FINISHED TRANSCRIPT
EIGHTH INTERNET GOVERNANCE FORUM
BALI
BUILDING BRIDGES – ENHANCING MULTI-STAKEHOLDER COOPERATION FOR GROWTH AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
23 OCTOBER 2013
FOCUS SESSION: INTERNET GOVERNANCE PRINCIPLES
9:30
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This text is being provided in a rough draft format. Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART) is provided in order to facilitate communication accessibility and may not be a totally verbatim record of the proceedings.
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>> Z. HASIBUAN: We have a new format, a new style of presentation this morning. It's a roundtable, so you may like to come and move forward. Otherwise you will be somewhat distant from the conversation. So I'd like to invite people to come and join us around this table here so that we can have an interactive discussion this morning.
So if you would move forward, that would be very much appreciated. There are power strips and all the usual things we need to make our laptops work. Thank you very much. We'll be beginning shortly.
Okay, I think we will start this focus session on Internet Governance Principles. Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, a very good morning to you all. Hopefully on your second or third days in Bali, you already enjoyed the atmosphere, and do not forget to spend the rest of the weekend later on to see more part of Bali.
We will now resume the meeting. I open this morning's focus session.
Good morning, welcome to the focus session: Principles of Internet Governance. The themes of this morning's session is, of course, central to the whole idea of IGF. For the next 90 minutes, I hope what we will make progress in these important topics. Our moderators and panelists will get us through three tasks, and help us understand the progress made.
We will hear an overview of the key projects on Internet Governance Principles that have been developed and adopted by previous Governmental and non‑governmental groups over the past few years. We will discuss similarities of 11 proposals and areas of consensus, and also differences and disagreements with regard to these principles.
And we will discuss how to move forward towards a common multistakeholders framework of communication on principles for Internet Governance policy making based on the existing initiatives and projects. Our experts will get us and I hope all you participants will contribute your ideas and advice.
Now allow me to introduce moderators, and I will turn this over to them. I like to introduce our two moderators, Wolfgang Kleinwächter, on my right side, from University of Aarhus, and Ms. Alice Munyua. Excuse me if I pronounce it incorrectly, Chair of the Internet Governance Forum from Kenya.
We also have here remote moderator Paul Fehrlinger. I think he is over there, who will introduce comments and questions from our remote participants and Rapporteur Avri Doria. Is he here? Great, wonderful. Who will offer a summary of our discussions.
Wolfgang, you have the floor.
>> WOLFGANG KLEINWACHTER: Thank you, Mr. Chairman and welcome and good morning to everybody. I think this session is the result of debate which goes on for years now, and if I remember correctly already in the very first IGF we had in essence in 2006 we had discussions about Internet Governance Principles. What we have seen over the years is that more and more institutions, organisations, net decided to draft a set of principles for the governance of the Internet.
And when we made a recount on the last IGF in Baku, we ended up with more than 25 or even more documents, declarations, Resolutions, statements, which defined principles for Internet Governance. This is wonderful on the one hand, because we have reference documents and guidelines which help us to understand better the framework in which we operate when we are developed and using the Internet. On the other hand, this is also confusing because it's an invitation to principle shopping so that means everybody takes just a principle she or he likes and so this is not a situation which is very useful. We have one world. We have one Internet and so the discussion which was kick started in Baku was should we move towards one set of Internet Governance Principles?
If you go through the 25‑plus projects, then you see all the wonderful individual declarations. As one stakeholder Declaration adopted by Governments or by private sector or by Civil Society very often in consultation with other stakeholders but the formal procedure for the adoption of the document is one stakeholder thing or they are regionally submitted. The Council of Europe is a member organisation of 48 members. It's a strong organisation. It's Governmental but it's just 48 states. We have 193 Member States in the United Nations.
So the idea which was discussed in Paris meeting, the WSIS+10 meeting, related to the MAG meeting, was: Could we try to globalize these principles and to multistakeholderize the principles? That means to go beyond the 25‑plus and to find ways where we have something in common, because if you go through all the 25 projects, then you see that 80% probably come up with very similar principles. They have some principles which are rather different. The OECD is more business oriented. Council of Europe is more Human Rights oriented, and then you have certainly some controversies where you have differences.
So and in the preparation of this Bali meeting, the group which was formed to prepare this focus session said okay, should we select from the 25 projects, 8, 4 from the Governmental groups and 4 from the non‑governmental groups so they could present their ideas behind the principles and then to discuss where to go from here, whether we could go one step forward as the Chairman has said, this is a forward‑looking session, and to start the process where we could ‑‑ the principles, those principles could be globalized and multistakeholderized. So this is new territory. So the IGF does not provide the framework how to draft a document. So we have to invent the procedure.
But the Internet was always about innovation, invention, so we had a lot of technical invention. We are still weak with policy inventions so we have invented some new mechanisms but this is not the end of the story. We need more creativity. We need more innovation, whether in policy making even in Public Policy making and so this is let's say a test whether we are able to kick start the process where the various sponsors of this project enter into a dialogue with the aim, I would not say to harmonize the principles but as I said to globalize and to multistakeholderize the principles and to find a way, is there a common ground? Very high‑level, non‑binding, very general.
We have compared this in the discussions since the Paris meeting, quite often with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights from 1948. I have studied the background from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and it's interesting to remember that Human Rights discussions went on for years and years and years, and only after World War II with the big shock of massive violation of Human Rights, the international community concluded we have to do something, and a lot of Governments wanted to have a legally binding document and say we have to have a Treaty for Human Rights. And Eleanor Roosevelt who chaired the third Committee in the General Assembly of the United Nations, argued, okay, if we start immediately into Treaty negotiations, it will take us 20 years so why not just to agree on where we can agree? Not to go into details but just to agree there should be mortar tour. There should be freedom of expression. There should be freedom to travel. There should be the right to education and so the outcome was universal. In one or two years they were able to produce this very general non‑binding document which is known now as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and it took 20 more years until they had a legally binding Treaty and this is an interesting model that if we move towards a Universal Declaration for Internet Governance Principles which has to be based on the Universal Declaration for Human Rights whether this could be done in a similar way, high level, non‑binding, very general: Internet should be free, Internet should be open, should be multistakeholder, end to end, secure, all this what we have in a lot of these principles. So this is a little bit the framework in which we operate and I'm very happy that have representatives from Governmental groups and from non‑governmental groups. I'm still waiting for our friend from Brazil, but all the assets meanwhile are on the table and I would hand over to my co‑moderator, Alice, and Alice will now invite the various sponsors of the various projects just to give us a very brief background and overview about their project and their main principles. Alice?
