Main Session - Critical Internet Resources

Sixth Annual Meeting of the Internet Governance Forum
27 -30 September 2011
United Nations Office in Nairobi, Nairobi, Kenya

September 30, 2011 - 10:30AM

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The following is the output of the real-time captioning taken during the Sixth Meeting of the IGF, in Nairobi, Kenya. Although it is largely accurate, in some cases it may be incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors. It is posted as an aid to understanding the proceedings at the session, but should not be treated as an authoritative record.

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>>CHENGETAI MASANGO:  Good morning, ladies and gentlemen.  Welcome to the critical Internet resources main session.  Let me introduce to you the chair, John Walubengo, from AfriNIC.

 

>>JOHN WALUBENGO: Thank you, Chengetai. 

 I'll just ask those who are standing to get seated because we are already 15 minutes late.  As he said, my name is John Walubengo.  I work at Multimedia University College of Kenya.  I also sit on the AfriNIC board.  Good morning and welcome back to this session.  We want to resume, and today's session is dealing with managing critical Internet resources.

I'm looking forward to discussing these topics that have been at the heart of our dialogue at the IGF.

They have been a central part of the IGF since the beginning, and from the World Summit on Information Society.

And as a member of the Board of Directors of AfriNIC, these issues are personally important and of great interest to me.  But our discussions today will address many more issues than those that we are responsible for at AfriNIC.

During the WSIS process a few years back, the United Nations Working Group on Internet Governance described critical Internet resources as including the administration of the DNS system, the Internet Protocol addresses, administration of the root server system, technical standards, peering, and interconnection, as well as telecommunication infrastructure, including innovative and convergent technologies.

I'm aware that we have newcomers in the room and I will just probably want to talk about two of these issues.

The first one is the DNS system.  This basically means that a system that allows you to type in a human-readable name on the browser and the system is able to translate that into a unique number that computers can understand.

So that unique number is what we call Internet addresses.

We have also been considering what is the role of each stakeholder in managing these critical Internet resources and this is one of the questions that will be discussed today. 

 Our other -- our second issue is how can we promote capacity building.  These processes should be inclusive, bottom-up, and multistakeholder.  However, to achieve this model, people must have the ability to participate in a meaningful way, which takes us to the third issue, how do we evaluate accountability, transparency, and inclusiveness of the management of Internet resources.

The final issue is the one that I am personally familiar with from the AfriNIC perspective.  This is the IP addresses and the availability of IPv6 around the world, and the transition, or as other people would say, adoption of IPv6.

What are the challenges, impacts, and opportunities for developing and developed countries of this vital transition from v4 to v6.  Of course these are questions -- these questions are just a guide for our discussion and you should feel -- you should not feel limited by them.

If you have a pressing issue nonprofit to discuss just raise it with our moderators.

And with that, I would now like to introduce our two moderators, Madam Emily Taylor and William Drake, who will lead us for the rest of the session.

We also have our remote moderator, Madam Salanieta -- are you around?  Thank you. 

 -- who will introduce comments and questions from our remote participants.

Emily, Bill, and Salanieta, you now have the floor.  Thank you.

 

>>EMILY TAYLOR:  Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman and thank you also for a wonderful and comprehensive introduction to what we'll be discussing today.  Welcome, all, to the main session on critical Internet resources.

As you heard from the chairman, we're going to be focusing on four issues, but you also heard the chairman read out the definition of "critical Internet resources" and you'll have heard how wide-ranging it potentially is.

Well, in order to try to get the most value out of today's session, what we want to do is to focus on the areas which have had troubled this community and the community have found most contentious over the last however long, five, six years since the World Summit.

And that, as you, Mr. Chairman, so well pointed out, includes the naming and addressing, the coordination of it, the role of each stakeholder in that process, and how to ensure accountability and transparency, and how to build capacity.

And also, in the final part of the session, we will be looking at IPv6 transition.

So I'm now going to hand over to my colleague, Bill Drake, who will tell us about the format of today's session.

 

>>WILLIAM DRAKE:  Thank you, Emily.

We had a planning group in Geneva that worked out an approach to addressing these questions.  Obviously, four large questions with rather little time to do so means that we had to work out, in particular, a fairly rigorous time allocation.

So we're going to try to move through things fairly concisely and quickly, and yet nevertheless hopefully illuminate some of the key issues that are at stake here.

We'll pose a series of questions to the panelists, ask them for responses.  Then after we've done the questions for each of the segments, we will invite the feeder workshop representatives to present just two-minute summaries of the main points of their feeder workshops and how they relate to the topics at hand.  Then we'll go to the floor for Q&A.

The question and answer will be integrated into each of the treatment of each of the four topics, so we will do questions under each of the four, rather than holding all your questions to the end.

Of course in the question-and-answer period, it will be really important that everybody identify themselves, be very concise and to the point, and of course limit yourself to, you know, the issues at hand and not get into any ad hominem critiques of individuals and positions and things like that.  We all know how this should be done.

So that's the main point in terms of the logistics of this, and it's very likely, since we are starting late, that we will have to squeeze a bit towards the back end.  It may be that we spend less time on IPv6 than we do on the other topics, but IPv6 is a topic that has been discussed at some length in multiple CIR main sessions, and the feeling among the planning group was probably if we do have to squeeze somewhere, that's going to be where it's going to have to happen.

Let me also just point out an obvious point.  This is the IGF.  This is a space for open dialogue.  We want everybody to be very comfortable and be able to speak candidly, so I would note simply that of course for the government people that are on the panel and for the others as well, they are not necessarily stating official positions of their home institutions unless they wish to say so.  I recognize, of course, government people don't really have the great latitude to give personal opinions in a technical sense, but nevertheless they're not here to make official proclamations of government positions as well.  So that's just to be clear about that.

