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Re: [governance] RE: [Ecommerce] ICC Seeks U.N. Takeover While Excluding ICANN, U.S. Government from Meeting

I was with the Press Conference where Cattaui and Al Ghazaleh talked about ICANN and had also a talk to Cattaui later. My interpretation is different. After the IHT report from Tuesday, Al Ghazaleh was more specific, moving a little bit backwards and saying that the UN ICT TF meeting end of March in NY could be used to discuss the issue, not to put the new group under the TF. One could imagine, that the TF is used a springboard to something new. In the shadow of an existing group nobody would start a big discussion about composition or so and then it can grow bottom up. Another option is to have no formal group but, as the resolution says, an open process with a small facilitating team which summarizes and structures reports from discussions. 

Best

wolfgang
On lørdag, dec 20, 2003, at 10:35 Europe/Copenhagen, William Drake wrote: 


Hi,

William, thanks for the additional background.  As always, good stuff.
I'm a bit surprised that Cattaui went ahead and publicly endorsed the notion that the UN working group should be under the UNICT TF. The issue is still 
unresolved, so some governments may not welcome business' preemptive
intervention endorsing a particular solution while they are still sorting things out. Since there is no obvious cost or benefit to the private sector in doing it this way rather than as a separate body under Anan's auspices, one suspects this was a gesture to her colleague Abu-Ghazaleh. If there's one thing WSIS demonstrates, it's that it's reasonably easy to make gestures 
when the stakes are low.
Anyway, your reportage seems consistent with what I said other day. She endorsed the UNICT TF for multistakeholder "discussions" about governance 
issues but insists that "businesses do not seek the creation of a new
organization to oversee the Internet," and that "The ICC does not support any kind of governance issue being put into any kind of intergovernmental hands." ANY kind might be a bit strong, but the position is clear enough to put an end to the speculation about ICC's position that started this thread. 
ICC is NOT calling for the UNICT TF to have operational "oversight" of
ICANN, as Jennifer Schenker of the International Herald Tribune reported. 

The press coverage of WSIS has been pretty bad, entirely fixated on
controversies (to be expected) but often sloppy on important details.
Having sat through five weeks of preparatory meetings it's not obvious to me how many of the reporters running around screaming "IMMINENT UN TAKEOVER OF THE INTERNET!!" could have actually sat through the plenaries and working groups and carefully digested the various positions being staked out, the different coalitions being formed, and the prospects for anything really happening. It's clear that there are a bunch of developing countries, plus 
China and France, that want to talk about the need to put in place
intergovernmental rules for a host of issues that fall under the rubric of Internet/ICT governance, and it also seems clear that for better or worse, 
no such thing will happen without the support of the US, other key OECD
governments, and the private sector. So we'll have some lengthy debates in the working group and WSIS that will hopefully be constructive rather than just dumb, and maybe some shifts and compromises on the way certain issues are managed, but I wouldn't expect a cosmic battle of Wagnerian proportions 
that results in ECOSOC deciding how TLDs should be managed etc.

Cheers,

Bill Drake




Hi, this is William New, reporter at Tech Daily. I attended WSIS and
reported on Abu-Ghazaleh proposal and directly as Catuai her

position. This

is reported in several stories in Tech Daily from last week,

one of which I

included below. I'm not sure how to put it on the listserve but

feel free to

do so if it's helpful.

NATIONAL JOURNAL'S TECHNOLOGY DAILY
12-10-2003
International: U.S. Announces $400 Million For Overseas Tech Investment 

GENEVA--The Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC), a

U.S. agency

that insures private-sector investment in risky countries, announced
Wednesday that it would establish a $400 million support facility to
encourage U.S investment in the telecommunications and information
technology sectors of emerging markets.

The announcement comes a day after a gritty compromise was reached by
negotiators here at the World Summit on the Information Society to study the issue of whether a new global development fund for information and communications technology is needed. The United States had resisted the 
developing country proposal for a new fund, preferring instead to
strengthen existing funds.
In a press briefing Wednesday, OPIC President and CEO Peter Watson said 
the new money is "part of an ongoing effort" to fund ICT
development.

Debate also resurfaced Wednesday over Internet governance, as
International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) President Maria Cattaui publicly endorsed a proposal to designate the U.N. Information and Communications Technology Task Force for multi-stakeholder discussions about governance 
issues.

Cattaui said in a press briefing that the responsibility for

the directory
of Internet domain names held by the Internet Corporation for Assigned 
Names and Numbers (ICANN) is separate from the emerging

governance issues

such as criminality, intellectual property and security.

She argued that the Internet is a "unique" mix of public and private
components operated in a cooperative, not dictated, way. For

instance, the
basic protocols of the Internet are not owned by anyone, "they are just 
there," and therefore a public good, she said.

Cattaui emphasized that businesses do not seek the creation of a new
organization to oversee the Internet, but rather a platform for
discussion. "It is premature to talk about an organization," she said. 
Cattaui also stressed that there is no parallel for the Internet to
telecommunications networks.