>> ALICE MUNYUA: Thank you very much, Wolfgang. It's very good to be here, and the discussion on Internet Governance Principles has actually been an important one, and I for one coming from the Africa region, I don't think we've actually started discussing this in detail or even trying to really apply it to our day‑to‑day situation and to our challenges so I think for me, what I'd really like to ‑‑ I'd like to understand what it's about. I'd like to understand, you know, what they are, and to get a better perspective on the principles and how we can globalize them.
And as Wolfgang says, multistakeholder them so that they are relevant to especially for those of us who are still struggling to get the Internet to people who still don't have access.
Anyway, very pleased to be introducing a very distinguished panel. And I think we could start off with the European Commission who can make the first presentation. Thank you. You have the floor. OECD, sorry, thank you, you have the floor.
>> ANNE CABLANC: We have most of the European Member States. That's probably why the OECD is there but they are not the only ones. Thank you very much, Alice. We have our Council has adopted in December 2011 ‑‑ thank you. Our Council has adopted in December 2011 principles for Internet policy making, and the purpose for these principles were, if I could say, three‑fold.
First of all, it is the reflection of three decades of OECD policy in ICT and Internet policy‑making. Second, it represents a consensus among Governments, business, the Internet technical community, and Civil Society. It is a framework for Internet policies, and this is important, to serve economic and social development.
I could say that it's the OECD experience that the key to unleashing innovation, creativity, and economic growth lies with an open Internet, and that innovation has flourished on the Internet without the need for international regulations or treaties.
Our consensus reflects the fact that multistakeholder processes have been shown to provide the flexibility and the scalability required to address Internet policy challenges. None of us owns the Internet. It's only by coming together in an open environment that we do all get the full benefits.
And in terms of source of growth, the Internet is a source of growth and has proven resilient during the economic crisis. It's a core component of the entire economy. And the OECD brings to its members and beyond its experience, its economics, and its evidence‑based approach to the issues to develop policies and stimulate the Internet economy.
Now, the principles are 14. It's a long list. But there are 3 which are, let's say, the key among those key principles, and these are: Openness, flexibility, and multistakeholder approach. I would like to add before I close that the Council recommendation recognizes two important points.
The first one is the strength and the dynamism on the Internet depends on its ease of access through ISP networks, depends on openness, and depends on user confidence.
And second recognition in the Council recommendation is the Internet allows people to give voice to their Democratic aspirations and any policy making associated with it must promote openness, and be grounded in respect for Human Rights and the rule of law. Thank you.
>> ALICE MUNYUA: Thank you very much, OECD. I would like to invite Igor, the Advisor to ‑‑ the Russian Advisor to the ICT Minister. Thank you.
>> IGOR MILASHEVSKY: Thank you. Thank you for inviting me. So since we are talking about Internet Governance, I would like to express that Russia and Russian Government supports the general principles of Internet Governance created by OECD, by Council of Europe and other fora. And what was our contributions on different fora and organisations was the idea that Internet Governance will define ‑‑ have the definition and multistakeholder model which is right on the approach should be deliberated.
The role and responsibility of all parties and multistakeholder should be defined, and first of all, the ‑‑
>> ALICE MUNYUA: The microphone, please.
>> IGOR MILASHEVSKY: Okay. And the Governments, since they play the common role relating to the crucial areas of economy, the issues of security and stability, critical infrastructure, prevention, detection and suppression of unlawful acts in the Internet, which means Internet security, I believe it should be considered based on the leading role of National Governments and relevant international and intergovernmental organisations.
These issues cannot be exclusive jurisdiction of the private sector and Civil Society, as on the one hand, don't meet the objectives of profit and focus on the nonprofit goal of protecting the public good.
And on the other hand, it's point to implement the functions of the goal. And the goal of Internet Governance is to create shared policies and standards that maintain the Internet global interoperability for the public good, ensuring the stability, security, and continued use of the Internet.
However, we have lack of specificity of these terms and principles, and the possible differences in the interpretation could be cause not reaching the objectives.
I think Internet Governance is a complex system, and we could treat it as a product, as a technical product, so it needs to be designed properly and I fully support the idea of creation of the framework, but at the same time, we should focus on the certain area like cybercrime prevention, like personal Data Protection and privacy. So thank you.
>> ALICE MUNYUA: Thank you very much. I would now like to invite the Council of Europe, please.
>> LEE HIBBARD: I work for the Council of Europe, an Internet Governmental organisation in Strasbourg which is based on the Human Rights, the rule of law and democracy. It has 47 Member States and that includes the Russian Federation, as has been said, the United Kingdom, Turkey, for example, and many others. Since the Council of Europe has been working in the field of Internet Governance in the WSIS days we've had this feeling there's a need to maximize the people's rights and minimize the restrictions that the Internet should be a sustainable people centered Internet and that led us apart from many other documents and standards and normative documents being produced that led us to in 2010 and '11 to set up if you like a group of experts, Government experts and independent experts including Wolfgang Kleinwächter, to come together to discuss the framing of Internet, the Internet Governance Principles.