One other quickly logistical point.  We're told that at 12:00, the translators may or may not continue with us, depending.  I'm not sure what the parameters for that decision will be.  But just to bear in mind that there could be some drop-off in that regard.

So that's the background.  Let me just briefly introduce the panel.

Their biographies are, of course, on the Web site, so you can read the details of them.  They all have very elaborate, long histories of accomplishment, but I -- we're not going to do that here.

We have with us Shane Tews -- Ms. Shane Tews, who is the Vice President for Global Public Policy and government relations at VeriSign.

We have Ms. Anriette Esterhuysen.  She's the Executive Director of the Association for Progressive Communications based in South Africa, one of the main NGOs in this space.

We have Mr. Patrik Faltstrom.  Patrik is a distinguished engineer in the office of the CTO at Cisco Systems and a prominent person in the technical community.

We have with us Ms. Fiona Alexander.  She is the Associate Administrator and head of the office of international affairs at the National Telecommunications and Information Administration in the U.S. Department of Commerce.

We were going to have Alice Munyua, but she is the chair of this whole event so we decided that perhaps that was not the best role for her, so Alice is not with us on the panel even though it says so on the program.

We have Tulika Pandey.  Tulika is a director of the information technology at the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology with the Government of India.

And finally, we have Ms. Avri Doria.  Avri is a noted person in the Internet community.  She is a research consultant and the former chair of the GNSO Council in ICANN.

So that's our line-up, and we're looking forward to very interesting and provocative discussion with them on the main points.

So we're going to begin, then, with our first topic, which was the role of all stakeholders.

And again, bear in mind these topics were arrived at through the open consultation process that was held prior to this meeting in February and May, and the program paper that was given to us by the Secretariat.

The first question was:  What is the role of each stakeholder in managing Internet resources.  Now, of course that can be read several ways.  You can think of the role of stakeholders in terms of the division of labor between them, but of course that's a rather difficult problem.  In the working group on Internet governance six years ago, we tried to figure out how to specify the roles of the stakeholders, and found that in many cases they overlap, blur together.  It really depends on the particular issue.  So we're not really going to focus on that dimension of the question so much here, but rather a more fundamental one that I think has been the source of a lot of political concern, which is the ability of all stakeholders to participate effectively in critical Internet resources governance.  Participation is a major political concern that animates a lot of the discussions that we've had since the WSIS process around these issues, and we're going to start -- we're going to look at three different instances around this question.

We're going to start with the new gTLD program and the broader questions related to ICANN and participation in ICANN.

The new gTLD program, of course, as many people know, will be very important in the coming years, in terms of expanding the namespace substantially.  Perhaps one of the most dramatic changes in the Internet in recent times.

And we'd like to talk a bit about who participated in that process, how do people continue to participate in it going forward and so on.

So let's start with this:  I'd like to ask Avri Doria, since she was centrally involved in the development of the program, as the chair of the GNSO Council, to perhaps give us, in case everybody's not fully up to speed with all the arcane details of this, a concise summary of what the new gTLD program is about and what its expected impact is.  Avri.

 

>>AVRI DORIA:  Okay.  I actually thought I was going to be talking a little bit about the user participation in that, but the new gTLD program is basically something that has been ongoing for many years now.  It is something that was a bottom-up process from the point of the terms of reference were made public to the community, everybody commented on them.  Through the process of doing it in the GNSO, there were frequent public consultations and outreach was made broader and broader at each one.

Once those were approved as recommendations by the GNSO, the board took them.  Again, there were public consultations, consultations with the GAC -- the Governmental Advisory Committee -- consultations with the At-Large Advisory Committee, and at each step along the way, there were a lot of consultations on how it would be made possible for people to apply for new generalized TLDs for the dot coms, the dot bizs, and there are a list on the Internet showing at least 200 other names that people may or may not be applying for.

And so these will eventually, probably by the end of 2012, beginning of 2013, start to be on the Internet and accessed.

One thing that is important is, in this whole process, almost every utterance that anyone made, anything anyone said in a discussion, anything anyone wrote in an e-mail, has always been public.  It is all publicly archived.  It is -- it is -- there are recordings of just about every discussion.  Many of those have actually been transcribed.

So at every step there was an attempt made to, as broadly as possible, reach members of the community beyond the ICANN community, to get their comments, their opinions, and such, into this process.

As for predicting what the impact will be on -- of new gTLDs on the Internet, I actually don't consider myself capable of doing that.  I've seen many different people's predictions of opening up a whole new world to flattening out the naming of things, to making it clearer for people, to making it less clear for people, to helping businesses in their branding, to hurting businesses in their intellectual property defenses and their trademarking defenses.

So I've heard probably every possible opinion on what the possible effect of this will be.

What it is, though, is ICANN meeting a commitment that was placed on it when it was first formed to enlarge and broaden the gTLD namespace.  Thanks.

 

>>WILLIAM DRAKE:  Thank you, Avri.  Well, perhaps, Shane, VeriSign has a little bit of an interest in this area.  Maybe you would have a perspective to share with us about how this might impact the Internet and what we could expect in the next years.

 

>>SHANE TEWS:  Thanks, Bill.  I think what we're all waiting to see is who applies and what they plan to do with it, so there's opportunities in the new TLD space to have more control over the area that you have.  So let's say dot bank, the banking community, were to choose to have a dot bank.  You could actually have an end-to-end secured system that everybody is authenticated on the system so it would be a new level of security that doesn't exist on the legacy system.

There's also the opportunity for organizations to choose to allow their individuals to join into like a community-style dot anything and actually run the system to their advantage.

So I think we'll see a lot of innovation in the space.

As some people have noted, it's not an inexpensive endeavor to get in.  It's $185,000 just to put your application in the process.  And then you need to show that you have the capability of actually running a positive functioning system, because we do live in an ecosystem that everybody is connected so we want to make sure that people that get on know what they're doing.

