[alac] [Fwd: [governance] Report ICANN Roma]

[Vittorio Bertola <vb@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

FYI - this is the report that Wolfgang Kleinwaechter sent to the WSIS 
Civil Society Internet Governance Caucus about us and the ICANN meeting in 
Rome.
I have already sent some corrections.

-------- Messaggio Originale  --------
Oggetto: [governance] Report ICANN Roma
Data: Sun, 07 Mar 2004 13:44:54 +0100
Da: <wolfgang@xxxxxxxxx>
Rispondi-A: wolfgang@xxxxxxxxx
A: <governance@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>

Dear List

Here is a short report from last weeks ICANN meeting in Rome and its WSIS 
Round Table.

The ”WSIS Round Table” was more or less a positioning of ICANN 
constituencies in the process. Each speaker had three minutes. Next to the 
constituencies of the businesses (IPR, ISPs, Business Users, ccTLDs, gTLD, 
ICC) and of the technical community (Root Server, RIRs,  Security and 
Stability Committee) there has been three speakers from constituencies 
close to CS: the Non-Commercial Constituency (Milton Mueller), the ALAC 
(Vittorio Bertola) and I myself on behalf of the CS Internet Governance 
Caucus. No GAC governmental representative was invited. Both Paul Twomey 
and Vint Cerf opened the workshop.

The main message was a support for ICANN by pointing out, that in the WSIS 
processs ICANN has only a limited role to play and concentrates on 
technical matters, while other bodies should deal with other issues. The 
“importance” of the new “WSIS/UN IG Working Group” was underlined, but 
there were no many new recommendations for Mr. Annan and the new chair of 
the group who will be appointed by him.

In the discussion, among others, the questions of Root Server control and 
the relationship between technical and political issues were raised. 
Milton said that it would be a mistake to reduce ICANNs role to “technical 
aspects”. He said that ICANN does policy. I repeated what I said in the 
ITU Workshop in Geneva: It is impossible to separate it, it is like 
“Jerusalem”, you can not really create separate areas, one for the 
technicians, the other one for the politicians and other ones for business 
people or users. The different constituencies have to learn to live 
together. With regard to the Root Server, Bill Manning repeated what he 
had said in Geneva that, after the implementation of anycast, there are 
more root server outside the US than inside. Paul Wilson repeated his call 
for “internationalization”. And I repeated that one solution could be a 
move from a “trust system to a treaty system”, that is that US invites 
other governments to an formal agreement (this could be do!
 ne in the GAC or in parallel to the GAC) and that this new “treaty 
organisation” could overtake the DoCs role with regard to the A Root 
Server and enter into a MoU with ICANN.

There was no much open discussion but WSIS was everywhere. The Italian 
Minister Stanca labeled the WSIS Declaration - like the Swiss President 
Couchepin - as “the Constitution of the Information Age”. He made clear in 
his speech (and in the press conference) that the Italian  government, 
which had the EU presidency until December 2003, would leave the Internet 
in the hands of the “private sector” and would support a governmental step 
in only in cases, where real issues of public policy emerge, like spam or 
content or crime. This was warmly applauded by Vint Cerf, who again and 
again reduced ICANNs role to “a small portion” of the “big issues”, 
governments have to face by dealing with the challenges of the Information 
Age and the Internet. It was a message like we will be as helpful as 
possible, but let us our turf, this is what we can do and we do it better. 
WSIS is about the Information Society and the Information Society is much 
more than the Internet. And even if we discu!
 ss the Internet, the Internet is much more than the DNS, IP Addresses 
and Root Servers.

When the Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC) presented its report, there 
was no reference to WSIS and the WSIS/UN IG Working Group in the 
communique. I asked Sharil in the Open Forum and he answered, that the 
governments/GAC members discussed the issue but had no common position on 
it. He added, that the GAC gets more recognition among governments. The 
official number of GAC members has raised in the last 12 months to 92. ITU 
has 192 governments as members.

The At Large Advisory Committee published before Roma a WSIS Statement, 
which welcomes the WSIS Declaration, supports ICANN and offers its service 
for the WSIS/UN IG Working Group on behalf of the Internet users. The 
statement, which has been discussed among ALAC Council members only and 
not in the public forum, does not refer to the Civil Society Internet 
Governance Caucus and its contributions from PrepCom1 to PrepCom3bis++. I 
asked in the ALAC meeting whether this was only “forgotton” or signals a 
position. Izumi apologized and said that this could have been mentioned. 
However when Vittorio presented the ALAC report in ICANN´s Public Forum, 
he again did not mention the Civil Society Internet Governance Caucus and 
its letter to Kofi Annan and Utsumi but offered the UN Working Group ALACs 
separate services on behalf of the Internet users.

While I am in favour that CS speaks with as many voices as possible I 
think that CS as one main stakeholder, mentioned in the WSIS Declaration, 
could be in a stronger position, if its various constituencies coordinate 
their activities like the private sector does it via the BICC.

Next to WSIS the normal ICANN business went along with the VeriSign case, 
WSL and the Whois workshops of the GNSO.. No real discussion about new 
TLDs, but a good presentation from the Universal Postal Union (UPU), a 
candidate for a new sTLD, on .post, which links postal addresses directly 
to e-mail addresses.

The small “big news” was the formal establishment of the CNSO, after 
Gibraltar joined as the needed 4th European ccTLD.. Some progress has been 
made in the ICANN, NRO, RIR negotiations and the MoU is on its way. The 
African RIR will probably be launched during the ICANN meeting in Cape 
Town in December 2004.

ALAC is still struggling with its structural defects. While in Asia, 
thanks to Izumi, there is some progress and a road map towards a A-RALO 
becomes visible (probably already during ICANNs July meeting in Kuala 
Lumpur), other regions, including Europe.and North America, are still 
extremely weak. Although ALAC organized a “European meeting” during this 
ICANN gathering in Europe (with ISOC Italy as a recognized ALAC Structure) 
nobody showed up. There were 20 people in the room, half of them 
non-Europeans, mainly ALAC members and staff.  Also in the ALAC plenary 
there has been not more than 26 participants, which included all 
“officials”. On the other hand, the ICANN Board signalled a substantial 
financial support for the ALAC. Denis Mitchel told the meeting, that in 
the last year the ALAC got 136.000 US Dollar from ICANNs budget. Mike 
Palage, as ICANN Director chair of ICANNs financial committee, asked in 
the Public Forum, whether the ALAC needs more money. Vittorio replied, t!
 hat it is not only a question of money but of secretarial support, 
referring to the new Brussels office. I proposed in the public forum
a. to adjust the bylaws again and to make it easier for individuals to 
join the process,
b. to make the work of the ALAC more open and transparent (there are no 
postings from telephone conferences or other internal business of the 
meeting so far and the participation of the public forum with about 5 
posting per months is extremely low) and
c. to organize thematic workshops on the ground for users (using the money 
which is offered by the ICANN Board)..  .

Two other interesting statements came from Italian politicians. A Senator 
from the Green Party, who addressed the WSIS workshop, called for a global 
“Internet Bill of Rights”. And Italians Deputy Data Commissioner declared 
the Whois policy as of ICANN as partly irrevelent because it contradicts 
national legislation and the EU directive. (see here a good piece of 
Milton in ICANNWatch). He also was astonished that nobody from the Italian 
government was officially invited to the Whois workshops. On the other 
hand, EUs Papapavlou addressed some ICANN constituencies about the EU Data 
Protection Directive, which was both helpful and enlightening.


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