And in 2011, the 47 Governments adopted a set of Internet Governance Principles, 10 principles and I'll mention them very shortly, but what I want to say, why those principles are important is because it helps the Member States, it helps us in our work to frame our understanding of things like Internet freedom, crossborder flow of Internet traffic all the emerging issues we're discussing here now in the IGF, it helps us to make sense and frame it and contextualize it in a way. So if you like it provides the house for Internet Governance discussions in the Council of Europe. It's a big part of the strategy that was adopted by the Member States in 2012 to 2015. And it's the frame for this. It's important to give a contextualization of what we do for Human Rights and democracy. Those 10 principles I'll be very quick, number one, Human Rights democracy rule of law as the number one principle to respect and maintain. 2, multistakeholder governance arrangements, making sure there is equal and full participation of all stakeholders, very, very important.
Three, the states refrain from doing harm to the Internet across borders.
4, empowering users and that's led us to do work on a draft guide on Human Rights for Internet users which we'll discuss at the end of the week. 5, universal access and unimpeded flow of traffic, very important. 6, something like cybersecurity, security, stability and robustness of the Internet for an Internet which is on going and has integrity. 7, decentralization of the day‑to‑day management. We all know what that means. Which includes accountability and transparency which is buzzwords of the day now.
8, open standards. 9, an open network to allow for the greatest possible choice of access, contents and services and 10 cultural and linguistic diversity. I'm very proud of those principles. They're as valid ‑‑ they were as valid in 2011 as they are in 2012. And '13 and I'm sure until for a few more years to come.
I hope ‑‑ when I look at the other principles which exist, the ones you were mentioning and others, I find a lot of those principles already in those texts and I find it a very strong core text of principles to move forward with as in terms of a Framework of Commitments which Wolfgang has mentioned. It's part of our own mandate of the Council of Europe, it's part of the Internet Governance strategy so I thank you very much.
>> WOLFGANG KLEINWACHTER: Thank you, Lee. And fortunately, Mr. Fonseca Benedicto from Brazil is now here, so you know probably everybody knows that the Brazilians have started also their own set of principles, 10 principles, drafted by the CGI.br which are now transformed into a law democracy under Brazilian legislation, so I think this is an important National initiative for principles which have also international dimension in particular with regard to the forthcoming Internet Summit in Brazil, so if somebody from Brazil is in the room and wants to make a statement later, it's more than welcome.
Fortunately, we have somebody here from the Foreign Office. David who was in Seoul, because last weekend in Seoul there was another Internet conference where a set of principles was drafted, as was initiated by the foreign Minister Mr. Hague two years ago in London the so‑called London process and perhaps you could, David, give us a very brief information about what is the set of principles you are moving forward with in the so‑called London process.
>> DAVID WILES: Thank you very much. I'm Dan Wiles from the U.K. Foreign Office, the International Cyber Policy unit. Unfortunately I wasn't in Seoul, and the team that was in Seoul claimed to be so jet lagged they haven't yet produced a formal record for me to refer to, so anyone who was in Seoul may want to correct me but I'm happy to try and address the sort of main outcomes that we see of the Seoul Conference on cyberspace.
As the British Foreign Secretary said in his speech in Seoul, we have taken strides towards agreeing principles that conform the basis of widely accepted norms for behavior in cyberspace. Nevertheless we still have not reached agreement on international rulings of the road or set of standards of behavior so I think he was sort of saying we've come quite far but there's still work to be done as we're all gathered here today. We can see. The Chairman of the Seoul Conference in summing up also added that differences of emphasis remain on how we reconcile and accommodate differing National legal practices ‑‑ policies and processes. He also talked about building on a document that was one of the outputs from Seoul which is the Seoul framework for and commitment to open and secure cyberspace. So this was the document in Seoul which tried to pull together manufacture the principles that have been discussed this morning from the OECD, from the Council of Europe into one document, whereby I think we see the Seoul Conference in its proceeding Conference on Cyberspace as a contribution to what Wolfgang described as the globalization of these principles really because when these principles have been adopted in different international fora, the membership may differ across those fora.
So having the 87 countries that were in Seoul kind of sign up to this Seoul Framework we think is very important.
Should also mention that the U.K. at the Seoul Conference shared a document which we called Next Steps, where we tried to sort of summarize the steps that the international community is expecting to take over the coming months in various areas of cyberspace, economic growth, and social development, cybersecurity, et cetera.
That next steps document actually talked about the work of the IGF and this group to try and pull together the principles, so I think that goes to show you how much we kind of, for the U.K. value the work that been carried out. It also referred to the common wealth cyberspace policy framework adopted in Abuja this month and it also talked about the work of the Human Rights Council that's happened so far but the need to embed further Human Rights principles into National laws and policies.
>> WOLFGANG KLEINWACHTER: Thank you very much. So that means we heard now from four Governmental institutions and networks, what the governments are doing, but at the same time there's non‑governmental actors, very important in the multistakeholder model have drafted a principle.
So already in I think the second IGF, the Dynamic Coalition of the IGF on Rights and Principles was established, and they have worked on a document which is now also ready and the gentleman from Finland a member of this group will give us a short overview about this document.
>> T. TARVAINEN: Thank you, Chair. Now I present the Dynamic Coalition of Internet Rights and Principles and trying to talk a little about our document, the Charter of Human Rights and Principles for the Internet. Like to tell a little anecdote as a backgrounder here. In 1985, I with was in UNESCO organised conference, Freedom of Expression in Cyberspace in Paris. At the end of this meeting, it was proposed to publish a joint statement basically saying just that Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights also applies in the cyberspace.
That was rejected, because representative of a Government that this is way too radical for him to sign without the specific approval from his Government. Now against this background, when the IGF was started, a few people got the idea that it should be perfect Forum for promoting Human Rights in the Internet, and indeed, making the Human Rights the very basis of Internet Governance.
And after some hassling around with different Coalitions, one outcome was our Coalition for Internet Rights and Principles. One of the longest surviving Dynamic Coalitions still going strong and one of the few that have actually produced something concrete.
The idea was to produce a reference document to support Human Rights in the Internet. Within a surprisingly short time, a few years, we managed to come up with something I think always very useful in this, Charter of Human Rights principles in the Internet. It's intended to be, to provide recognizable framework anchored in international Human Rights. As a shared reference point for dialogue and cooperation between different stakeholder groups and their priorities, an authoritative document for framing policy decisions and emerging rights based norms for the online environment.