But I think -- I think we were talking about this last night -- 106 days to go for the application process, and there's a lot of us in the room that if anybody has a real interest, we'd be happy to go into this a lot further.

 

>>WILLIAM DRAKE: Thank you, Shane.  You mentioned the application fee and it's a point I want to come back to, but -- and the participation issue more generally, but first, Patrik, you had a thought?

 

>>PATRIK FALTSTROM:  Yes.  I think, first of all, we need to remember where we are in the process, and we are just a few -- a hundred days and a few more, as we heard -- before the applications are to be sent in.  Which means that any discussion we have on this specific itself ends up being a little bit heated and of course influenced by the views of what each individual has on this application process.

So at the moment, I think it's a little bit difficult to have a really good generic discussion on ICANN participation, for example, but I think we should try.

Now, I think there are specifically three different main issues that we have to remember which have to do with participation. 

 The first one is transparency, and as I -- and Avri already explained how transparent it is.  You can access all of the data.  You can participate.

The second thing is that unfortunately whenever we have discussions, we need to be -- there are some people that always will be part of a, will you say --

 

>>EMILY TAYLOR: Sorry to interrupt you, Patrik.  Just got a request from the remote participants to say could the speakers just speak a little more slowly. 

 Also, the acoustics in this room are very difficult, probably, for everybody, so I think that would help people in the room as well.

 

>>PATRIK FALTSTROM:  Thank you, Emily.  Normally, I am not -- people don't say that I speak too fast, but maybe I'm too interested in this.  Let me be specific.

 

>>SHANE TEWS:  I think that was my fault.

 

>>PATRIK FALTSTROM:  We have to discuss transparency.  Avri explained that ICANN is completely transparent, which I completely agree with.

Second thing, there will always -- in processes like ICANN when you have to make decisions, there will be people and wishes which will be on the rough part of rough consensus.

It's also the case that when being transparent in a process like ICANN means that you have lots of data, lots of discussions.  It's very difficult to participate in a completely transparent process, so there might be a lack of tools.  Lack of tools doesn't imply that we don't have transparent.  So if we have to move forward, we have to be more specific.  Okay.  So my personal view here.  I think and I know and other people know that I have been in the rough part of some of the decisions ICANN has made.  But even though that is the case, I still think personally ICANN could have done a little bit more harder work of actually making even more difficult to some people.  I think they have been too nice.

And the second thing is, yes, we do need more tools, but I don't see any problem with participation, I don't see any problem with transparency.

 

>>WILLIAM DRAKE:  Thank you, Patrik.

Both Patrik and Avri have mentioned the transparency and the fact that everything was documented, open, and everybody can participate, but sometimes there's a difference between what's the formal rule set and what's the informal reality, and a difference between how do people inside a process perceive it and how do people outside a process perceive it.

And I'm sure we've all noted that in the press and elsewhere, there have been people who have sort of greeted the news of the new gTLD program with a sort of, "Well, who did this?  Who were the people involved?" 

 You know, you can even read people saying, "It sounds like there was some small little cabal that went off and did this thing in the dead of night and, you know, we weren't all involved and this is potentially problematic."  There are people sometimes who have that perception.  There are also, I think, in the view of some people I've talked to from developing country governments a sense that they did not have enough opportunity to participate effectively in the process.

So I wonder if we could discuss just briefly who re- -- who really were the most active players, who were not deeply -- who was not deeply involved in the process, and perhaps might have wanted to be, and what might have been barriers that kept them from being more deeply involved.

Does anybody on the panel have any thoughts about those kinds of issues?  Anriette and Tulika.

 

>>TULIKA PANDEY: Thank you, Bill. I come from India, a multilingual country and, therefore, multiple scripts.  The gTLD namespace that has been launched is a very vast canvas for our country.

We also understand that you have included the IDN gTLDs when you have opened the gTLD space, ICANN has opened the gTLD space. 

 The gTLD space opening has now brought in a complete paradigm shift.

We could do with one domain name for an institution or a trademark or a public service unit, but today we can do it in multiple languages and have domain names within the domestic namespace of the country called top-level ccTLDs or called gTLDs.  Implications are vast, and if we look at what it would mean for many of the institutions who are not so well placed in terms of being able to pay for the gTLD domain that they seek from ICANN in its current form that is available, what is not very clear to many of us is would there be options for us to attain the gTLDs or the public sector TLDs, gTLDs, that are very sensitive to an institution, to a country, or to a community.

Whether we would be able to get those domain names from ICANN in the new gTLD namespace.  And I leave with this question here.

 

>>WILLIAM DRAKE:  Thank you, Tulika.  Anriette?

 

>>ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN:  Thank you, Bill.  I think my comment is similar.  I think -- I think participation -- there's participation for those who know that -- (audio cutting in and out) -- doing a good job, but then there's the participation of those who should be participating but they're not aware of the processes or the implications.

And to add to Tulika's question, how will this be managed?  For example, domain names of special interests or national interests.  And at the southern African IGF, in preparation for this event, we were discussing the gTLDs and so someone said, "So can everyone register dot zulu," which is one of the largest common languages in our country.  And the answer is, "Yes." 

 And people were very alarmed.  People who are involved in localization of languages on the Internet and trying to strengthen the presence of African languages on the Internet were not aware that there was both this opportunity, on the one hand, but on the other hand, also a threat, because they've got no idea how they're going to access that process.  And when they find out how much it costs and the complexity involved, they respond with alarm.

So it's not an easy process, and I am curious about how these potential conflicts are going to be dealt with by ICANN in the next few years.

 

>>WILLIAM DRAKE:  Okay.  Thank you.  Well, clearly there are outreach issues here.  We should talk a little bit about what special provisions have been made for developing countries with regard to the pricing structure and I'll turn to Avri for that, and if, Fiona, you have anything you want to add, please signal to me.  Avri?