The proposal was made in response to the weekend agreement by WSIS
negotiators to form a group to study Internet governance over the coming year. Talal Abu-Ghazaleh, vice chairman of the U.N. ICT Task Force, who 
made the proposal in question, stressed that he does not wish

to criticize

the United States.
"We all owe a great debt to the United States of America for giving us 
this great gift," he said in the briefing. "That said, this

great American

gift needs to be internationalized."

Cattuai said in an interview, "The ICC does not support any kind of
governance issue being put into any kind of intergovernmental

hands." With
ICANN President Paul Twomey sitting nearby, Cattuai praised ICANN's work 
to bring various constituencies together to focus on the domain name
system. But ICANN is not expected to deal with standards and protocols, which should be left in the hands of existing technical and engineering 
organizations, she said.
Cattuai and Twomey agreed separately that they would not seek to expand ICANN's mission to cover emerging governance issues. "We are not looking 
to expand our charter," Twomey said in an interview. Cattuai

said she did

not expect a decision on the working group at this week's meeting.

by William New

National Journal's Technology Daily

-----Original Message-----
From: Jeff Williams [mailto:jwkckid1@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Wednesday, December 17, 2003 10:07 PM
To: William Drake
Cc: john bolk; ecommerce@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx; icann board address;
General Assembly of the DNSO; Paul Twomey
Subject: Re: [Ecommerce] ICC Seeks U.N. Takeover While Excluding ICANN, 
U.S. Government from Meeting

William and all,
I also have no idea of exactly what Abu-Ghazaleh said to anyone other 
than what has been reported to me form trusted INEGroup folks that
were in attendance.  It is clear enough to me and our members, that
some factions loyal to the UN and/or are associated closely with the UN 
that a desire to do a power grab by one of more UN organizations
is factual.  It is also clear to me and almost all of our members
that ICANN's leadership from it's very beginnings is less than
adequate or responsible to ALL stakeholders/users, either
commercially oriented or not.

  As such it if logical to consider either dismantling ICANN
as it is currently or have all of its current BoD and staff members
resign and hold elections where any and all stakeholders/users
of interest or interested parties elect whom they wish to assume
ICANN's duties as outlined in the White paper and MoU.

William Drake wrote:


Hi,

I of course don't know what Talal Abu-Ghazaleh actually said

to Jennifer

Schenker of the International Herald Tribune, or how she

understood it.

But

in her article she has him proposing that ICANN should be

"placed under

the

umbrella" of and subject to the "oversight" of the UN's ICT

Task Force, of

which he is Vice Chair.  This implies that the Task Force

would have some

sort of actual authority over ICANN on an ongoing basis.

Hence, we now

have
people speculating here about a UN power grab with corporate backing. 
This

would be a rather strange bedfellows scenario.
However, if this is really what Abu-Ghazaleh told Schenker or what he proposed in the Dec. 9 private meeting, it is not what he has said in 
public.  For example, in his plenary speech at WSIS
http://businessatwsis.net/mainpages/position/policy/tag.php he merely 
stated that, "The UN ICT TF provides a dynamic

multi-stakeholders forum to

debate issues concerning the Internet as called for by the Prepcom
resolution. ICANN performed well under its mandate. What is not in its 
mandate is yet to be addressed."  Similarly, on the ICC site

(he chairs

the

ICC's E-Business IT & Telecom Commission), his proposal is

described as a
suggestion that the TF could be "a platform for future discussions" on 
Internet governance, and he is quoted as saying that there should be
continuing "operational management of the internet under

private sector

leadership, driven by the dynamics of business."
http://www.iccwbo.org/home/news_archives/2003/stories/tag.asp. Also on 
the

ICC site, one finds a piece from Dec. 10 called "Don't

sidetrack ICANN is

business plea"
http://www.iccwbo.org/home/news_archives/2003/stories/icann.asp in which 
he

states that "companies engaged in e-commerce wanted to preserve the

existing

Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers," and ICC

Secretary

General Maria Livanos Cattaui warns "against proposals to

replace ICANN

with

any intergovernmental organization to manage root servers,

domain names

and
address assignments." And in the "The final business statement--WSIS 
Geneva,"
http://www.iccwbo.org/home/news_archives/2003/stories/wsis_final.asp the 
Honorary Chair of ICC, Richard McCormick, told the plenary

that the notion

of Internet governance is an oxymoron and that the net should remain

subject

to private coordination.
This all seems rather different from the IHT account. Anyone who has 
participated in its meetings knows that as currently

constituted the TF is

in no position to exercise oversight over ICANN or anything else; on

policy

matters, it's mostly just a floating, open forum, and it has

a very tiny

support staff.  Making it an operating entity with authority

would be a

huge

step that governments are highly unlikely to take; indeed,

mention of the

TF

was removed from the WSIS texts.  So my guess is that he was simply
proposing that the working group governments decided to set

up at WSIS be

under the ICT TF.  We know that as an input to the next stage

of WSIS, the

working group is supposed to discuss questions like what is Internet
governance and what public policy dimensions might require

international

frameworks.  But what form the WG will take is very much up

in the air.