And a policy making and advocacy tools for Governments, businesses and Civil Society groups alike, at all levels of Internet Governance. It has actually already accomplished a few of these goals, it has been referred to and used by a number of other documents, including several of the 25 similar declarations of principles the Chair mentioned in the beginning.
The Charter has 21 clauses which I will not read here. You will find them online. But we came up with a list of 10 broad principles that summarize what it's about. Universality, accessibility, neutrality, freedom of expression, life, liberty and security, privacy, diversity, standards and regulation and governance.
This of course a live document, still undergoing changes. Now we're in version 1.1, but it's still very much already a very useful, usable, complete document. Thank you.
>> WOLFGANG KLEINWACHTER: Thank you, Tapani. This was the Dynamic Coalition on Internet Rights and Principles where Civil Society plays a certain role but it's not only partner in Civil Society but the Association for Progressive Communication is a policable society organisation and they have already adopted a set of principles, I think it was 4 or 5 years ago, Anriette. Can you give us a short overview about the status of your document?
>> ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Thank you very much, Wolfgang. The first APC Internet Rights Charter was released in 2001 and we updated it in 2006 for the first IGF. It has 7 themes: Internet for all, freedom of expression and association, access to knowledge, shared learning and creation, privacy surveillance and encryption, governance of the Internet and awareness protection and realization of rights.
We have not updated this. Instead, we chose to collaborate with the IRP Coalition in developing its Charter, but we are now actually starting a phase of working with it again, and I think that's partly a point that probably has been made already, and that for a community of people or organisations to work together, it can be a powerful tool to have their own set of principles. It doesn't mean that those principles can't overlap or have commonality with others.
Just areas that we've been working in recently and that we are planning to work in is, we've started working on more in‑depth analysis of specific areas, such as freedom of association and freedom of expression. And the work that's been done by the Human Rights community is really enriching this at the Human Rights Council and the Human Rights Committee, and there are interpretive statements now available within the Human Rights framework on how these existing rights play on the Internet which we can draw on.
We've participated with others on principles related to the application of Human Rights, to communications surveillance. So with a group of Civil Society organisations, many who are here, there's now a set of principles called Necessary and Proportionate, which goes into quite a lot of detail.
We are starting research now looking at economic, social, and cultural rights, and looking at how these can be applied, and what principles can be extracted. For example, we're going to look at the DNS system from a cultural diversity rights perspective. And then I think the area that we are really excited about and we think it's a collaboration that the IGF can really facilitate, is looking at Human Rights and Internet protocols.
In fact, a paper which has been co‑authored by many looks at that because we believe that there is in these values of openness that have been so entrenched in Internet development and that are really revered by the technical community, there's an opportunity for collaboration with the Human Rights community.
And I think ‑‑ so that's the work that's been done. I just want to make a few remarks. I think we are at a moment now when it is not necessary for people to abandon their own work on Internet Governance Principles, but for the IGF to be a place where we come together, and agree on certain core principles for Internet Governance. I think it's a way of measuring and recording our work. It will enhance the IGF status and influence, and it can also create a framework where we can come together and measure the extent to whether ‑‑ do those principles work? And are people respecting them?
I think beyond that, a lot of detailed work needs to be done. I think as Igor said, the specificity is actually quite important. We find that there's a lot of reference to Human Rights. Everyone mentions Human Rights. But you could have, for example, the African Union cybercrime Convention that's being developed now mentions Human Rights, but it also proposes criminalization of any blasphemous speech so there's a lot of complexity there, and I think we shouldn't pretend that just having a set of broadly agreed multistakeholder IGF principles is the end of the road.
There will be discussion and there will be debate, but I think that's positive. So I look forward to this next phase of the IGF playing this role of establishing consensus, identifying divergence, and facilitating debate.
>> WOLFGANG KLEINWACHTER: I think facilitating the debate is indeed the realistic objective for the next steps. But all this is underpinned by the technical infrastructure, and the other organisations have formed now their own group. And I'm very happy that Lynn St. Amour, the President of ISOC, is here, and it would be good to get a perspective from the technical community. Lynn.
>> LYNN ST. AMOUR: Thank you, Wolfgang. Before I start, I would just like to say a strong plus‑one to Anriette's comments, which means just great support. Specifically, these principles were developed to address the standards activities. They are not a broad set of principles that the Internet organisations actually drives for all of our both policy and development activities.
In fact, it came out of a discussion between the IEEE, the IETF, the IAB and ISOC and it was basically to having recognized that there was a new paradigm for how standards were set in the world, wanting to document that. That was obviously to show a new model, in contrast to some of the more Governmental models that exist.
Specifically, the introduction says, it was to establish a global community that stands together in support of modern paradigm for standards, which is an open, collective movement to radically improve the way people around the globe develop, deploy and embrace technologies for the benefit of humanity.
There's five kind of I guess usual categories for standards work. The first one is cooperation, which basically just looks for respectful cooperation, specifically between standards organisations, each respecting the autonomy, integrity, processes and intellectual property of the other organisations.
The second principle is adherence to principles. I won't go into them. Quickly it's due process, broad consensus, transparency, balance, and openness. I think we're all fairly familiar with those specific comments.
The third is on collective empowerment. Which is actually looking for a commitment by those standards organisations that affirm these principles to strive for standards that are chosen and defined based on technical merit, as judged by the individual expertise of each participant, that they provide global interoperability, scalability, stability, resiliency. That they enable global competition, serve as building blocks for furthers innovation and contribute to the creation of global communities.
The fourth was availability, made accessible to all for implementation and deployment. And that is also where they address some of the intellectual property terms, as well. And the fifth was voluntary adoptions, which is a really strong principle, that standards are voluntarily adopted and success is determined by the market.
Underlying a lot of these principles of course are a lot of the values that we hear about in a lot of the other statements in the realm of Human Rights and freedom of expression but given this was particularly focused on the standards world, they're not called out specifically at the top level.