 

>>AVRI DORIA:  Yeah.  I -- thank you, Bill.

I want to respond to a couple of the issues.

Certainly the GNSO, the name supporting organization that was responsible for creating this -- the recommendation for this policy, was aware that outreach would be an issue, and among the things they tried to build into their recommendation was asking ICANN to do as much of a global outreach in the months and years before it happened, and so -- but of course no outreach is ever complete.

In terms of reaching to people, there was a constant approach to the governments telling them about it, giving them the progress, asking them to participate.

In terms of the fee, that has been an issue that was brought up both by the governments and by the at-large groups.  And the at-large groups are basically citizen groups from around the world that participate in an organization called "at-large" that have basically been requesting lower fees, been requesting fee reductions, been requesting -- and in the last year, there has been an ongoing effort that has received at least some degree of support from the ICANN board -- we're still insecure in our knowledge of exactly how much support -- to actually lower the fees radically for applicants from developing economies.

So on that one, it's still a "stay tuned and see whether the board does actually approve the recommendations we made," but the recommendations would lower the price, for example, from 185 to 47.

So that hasn't been approved yet.  It isn't the case yet.  But that's certainly the recommendation that this group, a multistakeholder group, has been working on.

In terms of names of geographies, names of communities, names of peoples, the GNSO actually also anticipated much of this and felt at the time that it was impossible to make a complete list of all the words that would be sensitive to somebody, of all the names of places, peoples, languages, that would be sensitive to people.

And so basically created a number of methods by which a community could object, could say, "This harms our community.  If you give this to someone who isn't of our community, this harms us."  That raises a flag.  There then are various, you know, panels that will review these for bona fide status of those.

But it is something that is being taken into account.

The last thing I'd like to add on that is, when we were making the policy, we knew we were doing a best effort.  We spent two years plus in making our recommendations.  We knew that we wouldn't get it completely right, that we were doing the best we could, and that we would come back and review it before a second round occurred after this one.

And that was also very much part of the notion is, this is just the first of the major openings of the namespace.  The intention is to keep doing it.  And at each time, come back to places like the IGF within ICANN itself, and other places, and say, "What did we get right?  What did we get wrong?  How do we change it?"  And I think that that's often been the response to do what we can, stay within the recommendations that we've made, and then learn from it for the next time.  Thanks.

 

>>EMILY TAYLOR:  Thank you very much, Avri.  I think that the new gTLD program is going to test the namespace, but I think that the -- as we've heard from the speakers, the debate about how to launch and create a process has probably tested the ICANN model harder than anything that it has so far encountered.

And in recent days and weeks, we've seen various proposals for how things could be done better, because I think perhaps it's made people think about the role of different stakeholders, which is what we're here to discuss today.

We had some fairly trenchant comments from the European Commissioner, Ms. Kroes, in the opening ceremony, and those refer to a series of papers which were published recently.  Now, Fiona Alexander, your boss, Larry Strickling, has had some fairly harsh words for ICANN this year.  Does this mean that you agree with the European Commission's proposals?

 

>>FIONA ALEXANDER:  So no, though I think we have been very critical of ICANN in the last year, not specific to some of the issues that the Commission has raised, but with respect for the need for ICANN to live up to the model it is supposed to be to truly be accountable and to truly be transparent and act in the global public interest.  And with respect to the new gTLDs, what we have seen in the last year is really, for the first time, unprecedented opportunity and process of the Government Advisory Committee, which is the group within ICANN that governments participate in, and its interaction with the board.  And there are many people in this room that are actually members of the Governmental Advisory Committee that can probably speak to this much better than I can.

But last December, the Government Advisory Committee put together a scorecard and it said here is all the advice we as governments collectively have given to you on this issue and here is where we think it is lacking.  And that became a very focused tool, and the board and the GAC had very focused exchanges, sometimes heated, but very good back and forth two or three different times, lengthy periods, to really try to work through some of these issues.

And at the end of the day when the board approved I think in Singapore, I think the guidebook included 80 or just over 80 items of pieces of advice the GAC had given.  And the board -- And  the guidebook reflects well over 70 of those.

So for some, I think there's a concern that not all things were listened to in GAC advice.  But from our perspective in the United States, we think it's a huge improvement in the model, a huge improvement in the guidebook.  And the reality is that in the multistakeholder model, not all deposits get exactly what they want all the time and we think that's part of the model and the exercise.

So again, this has been a really interesting year for us with ICANN.  We have been very vocal and very critical in terms of them really needing to live up to this model.  This is what we're going to do, and we have seen a lot of improvements and I think we are very pleased with that.

 

>>EMILY TAYLOR:   Thank you very much.

We do have people here from the Governmental Advisory Committee, and also from the board of ICANN.  So....

(Scribes have no audio)

 

>>ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN:  ...deepens multistakeholder participation.

An example, which we discussed this morning in the OECD forum on the communique on Internet principles, Internet governance principles, is the fact that the civil society stakeholder group in the OECD decided not to endorse the principles.  Because we felt our concerns weren't represented.  But we still feel it was a very solid multistakeholder process.

 

>>EMILY TAYLOR:   Thank you very much.

Now we're going to move on to the next topic, which is the IANA contract.  And in fact it feeds quite nicely from our discussions just now, because, Fiona Alexander, perhaps you could -- or Shane, one or other of you, explain to people here who might not be familiar what this means and what the different stakeholders involved in the IANA contract are.

 

>>SHANE TEWS:  The multistakeholder process, I think part of the challenge is you have to show an interest and show up, and then you can be part of the discussion.  And since it involves the Internet, I think to those who are involved, that seems a little more simplistic because we all know about it.

The challenge that I think even ICANN is having, not just with the current system but with the new TLDs making sure you go the next ring out.  The people that are actually very heavy users of the system, letting them know they can come be part of the process as it moves along, and then at every layer.

