect to their legitimate interests].

13. 13 Internet Governance in WSIS (3) Article 44 of the Declaration of Principles (18 th July version)  44A. A vital aspect of securing consumer confidence in electronic commerce is to ensure that consumer transactions occur within a sound legal framework. To this end, consumers using electronic commerce should be provided with protection that is at least equivalent to that provided to consumers using other forms of commerce.  44B. Spam is a significant and growing problem, not just for individuals but for networks and the Internet as a whole. Spam refers to an electronic mail message that is transmitted to a large number of recipients and most or all of the recipients have not requested those messages. Spam raises key issues that need to be addressed and these include privacy, illicit content, misleading and deceptive trade practices and network issues. Privacy: issues surrounding the manner with which personal information such as e mail addresses is collected and handled - address collectors harvest e mail addresses off the Internet or even buy and sell them in bulk without the consent of the owner. Illicit content: most promotes scams, pornography, illegal online gambling services, medical cures, get rich quick schemes or misleading and deceptive trade practices. Network issues: The cost of spam is borne by the recipient in the form of higher cost Internet subscriptions due to larger downloads. The increased volume of e mail can significantly slow Internet speeds and could threaten the viability of the entire network. In addition, there is some evidence that spam is being used deliberately in Denial of Service (DoS) attacks.

14. 14 Internet Governance in WSIS (4) Article 8 of the Plan of Action (20 th June version) Interconnection: The information and communication infrastructure is global in its nature. A decentralized and proportionate growth of the global information and communication infrastructure must be promoted. No country or region shall concentrate traffic flows or control the central parts and components of the global information and communications infrastructure, such as traffic hubs and root servers. Connectivity among major information networks should be optimized through the creation and interconnection of regional traffic hubs to reduce interconnection costs and broaden network access.

15. 15 Observations Usually about 30 countries attend GAC. Whereas at the WSIS InterSessional Meeting over 100 countries were represented and at PrepComm2, over 150. Only a few of the GAC representatives also attend WSIS meetings  WSIS is ITU based and as such is usually attended by representatives from Ministries of Telecommunication  ICANN’s GAC has a wider base – science, trade, industry, communication, Internet Only a few countries have a clear position on Internet Governance. Most representatives are still learning but prefer the “inter-governmental” model as they are familiar with the processes

16. 16 Recommendation Too late for direct participation – deadline for accreditation was 1 st August What can we do?  Speak to your government representatives so that they are aware of the issues and lobby them to speak out at PrepComm3  Lobby organisations that are already accredited. Check the website www.itu.int/wsis for listswww.itu.int/wsis  Propose that ccNSO submit a statement to the WSIS Bureau  Submit an APTLD statement to the WSIS Bureau

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