So again, this wasn't meant to be the ISTAR Organisation's set of principles. It was specifically to address a standards paradigm and I think I was here probably to complete the table.
>> WOLFGANG KLEINWACHTER: Thank you, Lynn. It was very helpful, and let's say the final, but not the less ‑‑ very important stakeholders to private sector, and the private sector has established just a couple of years ago the Global Network Initiative, and they came up also with the set of principles. Max Senges, who is from Google Germany, is a partner of this Global Network Initiative. Max, can you give us a little bit the perspective of the private sector?
>> MAX SENGERS: With pleasure. Thank you for inviting us, and good morning, everyone. Let me start by making a slight differentiation between the different principles that we are talking about that I think is important when we go into thinking about consultation and coming up with a common theme, and that is that most of them are based in content on Human Rights, but then we're talking in the title of this session about Internet Governance Principles. That means Policy‑making Principles, and then about principles that are more about the Internet itself and the functionality that it should have, so the aim of these principles.
And the Global Network Initiative covers both of these, but has as Wolfgang pointed out limited application. In this case it's freedom of expression and privacy, and then processes that support accountability and good practice in that area in order to generate trust and a good climate for cooperation and multistakeholder Governments.
So when I go into the substance and the purpose of the Global Network Initiative, it is in fact to protect and advance freedom of expression and privacy in Information and Communication Technologies. The actual contribution and innovation I would say that the GNI does is it defines these principles and implementation guidelines for companies who receive Government requests affecting free expression and privacy, but it then also backs them up with a set of independent assessment process that verifies companies are meeting these commitments and then of course it is also a platform for interested stakeholders and participants to learn and engage in policy making.
Now, when it comes to the content of the principles, I think multistakeholder governance is very important to the organisation itself. And the Board includes all stakeholders, but Governments in this particular case, as Wolfgang pointed out. It actually doesn't modify the goals and principles of the Human Rights Declaration itself. It just says that freedom of expression and the right to privacy should be enshrined in the online world, as well, but then adds pieces about responsible company decision‑making, which is, of course, important to generate the right mindset and cooperation in the private sector community.
It encourages multistakeholder collaboration, not just enhanced cooperation, but collaboration, which I understand is one of the goals of this effort here, to have different actors work together, collaborate. And then, of course, it's about governance, accountability, and transparency, all very timely principles for taking this discussion forward.
>> WOLFGANG KLEINWACHTER: Okay. Thank you, thank you, Max. So here we have now 8 different projects, four from Governmental, four from non‑governmental organisations and the questions for the rest of the session is indeed, what we are doing with this. Do we just move or continue to move as in our silos? Or do we build bridges among the various projects and groups.
Though it's up to the floor now to make comments, to make proposals what we can do in the future and I have a very ‑‑ please.
>> Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My name is Ranesh and I'm a member of the Chinese Delegation representing the Foreign Ministry of China.
I understand that we have interpretation, so I will make my statement in my mother tongue, which happens to be one of the 6 official languages of the UN.
Mr. Chairman, Mr. Chairman, our Delegation listened to the presentations in the morning very carefully on the very important issue that is the principles of Internet Governance.
>> WOLFGANG KLEINWACHTER: This doesn't work at this moment. And so that means we cannot understand what you are saying.
There's no reason for an apology because we have multilingual world. And my count is that the largest Internet population in the world comes from China so that means you have a right to speak in Chinese. On the other hand we do not have the ability to understand it and we have to find a way that we get your message. Thank you.
>> Ranesh: I'll continue my remarks. We are talking about a very important theme, Internet Governance. The Internet Governance is now developing very quickly, and Internet Governance is a very important issue that marks this development. As to the principles of Internet Governance, there is one thing we must clarify. When we talk about the principles, what are the goals we want to achieve?
Since Monday, on Monday, we took part in the High Level Meeting at the Ministerial level, and yesterday, we listened to the senior officials, the Governmental Ministers, the Civil Society, and the NGOs.
There is one principle which is recognized by all. So that is, we should be clear about the goal of the Internet Governance. That is the promotion of the international peace. The promotion of the development and the Sustainable Development of the world. Enhance the understanding between different people and the mutually beneficial cooperation between different peoples. And therefore, when we talk about the governance principles, we cannot miss the most important principle, while focusing on the very specific issue. So otherwise, we might miss the direction for the future development. If we want to discuss the specific things, I think we should focus on some of the specific things such as the cybercrime.
For another example, how to share equally the Internet resources. For another example, the stability and security of the Internet. How to promote the confidence of the general public on the credibility of the Internet. I think these are the important issues open to discussion.
I notice in the morning it has been mentioned several times how the Internet can promote Human Rights, the freedom of expression. We fully agree to this, which is indeed very important. We also agree that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the principles, the universal principles, and all the items and principles, they're all very important.
I happened to be engaged in some multilateral cooperation on Human Rights. And I know that in 1948, the Human Rights Declaration was first published, and in 1966, two covenants regarding the Human Rights were also adopted. I understand there are two types of Human Rights. One is the civil and political rights, and the other is the economic, social, and cultural rights.
In 1986, the United Nations adopted another important Declaration on the right to development. And in 1993, in Vienna, the Action Plan was also adopted. So what I want to say is that while we talk about Human Rights, we should take kind of a balanced approach rather than focusing on one specific issue.
I am from a developing country. For people in developing countries, the right to subsistence is of paramount importance, the right to development is also crucial. So in the Internet world, cyber world, the right to access is very important.
I sincerely hope that in the discussion we can discuss all the aspects related to Human Rights. On the basis of this, we can have a kind of a balanced principle, but we're happy to see that we have already started discussing the important Internet principles. We hope that we can work together with all the nations and all the communities in order that we can find some principles with vision. It's kind of a guiding principles in the long term. Thank you.