So you have the noncommercial users, the business constituency, intellectual property, At-Large, as was mentioned, the ISPs have their own constituency.  Patrik is the chair of the Security and Stability Advisory Committee.

So we think we have very good representation at every layer of the Internet, but there is always ability to involve more in the process.

On the question of the IANA contract, the contract itself sits at the Department of Commerce and it is currently -- the IANA function sits at ICANN and is done by the ICANN staff.  And it is validated and then actually put in the root by VeriSign.  That has been the case for quite some time.

There is still an open notice for inquiry requesting information for anyone who has got concerns about the way the process works or any possible enhancements.  It's a very good system.  It's worked very well for a long time, but it's never been challenged the way it's going to be with new TLDs coming on board.  It has less than 400 records in it currently.

The amount of changes are not significant, which is one of the reasons why it worked as well as it does.  So we need to make sure anyone who has concerns about the way the system works has the ability to comment on it and now would be the time to do that.  I think it closes today.  Today?  Yeah.

 

>>EMILY TAYLOR:   Yeah.

I have got Fiona and then Patrik.  Fiona, can you just tell us about the process and what might change as a result?

 

>>FIONA ALEXANDER:   Sure.  So the IANA functions are a set of interdependent technical functions that were originally performed under contract to the U.S. government through DarpaNet and ARPANET and the National Science Foundation.  So this is the historical legacy of the origins of the network.  And the responsibilities transferred over to the Department of Commerce in 1998. 

 And we have had two contracts so far.  We had one in 2000 and one in 2005.  The current contract expires September 30th of next year.  And what we have done this time, as we look to start the process to issue a new contract, is we have actually for the first time ever gone out with a public notice.  So in February or march of this year we issued a Notice of Inquiry and we went out to the stakeholders in the world and said here is what these are.  What are your views?  And asked for real serious input on the kinds of things people wanted to see reflected in the new contract.

Based on the feedback we received we issued a further Notice of Inquiry in June, June or July, and we put actually for the first time ever a draft statement of work.  And for those of you unfamiliar with contracts, (indiscernible) contracting, I'm sure it's similar in all countries, but we issue a tender and we say here is what we would like to get servicewise.

So we put that statement of work out for comment again yet again to stakeholders and we said here is the old statement of work.  We have amended it on what we think we heard you say.  Can you confirm this is what everybody wants, and we have taken feedback on that.  And we will be expecting to -- tomorrow is October 1st so in the coming weeks, sometime in October, start our procurement process.

And our intention is to do an open procurement of this contract.

 

>>EMILY TAYLOR:   So does that mean, in broad terms, that it might go to someone else?

 

>>FIONA ALEXANDER:   I think it's premature for me to speculate who could win the contract, but yes, our intention at the moment is to do an open procurement for the contract.

 

>>EMILY TAYLOR:   And can you help us with a sort of overview or just have there been much participation?  And it seems, just looking at the European Commission's proposals that they are quite keen to have some stuff written into the IANA contract.  Is that something they can do?

 

>>FIONA ALEXANDER:   So the record of our contract, everything is on our Web site if everybody wants to see the public consultations and the input we have received.  Between the two dockets we have gotten about 136 comments from stakeholders around the world, including many governments from around the world.  And we're actively incorporating edits we have received from people in that process into the revision of the statement of work.

 

>>EMILY TAYLOR:   Thank you, Fiona.

Does the amount of comments and the fact it has come from lots of other governments tell you there might be a problem?

 

>>FIONA ALEXANDER:   No, I don't think there's a problem.  You know, as we were going through our earlier relationship with ICANN, we adopted this public comment process.  We often received, you know, several hundred comments on things, and I think it just demonstrates the importance of this set of issues to global stakeholders.  And we think it's wonderful and stakeholders and governments feel comfortable sending comments to us and we appreciate it and it only makes the system and the process stronger.

 

>>EMILY TAYLOR:   Thank you very much.  Patrik Faltstrom, you wanted to make a comment.

 

>>PATRIK FALTSTROM:   Yes, I would like to clarify a little bit about what IANA is actually doing.  IANA is a registry that hands out parameters according to rules and policies that are decided upon in various policy development processes.

For protocol parameters, the Internet Engineering Task Force is the nominating organization that, via the series of documents called RFCs, give instructions to IANA on how to handle out protocol parameters.  And then we have all the RIRs in the world which work out -- which together is the policy development process for IP addresses.  And they give their rules to IANA on how to give out IP addresses.

And then we have the interim situation that ICANN is running the policy development processes for domain names, for top-level domains, and then they give those rules to IANA that is following those rules.

Now, from my point of view, IANA, because of the....

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>>TULIKA PANDEY: -- and each country, each economy is discussing what concerns they have in the use, deployment, and management, of this very important resource -- (audio cutting in and out) -- which is worldwide, which is not within a particular region and is open from one end to the other.  The template of most of these Internet communities, agencies, those seem multistakeholder and there is an effort and I'm not going to -- (audio cutting in and out) -- bringing in different communities, their languages, onto Internet, provisioning off presence of communities on the Internet.  This has been well maintained.  In that sense, we have now started to discuss the need for another body, because we feel that there is still a gap, there is still a need to bring together the various discussions that are happening or the various standards that are being built, made, and the various technical standards that are coming out in different communities -- or committees, to come to a single point where it will be easy for the developing economies to extract, to understand, and to collate and to take back with them what exactly are the latest rules of Internet management that are being followed, what are the policies.  And that is where we have -- we have started to look at a possibility.  This is yet not a government recommendation.  This is a very preliminary state of discussion, yet not ratified by the Government of India or the other governments.  I can speak on behalf of the others.  But there is an issue which we wanted to discuss as the three countries that are developing and needed to understand the Internet more closely, and that is where I'd like to leave this question, instead of delving further into.

