Re: [ga] Third Meeting of the Working Group on Internet Governance

["Richard Henderson" <richardhenderson@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Commonsense says that if ICANN would only 'internationalize' its mandate - that is to say, make itself accountable to democratically elected representatives of the internet users of every nation instead of being accountable to the Department of Commerce of *one* nation - then it could still hope to earn credibility and legitimacy in the eyes of people all over the world.

In short, if ICANN would only stop being so 'closed' to the concept of an elected At Large - and restore the democratically elected representatives of the user community who were expelled from the ICANN Board - then it could start to claim a truly international mandate.

Otherwise, the inevitable logic of nations that believe they have as much right to representation as the United States will lead to increasing calls for oversight of the Internet's DNS functions to be transferred to the United Nations and to some kind of governmental control.

I happen to think that governmental control and the interference of politicians (take for example, Chinese politicians with their shining record on human rights, but they are not alone) is the last thing that the Internet needs.

Therefore I would much prefer to see ICANN regain the logical and moral high ground, by earning *true* legitimacy and a truly international mandate: by severing its subordinate relationship to the United States DoC, and allowing the peoples of the world to participate in a representational oversight of their own internet.

The argument that such democratic elections wouldn't work just doesn't wash with me. If you can invade another country in order to impose democracy, you can hardly in the same breath reject the democratic principle when it comes to an Internet which you (United States) are still retaining controls over.

While it is true that you could hardly get the whole world to vote for ICANN's Board, you could at least get interested individuals to do so. This was demonstrated when 100,000 people from around the world voted in the last At Large elections to the ICANN Board. There is absolutely no reason why this number could not be developed and increased many times over. The risks of block voting and vote-rigging could be contained by containing the number of people that any one particular nation or region could vote for. Nothing is perfect, but it would be a whole lot more perfect than the present At Large of about 10 active members, non-elected, non-accountable, merely appointed by America's quango's board. How is that better than democracy?

The other thing is that once you have a democratic process and people recognise that their representatives are actually accountable to *them* - and once you really involve people and enable them to contribute to policy and determine policy by their votes, then you begin to see the extension of participation, and you will have thousands and tens of thousands of participants contributing to your forums and mailing lists, instead of the craven and moribund At Large lists at present, where people choose not to participate because they are *locked out* of any democratic process.

So has Syria - branded a terrorist state or part of an axis of evil - got a bit of a case in calling for the internationalizing of the oversight of Internet functions? And is the United States the nation at odds with democracy when it comes to the Internet?

How ironic that would be...

...And yet this is the direction of the logic and the arguments which well-respected participants like India support.

Basically, the world is starting to ask more seriously: what possible right has the United States got to expect that an Internet Oversight Body like ICANN should be accountable to it?

ICANN's only claim to an international mandate would be a Board which was accountable to Internet Users all over the world.

Only then could ICANN argue that its mandate was better than a mandate built around all the governments of the world (which drifts inevitably towards the United Nations with all the political interference that might result from that).

The expulsion of the elected At Large Board members was a catastrophic mistake made by Stuart Lynn and those he persuaded to follow him. It stripped away the only shred of democracy and international mandate that ICANN could claim.

Now it's just a US quango, with a clique of industry insiders, largely serving the interests of the domain supply industry and the Intellectual Property tsars and the political best interests of the United States.

Internet Users - the actual real-life people who make the Internet what it is and need it and use it - are locked out of the process. They are hugely marginalised. And that has been achieved as a conscious policy by ICANN, starting with Stuart Lynn's boardroom coup and continuing with ICANN's imposed ALAC... an extraordinary creation, set up to represent individual users but barring individual users from membership in their capacity as individuals.

Democracy is dead. ICANN is ultimately accountable only to the United States. Syria has a point and other nations increasingly share this feeling of injustice.

Why is democracy OK when you impose it on Iraq, but not OK when it comes to the Internet?