>> WOLFGANG KLEINWACHTER: I think the Chinese perspective is extremely important if we want really to have a globalized and multistakeholderized umbrella, framework of commitment or something like that. And what I see also from your intervention and the previous interventions is that we see regardless of the differences, we have some groups of principles. One is related to the social economic rights, development what you said as are more to the civil political rights, others to the technical functioning of the Internet as to the economic dimension so what I see from the discussion so far that some baskets are emerging with some very individual issues belonging to the basket and this could help us move forward so that we have a structure and that we can work within the various baskets to find out where we have the consensus among 193 Governments, and among the Governments, the private sector, the Civil Society, and the technical community.
This is a tremendous challenge to do this, but I think the IGF is the only platform in the world who provides a space that we can have such a discussion. The General Assembly of the United Nations has not this multistakeholder model, but the IGF has it, and insofar the IGF is a much better place to do it and the only place. And I'm very happy that I have identified now a person from Brazil, Carlos Afonso, who is a member of the CGI.br Steering Committee, and that he can give us just a very brief overview about the status of the 10 principles, the famous 10 principles from Brazil. Carlos.
>> CARLOS AFONSO: Good morning, everyone. I am a member of the CGI.br representing Civil Society organisations and I am one of the two early drafters of the principles but I don't have the 10 principles in my head in the table. I know what they mean. I know what they are. But I can't quote to you all the things precisely. But I know all of them.
So what was this process which I think is the most important thing in a pluralist or a pluri‑participative environment?
You know that CGI.br since 2003 has its non‑governmental members elected by their own interest groups. Private sector elects their members, Civil Society elects their members, and the technical academic Sector also elects their members. You do have the principles here. Great. Thank you.
And we started the idea of the 10 principles for two reasons. The first was especially to orient us, CGI.br, in our work as a sort of reference regarding the development of the Internet and the country. And we have been called by several sectors and instances, nationally and internationally to talk about what we thought regarding certain proposals especially several bills of law that circulate in Congress, and which some of them are really amazing. There's people that never heard about the Internet are proposing views of law still today that are simply impossible.
And the idea was to sort of have a booklet for orientation regarding things that you should take into account before proposing anything regarding rules, regulations, or laws which would affect either the network itself or the Internet as a whole.
So we started this at the beginning of 2007, the discussion, and the idea was to have the proposal approved by consensus, not voting, to make sure that all sectors agreed to it. And this took us two years of going back and forth, and the principles were born as 15 principles, and we tried to reduce. Then they became 7 and then 12 and finally we managed to have the 10 principles, which you know quite well because they are available in several places.
Then we managed to have the signature of the representatives of the private sector especially because one of the topics is net neutrality, which is the topic which the President of the United Nations expressed exactly as it is in Principle Number 6. And the transnational corporations which operate the telecommunication service in Brazil do not ‑‑ did not want that principle to be used in the civil framework for the Internet that has been proposed as a Bill of law, because it affects their business models, and they don't want it to be, say, interfering with that.
This Marco Civil ‑‑ sorry, this list of principles from CGI.br was the seed for the Marco Civil proposal, the framework for Civil Rights, and this process of building the civil rights ‑‑ the civil framework proposal started at the end of 2009 on the basis of these 10 principles. It was more than a public consultation, was a public debate in a portal called e‑Democracy in which we were able, every Sector, every individual that wanted to have his or her opinion expressed could put their opinion on those ‑‑ the details of the Civil Rights framework.
And this was built until 2011, so it took at least two years to be built, and finally at the end of 2012, we managed to get it into Congress as a consensus of society. That was the way it was built. And now it's going through Congress, and in Congress of course those interests of the telcos, of the big media, are represented and are lobbying heavily to change certain aspects of the Civil Rights framework to their interests. One of them is net neutrality. The other is the accountability of intermediaries which is very serious, and respect for privacy.
And especially the big media is campaigning to make sure that they are able to take down sites which host what they say is a violation of intellectual property rights, without a dual legal process. They want an exception when the case is a violation of intellectual property rights, and we of course don't want that. This should not be in the Civil Rights framework.
And the President herself said that she doesn't want that either. So these are ‑‑ the Civil Rights is going through Congress now in a process which is a fast‑track process. It should in a few weeks be decided by Congress, and we are very afraid, very concerned that the pressure of these big lobbies might change certain aspects of the Civil Rights framework, and especially these three points that I have mentioned.
So we are, you know, saying that this is a very important victory for Brazil to have this multistakeholder structure operating within Brazil, and since 1995 especially since 2003, and we are saying that we would like very much for all the countries to consider similar structures in the governance of the Internet within their countries.
And we would like to show to the world a Civil Rights framework according to the wishes by consensus of the citizenship of Brazil. We are not sure we'll be able to do that. In a few weeks, we'll know but we hope we'll be able to do it.
This is it basically. Thank you.
>> WOLFGANG KLEINWACHTER: Thank you, Carlos and I think this is a wonderful example that it shows that the multistakeholder process is a very complicated one. This is really not easy but if you have the good will from all sides it's possible to do it because all parties ‑‑ the Government, private sector, Civil Society, technical community, have some common interests, that the Internet works, that it's free, that it's open so this is the general framework where regardless of all the differences and the specifics which produced and divide among various groups can be put for the side for the moment and we agree on common principles so that we can have something like reference where everybody say okay, this is our home within the framework but in a home we all know this, you have all the conflicts so that means if we are moving towards consensus this does not mean we have the conflict free world so the world will be free of conflict but it's very helpful if you have such a framework, guideline, we have an orientation and can say this is where all sides commit and what Carlos has just said, try to avoid voting and are looking for consensus. This makes it indeed more complicated but more sustainable so that means the multistakeholder process is more complex than the one stakeholder process, we should be aware of this. But the quality of the outcome of the multistakeholder process is much higher than the outcome of a one stakeholder process.
So we have around 20 minutes left so we'll use the rest of the time to discuss how to move forward, and what we can do now from after Bali, going to the next IGF or going to the Brazil meeting and the next IGF, the WSIS 10‑plus, probably somewhere else and please I have one, two, three, four, five ‑‑ oh, okay.
Okay, and other remote participants here, be very brief. I think the first speaker was there. Okay, and please be very brief.