 

>>EMILY TAYLOR:  Thank you, Tulika.  I think that leads us on to the next item that we wanted to discuss very nicely, which is the recent proposal, and I'm going to hand over to Bill for that.  I know, Avri, you wanted to make a comment as well, so we'll just bear that in mind.

 

>>WILLIAM DRAKE:  Thank you, Emily.

Yes, this is a very seamless transition, Tulika.  Thank you.

It is true that with regard to the IANA contract, in particular, there have been people who have made this argument in the past that there should be some sort of multilateralization of the relationship there, and so that's something that's out there.

But you've also led into the broader point, which is that as many people here know -- and this has been a subject of much discussion in many sessions during this IGF, we've had three major democracies -- Brazil, India, and South Africa -- coming together, their governments, advancing a draft concept for a new approach towards the management of some critical Internet resource issues that it seemed to us that it would be important to take this opportunity to at least give the opportunity to discuss exactly what is entailed there.

And we don't want to spend too long on this because we need to move on to other items, but I think it's an important issue.

The initial recommendations that have come out of the recent meeting in Rio suggested the need for a new U.N.-based multilateral intergovernmental organization that would, among other things, develop and establish international public policies with a view to ensuring coordination and coherence in cross-cutting Internet-related global issues, integrate and oversee the bodies responsible for technical and operational functioning of the Internet, including global standards-setting, address development issues related to the Internet, undertake arbitration and dispute resolution when necessary, be responsible for crisis management, and so on.

And I understand that a proposal will be taken up by the heads of state at a summit of the IBSA countries and that this could later go to the U.N. General Assembly.

So I just would like to hear -- from not just you, Tulika, but also others as well -- their views on what specific needs would this proposal fulfill that cannot be managed under the existing arrangements, and why would not any of the existing U.N. bodies that have an interest in Internet governance be suitable instead of launching a new intergovernmental body under the U.N.?  Tulika, perhaps you could start.

 

>>TULIKA PANDEY:  If permitted, I would like to first listen to the observations of others and then react to what -- to the observations.  I'd rather go to listen to others before I respond.

 

>>WILLIAM DRAKE:  Okay of the that's fine.  Would anybody else have a view on the -- on these concepts, then?  The integration and coordination -- and overseeing of the bodies responsible for technical and operational functioning of the Internet, including standards, the development of cross-cutting global public policies under the U.N. aegis, presumably with some multistakeholder input.

Avri?

 

>>AVRI DORIA:  Thank you, Bill.  Yeah, I'd like to take a first look at that.

I -- my first reaction is that it would be an unfortunate direction for us to take.

I think that in many ways, many of these organizations -- for example, if you look at the history of ICANN over the last five years, just the existence of the IGF making its comments, giving its -- its commentary, has changed the organization.  Or has caused the organization to change itself.

But -- so I think that this kind of oversight and discussion of this kind of oversight could actually set us back several years, in terms of a multistakeholder process that we've been building.

But it also points to a need, as you said.  In some of the processes, the transparency and the ability of governments and others to comment is limited, and so perhaps some of the efforts that we've seen at ICANN to reform, to include government advice, to include citizen advice, is something that's necessary.

Going back perhaps to the IANA example that we were at before, I personally think it's very inadequate for a yes/no/we don't understand the policy, but I think that there needs to be an explanation of why a yes, why a no, or what it is that they don't understand.  That there has to be transparency in their decisions just as there is transparency in any set of decisions.  And that perhaps there even needs to be a nonbinding way for someone like the IGF to discuss things and sort of say, "You know, this looks like something that needs to be looked at again."

So that same ability that the IGF has to be the -- to have the pulpit, as it were, to say, "You know, there's something we find problematic here.  We think people should look at this, this, this, and this," and to have the organizations take it upon themselves to actually look at it and respond is perhaps a model that could be looked at as opposed to -- and I think on a final one on that, as these organizations go through their own self-generated improvements, based upon what groups like the IGF say, it makes sense for the IGF to sort of take a look at that and say, "Oh, we see what you've been doing.  That's interesting.  You might want to think about this, this, and this."

And again, let that multistakeholder transparency give feedback to the improvement practices that all these organizations --

So I don't think we need anything new.  I think what we've got built here could be used as a tool to achieve many of those purposes.

 

>>WILLIAM DRAKE:  Thank you, Avri.  Patrik, a concise view on the integration and oversight of technical bodies?

 

>>PATRIK FALTSTROM:  Yeah.  First of all, I would like to adjust your question, because you asked can this not be handled already in any of the existing U.N. organizations, and I would just like to widen that and have the question as "existing organizations and policy development processes."

I think what I am a little bit curious about, when I read this proposal and other papers is that I am trying to understand what of the existing processes is not working, what problem are they trying to solve, and I do not understand.

So I would like to encourage people to please understand what problem they are trying to solve.  Is it one of the policy development processes which are nonoptimal?  Is the actual allocation of parameters by IANA wrong, which means that IANA is not doing their job? 

 For example, is it the case that governments really want to have an oversight over the allocation of parameters for the -- parameters for the TCP protocol or timers in L2VPN things?  Maybe governments want.  I don't know.  Call me if you want to.  You can do the job instead of me. 

 And then the important question is:  Given that there might be issues -- which there are -- cannot these issues be resolved by the existing multistakeholder processes and policy development processes we already have that, as Avri explained, are evolving over time?

I would like, for example, as the chair of the Security and Stability Advisory Committee, I would like to congratulate [sic] GAC and Heather and Maria to come up with a scorecard, because that is something that we who would like to do from the technology community and I think other parts of ICANN as well, so that might actually be one improvement of the ICANN policy development process that all of our stakeholder groups do similar scorecards, because it might be possible to move forward faster and easier understand what is in the rough part of rough consensus.  Thank you.