The

governments and Kofi Anan could decide to connect it to the TF or

separately

constitute a group of luminaries or follow a more constituency-based

model;

only time will tell.
If my guess is wrong and Abu-Ghazaleh actually did suggest that the TF 
should acquire operational authority, from the ICC statements

above I'd

guess further that he was speaking entirely on his own

without clearing it

with private sector colleagues.   Perhaps someone who has seen his

proposal

or talked to him could clarify.  Either way it doesn't

matter, the UNICT

TF
seems unlikely to be in charge of anything more than a discussion, if 
that.


Cheers,

Bill Drake


-----Original Message-----
From: ecommerce-admin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:ecommerce-admin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]On Behalf Of john bolk
Sent: Saturday, December 13, 2003 12:04 AM
To: Jeff Williams
Cc: ecommerce@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx; icann board address;

General Assembly

of the DNSO; Paul Twomey
Subject: Re: [Ecommerce] ICC Seeks U.N. Takeover While

Excluding ICANN,

U.S. Government from Meeting


--
[ Picked text/plain from multipart/alternative ]
The really interesting thing about the ICC WSIS proposal is that
ICC represents many big US companies such as AT&T, Microsoft,
Boeing, Oracle, Verizon, AOL, etc.

With big US companies supporting the proposal to let the UN ICT
Task Force take over ICANN's responsibilities it looks like
things could change soon.  Not sure I understand why a buzz org
would like governments to govern the Internet though?

The proposal was stated again by an ICC official at WSIS today:
http://businessatwsis.net/mainpages/position/policy/tag.php

http://businessatwsis.net/mainpages/media/press/news.php?news_id=15


Jeff Williams <jwkckid1@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
John and all,

I am not surprised to here of the unfortunate forcible removal of

ICANN's

CEO Mr. Twomey's removal form this UN ICC meeting. As ICANN has
snubbed many stakeholder groups including ICC and INEGroup amongst
many others form it's terribly flawed "Reform" process started by
the former
ICANN CEO Stuart Lynn, and finalized by Mr. Twomey. The

much discussed

and debated ICANN Cabel has led it to growing disdain on global
basis.

However all this aside, it is also obvious that from earlier
reports that the
US is not interested nor willing to consider a major Role

of the UN or

any UN agency to play a significant management role for managing
the central aspects of the Internet, nor determine policy there unto 
pertaining.

ICANN was warned time and time again of the "error in its ways"
as far back as 1999, and either ignored such warnings unwisely
or did not have the intellectual capacity by which to address these
many and repeated warning adequately and as such has served
to divide stakeholders/users rather than act as a catalyst to
unite them...

john bolk wrote:


--
[ Picked text/plain from multipart/alternative ]
CircleID, Dec 09, 2003

ICC Seeks U.N. Takeover While Excluding ICANN, U.S. Government

from Meeting


An organization which purports to be "the voice of world

business" is proposing a de facto U.N. takeover of ICANN. The
proposal by a senior official of the International Chamber of
Commerce (ICC) would place ICANN under the U.N. umbrella and give
a strong role to U.N. agencies and to various national
governments, including those that suppress free speech and free
enterprise. In a move of breathtaking arrogance, the ICC refused
to even invite ICANN or U.S. government representatives to the
meeting at which they are presenting their proposal. As reported
here by Jennifer Schenker:


"Paul Twomey, the president of the Internet's semi-official

governing body, Icann, learned Friday night what it feels like to
be an outsider. Mr. Twomey, who had flown 20 hours from Vietnam
to Geneva to observe a preparatory meeting for this week's United
Nations' conference on Internet issues, ended up being escorted
from the meeting room by guards. The officials running the
meeting had suddenly decided to exclude outside observers. Mr.
Twomey's ejection may underscore the resentment of many members
of the international community over the way the Internet is run
and over United States ownership of many important Internet
resources. Although Mr. Twomey is Australian, Icann - the
Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers - is a
powerful nonprofit group established by the United States
government in 1998 to oversee various technical coordination
issues for the global network. Icann and the United States
government are expected to come under heavy fire at the conference,
 which

begins Wednesday in Geneva and will be one of the largest

gatherings of high-level government officials, business leaders
and nonprofit organizations to discuss the Internet's future."


Any proposal or process for overhauling ICANN's governance that

excludes key stakeholders is a major step backwards for the goals
of openness and transparency. Furthermore, for a business group
to propose giving a strong role in managing the infrastructure of
the international information economy to the United Nations, an
organization best known for unwieldily, costly, ineffective, and
unaccountable bureaucracies, is downright strange. Corporations
that contribute to the ICC may want to reconsider how best to use
their shareholder's resources.


http://www.circleid.com/article/394_0_1_0_C/





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