Yrs,

Richard Henderson

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Danny Younger 
  To: ga@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx 
  Sent: Monday, April 18, 2005 8:42 PM
  Subject: [ga] Third Meeting of the Working Group on Internet Governance


  Some interesting comments from the Third Meeting of the Working Group on Internet Governance today:

  >>SYRIA: THANK YOU, CHAIRPERSON. CHAIRPERSON, IF THIS SUBJECT WERE NOT GLOBAL AND INTERNATIONAL, IT WOULD NOT HAVE BEEN DISCUSSED AT THE SUMMIT, THE WORLD INFORMATION SUMMIT, AND SO THERE WOULD BE NO NEED TO ASK OURSELVES WHETHER WE SHOULD INTERNATIONALIZE MANAGEMENT OF THE INTERNET. WELL, THE ANSWER IS YES. IT WAS DISCUSSED AT THE SUMMIT, IT WAS DEALT WITH AT A NUMBER OF LEVELS, INCLUDING THE HIGHEST LEVEL.
  SO IT'S A BIT ODD TO ASK THE QUESTION HERE AND NOW. THERE'S NO DOUBT AS TO THE ANSWER, CHAIRPERSON. AND I FULLY SUPPORT WHAT THE DELEGATE OF SAUDI ARABIA SAID. I ENDORSE, ALSO, THE STATEMENT MADE BY INDIA. WHY REPEAT OURSELVES?
  WE ARE NOT IN FAVOR OF THE CURRENT STATE OF THINGS, AND AS I SAID EARLIER, PROPOSALS HAVE BEEN MADE. THERE WILL SOON BE A MEETING TO DEAL WITH THE DEFINITION OF THE INTERNET AND A PROPOSAL WILL BE PUT FORWARD.
  UNFORTUNATELY, NO PROPOSALS HAVE BEEN PUT FORWARD HERE; OTHERWISE, WE WOULD HAVE COMMENTED ON SUCH A PROPOSAL.
  IN ALL EVENTS, I WOULD LIKE TO THANK YOU, CHAIRPERSON, FOR HAVING STRESSED THE NEED TO COME UP WITH A PRACTICAL WORKING DEFINITION OF THE INTERNET AS SOON AS POSSIBLE.
  THE SYRIAN-ARAB REPUBLIC WOULD HAVE A PROPOSAL HAD THERE BEEN A DRAFT TEXT. AT ANY EVENT, THE INTERNATIONALIZATION OF THE INTERNET IS A NATURAL PROCESS. WE CANNOT ACCEPT THE INTERNET BEING MERELY AN AMERICAN BODY SUBJECT TO ANOTHER AMERICAN BODY, WHICH I WON'T MENTION. WE ALREADY SAID THIS AT THE SUMMIT. SO THE SITUATION IS CLEAR, AND OUR POSITION IS CLEAR. AND WE DON'T NEED TO REPEAT OURSELVES HERE.
  THE INTERNET TODAY IS GOVERNED BY AMERICAN LAW AND MANAGED BY AN AMERICAN BUSINESS. IT'S NO SECRET. WE ALL KNOW IT, AND WE CANNOT ACCEPT IT.
  YOU'VE ALREADY HEARD A NUMBER OF SPEAKERS REFER TO PUBLIC POLICY AND YOU CANNOT DEVELOP OR COORDINATE PUBLIC POLICY WITH REGARD TO THE INTERNET OTHER THAN THROUGH AN INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATION WHICH CAN GUARANTEE TO ALL THEIR RIGHTS. OTHERWISE, WE HAVE ! TO FIND SOME OTHER EQUITABLE BODY WHO WILL DEAL WITH THE ISSUE.
  THANK YOU.

  >>UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: THANK YOU, MR. CHAIRMAN.
  MY DELEGATION WOULD ALSO LIKE TO THANK THE WORKING GROUP ON INTERNET GOVERNANCE FOR ALL THEIR HARD AND CONTINUING WORK.
  I WOULD JUST LIKE TO ANSWER -- OR REPLY TO SOME EARLIER COMMENTS ABOUT THE CURRENT SITUATION OF AMERICAN DOMINANCE IN INTERNET GOVERNANCE.
  I WOULD JUST SAY TO EVERYONE THAT THIS MAY BE THE SITUATION NOW BECAUSE IT'S THE WAY THE INTERNET DEVELOPED IN THE PAST.
  AND IT IS A MATTER OF HISTORY RATHER THAN DUE TO ANY KIND OF CONSPIRACY.
  AND I WOULD ALSO REMIND PEOPLE THAT THE JURY IS STILL OUT ON WHAT WILL HAPPEN IN THE FUTURE.
  AND THIS IS THE REASON WHY WE'RE HERE, TO DISCUSS WHAT WILL HAPPEN IN THE FUTURE.
  AND SO NO CONCLUSIONS SHOULD BE DRAWN AS TO WHAT WILL HAPPEN.
  THANK YOU.

  The full transcript at these URLS:  http://wgig.org/April-scriptmorning.html  http://wgig.org/April-scriptafternoon.html


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