>> O. MADRUGA FORTI: Thank you, Wolfgang. This is just a marvelous exercise in comparing the various principles that have been worked on around the world. I am Olga Madruga Forti from the ICANN Board but just as a platform for how to progress the dialogue at a more homogeneous international level given all these individual exercises my first question to any member of the panel is: Is there any doubt that Articles 19 and 20 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights apply to the Internet space? And if the answer to that is that there is no doubt, then really, what areas beyond that should we be concentrating on that require any further development? Thank you.
>> WOLFGANG KLEINWACHTER: Thank you, good question. Introduce yourself. We need a microphone. Probably in the meantime, Paul, are there some questions from remote participation.
>> I am from Indonesian ICT society. I am a little bit new in this discussion because this is my first time to join the IGF conference. But when I listened from yesterday when we are talking about the Internet principles, what I can see from various associations, from the various presentations that I can find that actually there is no difference between the one Internet to another concepts.
For instance, when I look into what the OECD has, we for instance, OECD is stressing access to knowledge, digital culture, privacy and freedom of expression, and while it is for democracy and freedom of speech, I think from my perspective of view, when we go into the common understanding, there is not difference one from the other. Why don't we agree that we stop in the general understanding. Let's go to the respective countries. For instance when we're talking about freedom of expression, freedom of speech, maybe for the European countries, U.S. for instance, it will be different with freedom of speech here in Indonesia, in China and also in India.
I think when we go to this, we cannot find what is it, the common understanding. That is what I am thinking actually. Thank you.
>> WOLFGANG KLEINWACHTER: Thank you. Paul, do we have remote questions?
>> PAUL FEHRLINGER: Yes, there are remote participants from Mexico and Nigeria and many questions circulating on Twitter. We can summarize them in two blocks. The first question block is: Is there a number of how many principles do actually exist? And how is it possible for all stakeholders especially Governments to adopted and respect all those different principles?
And the second question is more related to the interpretation implementation so how is it possible to implement and interpret those principles? How does this articulate?
>> WOLFGANG KLEINWACHTER: Okay, so I give this question to the final round when I ask all panelists to make a final statement. Let's take three or four more questions now from the floor.
Okay, one, two, three.
>> S. CHATURVEDI: Thank you, Chair. My name is Subi Chaturvedi and I teach communication technology in a women's college in India. There are a lot of questions we ask and we pose. I think it's a fantastic exercise and thank you for differentiating between Internet principles and Internet Governance Principles. I think that is a very important distinction that we need to make. It is an important concern and a question from the Indian perspective because we know that the internet is something that Governments increasingly are adopting and adapting themselves to. It's been a slow learning curve. For us it is extremely important and crucial because when we make new laws and when we make new policies and when we talk about upholding Human Rights, a lot of times marginalized communities get to bear the brunt of backhand regulation because they're the ones who are being cherished and protected.
There are two young girls who just have gone to jail because they updated their Facebook status and these are important concerns because this was a law that was going to help the society protect them from spam. Now in terms of policy, and in terms of acting principles, is there some way, I want to reiterate, the importance of consultation because this is Public Policy for public good. Can we reemphasize that in the principles? And I want to also echo the question that there are many principles. Can we come together for a consensus to about 10 broad based agreed principles that countries across the world and Governments across the world even with different needs from democracies and emerging countries and economies can agree to and correspond with?
>> WOLFGANG KLEINWACHTER: This is exactly the point we want to achieve in this session so that the outcome in 10 minutes will be that we have a recommendation that the various groups should look for such a broad based 10 principle document or whatever.
We are under pressure of time now so that means we have two more interventions. This is the last intervention, and then we go back to the panelists for the final comment.
>> Thank you for giving me the floor. I'm Liana from ISOC Armenia and I would like to represent the principles which Armenia exercise and wants to exercise regarding IGF and I want to say that Armenia is a country of challenges in the development of telecommunication and IT. Yet it has a success story of collaboration of the Government with the private and public sector.
And Armenia wants ‑‑ started a process of establishing a permanent National IGF body, implementing a multistakeholder model with involvement of NGOs, private sectors and with minimal involvement of Government. This is planned to be implemented in 2014.
According to the initial plan, the Secretariat for this body will be the ISOC Armenia which works on transparent and public basis and to say the principle in short as follows: Providing people with Internet access to create favorable conditions to reduce the Domain Names as well as support local hosting. Support distribution of IPv6 and DNSSEC. Human Rights in Internet. Privacy protection and identification. Diversity traffic routing, security, and network neutrality. These are the principles which were discussed in this table and many countries support these principles. Thank you.
>> WOLFGANG KLEINWACHTER: Thank you very much, and nor bet.
>> NORBERT BOLLOW: Norbert Bollow. I'm with Swiss Open Systems User Group. I wanted to quickly address this idea and need of consolidating the various statement of principles and it occurred to me the focus on the right to development as was suggested might help with that because that is sort of a cross‑cutting concern. It's not something that can be put into any basket but we could look at all those sets of principles and say, what do we need to actually achieve Sustainable Development? What do we need to make the Internet help us achieve that goal? Thank you.
>> WOLFGANG KLEINWACHTER: Thank you very much, and Sustainable Development is the main theme for this IGF. You have the final question, and then we'll go back to the panel.
>> I'm from Nigeria, but I speak for myself. I have two questions. What would be the implication when our nations do not ratify the core Internet principles? Because currently you notice that the Human Rights violations are caused in many nations and not happening to such nations from the UN.
My second question: With more understanding of multistakeholder, what platform shall we use to have participatory democracy and elect representations? Thank you.
>> WOLFGANG KLEINWACHTER: Thank you. Very big questions, and we'll take it as an IGF to answer all these questions in detail. One thing is for sure that the IGF offers this multistakeholder platform and if you bring it down to the National level and create National platforms like in Brazil, like now Armenia, in Germany we have also started to create a multistakeholder Internet Governance platform at home.
And as Markus Kummer always said good Internet Governance starts at home. It means to start on the National level, it's very useful and to use the multistakeholder model which we exercise here in the IGF, and bring back home. I think this is a good idea.