 

>>WILLIAM DRAKE:  Thank you, Patrik.

15, perhaps the U.S. Government has a view on these matters.

 

>>FIONA ALEXANDER:  Sure.  I think -- I mean, I think Patrik made a good point because it's important to understand what's underlying the proposals and I think there have been some discussions here this week that probably have been useful to do that.  And we'll have to go back and reflect on that.  But I think at face value, the proposals, these and a few others, are problematic from our perspective because we see them as undermining the multistakeholder model, and we're really committed to that model because we see this as the best place to deal with these Internet policy issues because of speed, flexibility, and decentralized problem-solving.

You know, to the extent governments want to be involved and should be involved, there are ways for them to be involved in the system, and the role of the GAC and the work that folks have done in the GAC this year has been really effective and we would encourage folks to participate in that process.

That's one of the reasons we -- we were so active in making sure the GAC had an effective role in regards to the new gTLD program.  This is another way to actually internationalize the IANA functions contract because the contractor, whomever it may be, follows the rules that are developed by ICANN in this regard and the GAC is a part of ICANN and gets to have a say in that process.

So again, I think we want to understand, as Patrik was saying, really what the real concerns are, as to why people are proposing these specific solutions, but as we read the solutions at face value, I think they're problematic for us.

 

>>WILLIAM DRAKE:  Thank you.

Perhaps a global society take on intergovernmental oversight.

 

>>ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN:  I'd also like to hear Tulika's response to some of the problems.

I read the IBSA proposal as sending a very clear message.  From developing countries that have actually invested in multistakeholder participation, and in the Internet governance forum, that they're not quite happy, and I read it -- a perception that they feel there needs to be more coordination, more participation from developing country governments and other stakeholders.

I think they -- even though it's a governmental statement, I think they're looking at stakeholders more broadly.  And influence, ultimately.  And I suppose influence is the big one.  How can they -- how can there be a system where they feel they can effectively have influence.  And I think this is very challenging for governments in a multistakeholder process.

You need to behave differently.  You need to do politics differently.  Because you can't rely on -- on traditional ways that have been established in the U.N. system to get what you want.

I think it's a really interesting proposal to discuss, because for me, just the concept of multistakeholder and multilateral.  I actually have no idea yet what that could mean and how that could be operationalized, so I think I'm looking forward to them developing this more, because I think it's an interesting model.

At the same time, I have real concerns about this, and real fears.

Firstly, feasibility.  There is so much that happens in the Internet, and Internet public policy encompasses so many areas of policymaking, and areas of policymaking that overlap with the rest of the world.

And decisions are being made there.

So for example, take something like intellectual property.  Decisions are being made about intellectual property at WIPO, there's all kind of contestation that impacts on the Internet.  How will a new body liaise with all these existing bodies?

Another risk is just difficulty to decide.  Whenever I am in multilateral forums with governments, I find they spend an inordinate amount of time trying to make decisions and in the end they end up with lowest common denominator consensus decisions and I'm not particularly comfortable with the Internet being developed and governed based on lowest common denominator decisions.

And then I think that there really are risks for multistakeholder participation in a multilateral and multistakeholder system, although I am open to seeing how we can develop this model.

But in my experience, often when there is this combination model -- and if it's not very sophisticated and stakeholder interests are not protected, often governments that are in disagreement with one another will reach agreement at the expense of nongovernmental stakeholders.

And then finally, I think particularly I am concerned about the implication for fundamental human rights, which are existing.  They're agreed.  But I'm -- I'd like to see how an intergovernmental body will consistently, in all cases protect fundamental human rights.

 

>>WILLIAM DRAKE:  Thank you, Anriette.

So Tulika, we hear there's a lot of concerns about the -- some elements of this proposal, in terms of how multi- -- the role of multistakeholder participation, the risks of centralizing things, of a more politicized and bureaucratized kind of mechanisms, the difficulty of integrating and coordinating all the desperate activities involved.

One could add other questions as to how legally one would do this or how we could possibly achieve consensus at the international level.  So I think that there's clearly some ambiguities and this is a good opportunity for you to perhaps share some views on some of those points.

 

>>TULIKA PANDEY:  Thanks, Bill.

I would first like to make one observation here, and that is, I would not be able to respond on behalf of all the three governments.  I'm here on behalf of my government and the first statement that I had made earlier and I would like to reiterate here is this is the anywheres draft that is not yet ratified by the government.  It is the very first process that had gone into looking at where the gaps were.

You have the IGF -- open, inclusive, multistakeholder -- but for a country which has those resources.

It is difficult for us to allocate resources to attend the various committees, forums, and institutional processes where these standards, technical developments, public policies, are being made, and though it is not unilateral, it ends up being seen as sometimes as far as being unilateral because we were not present.  We did not get a --

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>>TULIKA PANDEY:  -- presence of all the communities and economies of the world.  However small they are.

In today's economy, which is totally based on Internet, the smallest economy of the world today is the most important economy who needs to be -- (audio cutting in and out) -- part to the decision-making of public policy formulation or technical standards making -- (audio cutting in and out) -- or any such decision-making.  It is those countries who would bring forth to you the new demands, the new shape of the Internet that has to come, the new market that you will develop around the Internet.

What is invariably happening in the present ecosystem of the Internet management is we have stated open forums where people could just walk in and participate.  Is it really that open and easy for a developing nation which has just started to pick up Internet and has just started the initiative of infrastructure establishment in its own homegrown country and started the business to then participate in an IETF discussion where you're talking about the Internet too, or much ahead.

Have we taken care of really making it inclusive process for those economies or those representatives to participate in your current existing committees and institutional processes that are open, inclusive, multilateral, multistakeholder?