So my final question now to the panelists is: Okay, what we have seen is the broad variety of different principles, different instruments, different stakeholders who have expressed their wish and have translated into realities a set of principles. There was a wish on the other hand now to bring this into a main set of principles which is universal, globalized multistakeholder.
And my questions to the original panelists is: What would be the willingness or the approach of your organisation? Would you think this is a good way forward to undertake the effort to come together under the umbrella of the IGF or link to the IGF, probably using the platform of the Dynamic Coalition, and to try to globalize and multistakeholderize a set of principles? And I start with Anne, and it's Anne Carblanc. There was a misspelling of her name on the nameplate and also here on the transcript.
Anne, what OECD thinks? Are you ready to move forward?
>> ANNE CARBLANC: Thank you, Wolfgang, not only for putting my name right, Carblanc, but also for reminding everybody that I'm speaking for the OECD. Yes, we last year when IGF took place in Baku, there was already the beginning of a discussion, and the OECD could see merits in trying to come together with a set of common principles.
I've heard all the very interesting interventions around the table, and I believe that the different approaches that have been presented could certainly be taken into account. You mentioned yourself a few of the common areas, and the intervention by the Chinese representative was very useful I think also to further characterize what are the groups of the principles that could be examined. So yes, we would like to contribute.
>> WOLFGANG KLEINWACHTER: Thank you very much. Lee, Council of Europe?
>> LEE HIBBARD: Thank you, Wolfgang. A simple yes. We have a mandate from our Internet Governance strategy which was adopted by the 47 Member States to develop a framework of understanding and commitments based on core values and principles of Internet Governance, to protect the Internet's university and openness as a means of safeguarding expression regarding Internet freedom so we have a mandate to do that. And the Governments are supporting that process.
I mean, when they were adopted in an intergovernmental setting the Member States they affirmed it, they declared their commitment to that international and National policy and encouraged other actors to be involved in that process so it's a big yes. And we already do that actually in our own work. We're unfolding the Internet Governance Principles into our other standards and our normative work.
>> WOLFGANG KLEINWACHTER: Okay, thank you, Lee. We're running out of time so my question goes now directly to the others and the question is only: Yes or no, would you jump into the boat? Igor, the Russian Government, would it jump into the boat and to participate in the process now to multistakeholderization and globalization of Internet principles?
>> IGOR MILASHEVSKY: We fully support the idea of globalization of these principles. And I believe that the Tunis agenda and the development might be ‑‑ of international organisations is really important. And all the efforts needs to be kind of coordinated. And I believe the IGF is really multistakeholder organisation, we could implement some mechanisms which allow the IGF to produce the principles.
And also I stress on the usual question: Can we apply the regulation existing four or five economy for Internet Society ‑‑ the Internet economy and I think that is the answer. Yes, no, it's usual approach but Internet already changed the governance. Already changed the regulation. And so we're in this process, and the best practices also is very important and we should exchange.
>> WOLFGANG KLEINWACHTER: Thank you very much. And I heard already from APC, Civil Society. Your answer is yes?
>> ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: I think the answer is yes. I think there are risks as well. I think if the principles we come up with are just lowest common denominator principles it won't be good enough and I do think common principles are good and then we can debate differences in implementation. There's one more risk sorry and that is that we agree on principles like privacy for example and then there's blatant disregard by states and by Governments of those principles with no accountability and that could also undermine this so I think yes we should do it but with a serious commitment to account and measure and debate.
>> WOLFGANG KLEINWACHTER: Lynn. Yes?
>> LYNN ST. AMOUR: Yes to moving forward and a strong yes to doing it within the IGF and I'd actually like to see straw frameworks put out and a global process that would allow quick refinements so we can move forward more concretely with the work.
>> WOLFGANG KLEINWACHTER: Thank you very much. Max, GNI.
>> MAX SENGERS: The GNI has a different and more specialized purpose and I think currently the organisation is aiming to internationalize the network and to expand across different ICT sectors so as far as I can speak for that organisation, I think we're interested to participate and learn and contribute. I'm not sure whether we can sign an agreement like that.
>> WOLFGANG KLEINWACHTER: It's not the moment for signing an agreement. It's to start the process.
>> MAX SENGERS: To participate in the discussions.
>> WOLFGANG KLEINWACHTER: Is the Dynamic Coalition ready to facilitate the process to give them institutional background and framework?
>> T. TARVAINEN: Yes for the first question and yes for the second. I think the way to move forward is set up a new mailing list for discussion, and I think I can promise it on behalf of the Coalition. We can offer it that much.
>> WOLFGANG KLEINWACHTER: Thank you very much. I think it's a clear message to our rapporteur just to summarize the conclusions from this so we have a concrete outcome. We need more outcomes from the IGF and I think this 90 minutes have produced an outcome. I'm very sorry for the next focus session that we have stolen 5 minutes, and I hand it over to our Chairman to close the session. Thank you very much.
>> Z. HASIBUAN: Now we come to the end of this session. Several issues have been discussed. I feel the atmosphere that we can embrace the spirit of Internet Governance principles, but still many questions remains unanswered, especially how we're going to implement these guiding principles to each country. Allow me as Chairman of this session, I come from Indonesia, Indonesia is so diverse, it is an Archipelagic country, 450 ethical dimension Knicks, it's not easy to implement what we call universal principles, because one another so diverse, so different, so as one of my colleagues mentioned today, that we have also to consider, to look for how the social life, cultural life of each country of each ethnic in each country.
So again I thank you, the moderators, and all the experts that participated in these sessions. With these comments I conclude this session in critical Internet resources, in Government ‑‑ sorry, in Internet Governance Principles. I thank our moderators and participants for their discussion. I call this session closed and pass the microphone to Masango in the ICT Secretariat. Thank you very much.
[ End of Session ]
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This text is being provided in a rough draft format. Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART) is provided in order to facilitate communication accessibility and may not be a totally verbatim record of the proceedings.
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