I just needed to put this point to your attention, number one, and then to say that the current formulation or the very basic first-draft formulation that is -- (audio cutting in and out) -- not make unilateral and it is only three countries trying to see how we could improve, how we could benefit out of the Internet for our country, for our trade, for our economy.

We are not here to say -- we've never stated ICANN is not good enough.  We've never stated ICANN is not doing its job.  And I'm taking names.  I'm not really meaning it.  I'm not saying that IGF is not doing its duty, it's not performing its mandate.

Yet there are certain mandates -- 72(a), 72(b), 72(b)(f) -- which is not being covered and cannot be covered in the present format of the IGF meetings that we hold.

It is so open, so vast that it does not lead to any concrete outcome or takeaways two countries like us.

These are all very broad forums.  Issues discussed are ranging from very divergent issues to very convergent issues.  What do we take back?  We have the chairman's summary that we share.  What other documentation is available to the public at large?  Can we see that all these committees, when they work, those documentations, those information -- information is not knowledge.

The important part is, with so much information, there's an information dilution.  We're lost.

So there's this attempt being made in that document to see if we could come out with a possible process,

A mechanism, or maybe a body within the U.N. system or otherwise.  And we have not really mentioned it.  We are not demanding, we.  Have not yet tabled it. 

 So please take it in the spirit of an inclusive governance of not just Internet but governments and the institutions which are managing and governing the Internet today.

Thank you.

 

>>WILLIAM DRAKE:   Thank you, Tulika.  So at the end of the day, then, it's not so much an argument that the existing mechanisms, multistakeholder mechanisms.

(Dropped audio)

Are not performing in a functional sense.  It is fundamentally a concern about participation, and you who participate in all these different types of bodies, if you had a single sort of shop that would provide an access point, then that would facilitate participation by developing countries.

I really would like to move on because we need to get some people from the floor involved now.

 

>>EMILY TAYLOR:   I think we have some questions from the floor and we have also got a few feeder workshops, two feeder workshops on these overarching issues.

So Kieren McCarthy, Sala, okay, guys.  Nice and concise.  Let's get through it, because we need -- we have two other topics to cover as well.

 

>>WILLIAM DRAKE:   Starting with the feeder workshop reports and then going to the --

 

>>EMILY TAYLOR:   Let's get reactions from the audience.  I think people have been storing up their comments for quite a while and there are two feeder workshops on this, so we can go -- Kieren.

 

>>KIEREN McCARTHY:   Yes, Kieren McCarthy from dot nxt here.

My first point is I am using the freedom that the IGF gives me it talk from the floor, which I don't think I would get in the U.N. body.  So that's my first point.  But that said, I think Tulika raises a very important point, and I think that the -- I see the paper more as a reflection of frustration rather than something that will actually work.

There are a lot of meetings and a lot of gatherings, and a huge amount of information, and I think somewhere like the IGF, we could really work on how to make more sense of that and how to make sure that people were informed about what was going on until it suddenly is on their table as someone is planning to make a decision about it.  I think that's the frustration that you are talking about.

And I understand it.  I think we all feel that.

But what -- what I think you should bear in mind is that ICANN has shown an ability to change and fix itself.  And at the moment, it is -- there is this ATRT report which has made 27 recommendations, and I think that if you look at that report and if all the recommendations are implemented, which the ICANN board says it will do, that it would actually deal with the majority of your concerns.  A lot of that report is about the role of the GAC.  And it's not like people don't recognize that there are these issues.  They are working on it.

So I would love to see the focus -- the same focus and energy that is put into producing these papers put into making sure that ICANN follows those recommendations.

Thanks.

 

>>EMILY TAYLOR:   Thank you very much.

Sala.

 

>>SALA:  Thank you.  I think -- I am Sala and I am from Fiji.  The strength from IGF is, in my view, is that it enables robust discussions and free discussions and all kinds of stakeholders can actually come.  And within the Internet universe, because the Internet universe, of course, is so diverse and you have all kinds of stakeholders, I think -- and this is an alternative I would like to suggest to Ms. Pandey, would be perhaps if stakeholders could reexamine the processes.  Because there are already existing institutions looking after different aspects.  For example, ITU looks after spectrum policy, they looked after telecommunications.  You have IETF looking after standards.

And so I think there's really there's no need to create a new organization to look into processes.  It's just that stakeholders can reexamine and restrengthen and sort of strengthen their systems and processes based on robust discussions and streamings coming in from the developed world, underserved communities and those sort of thing.

But I think if you take away and you shift and evolve a dynamic, and I think revolutionary, in fact, model such as the IGF, which enables freedom of discussion, people can view this as a place where everyone is equal and a place where decisions are not binding.  It's actually a strength.

And if stakeholders were actually present, whether from the World Bank, whether from the IMF, you go back and you reexamine your policies or you shift things or take civil society, for example.  Strategically lobby for changes in those institutions.  I mean, that, in effect, you know, would be a significant outcome.

 

>>EMILY TAYLOR:   Thank you very much.  I have another comment here, sir.

 

>>LUIS MAGALHAES:  Well, thank you very much.  Luis Magalhaes from Knowledge Society Agency in Portugal.

Somehow I got reassured from Tulika's intervention about India determination of supporting the multistakeholder model.  And I think if that is taken as the first principle you will find that proposals you are advancing are not compatible with that principle.  And I say that because talking to people related to United Nations legal services, I was told in a very forceful way that multistakeholder procedures are not compatible with United Nations legal operational principles in any way, nor are expected to be in the near future.

So this is one observation.  And if it's true, I think actually the way your ongoing document, it still has to be worked, needs quite a lot of strong revision to be compatible with multistakeholder principle.

The other point related to this is that this is even more serious if we consider standard setting entities.  I'm afraid that in a multilateral only governmental model, never we would have the open standards of the Internet approved, and we didn't have the Internet as it is nowadays because, as you know, these bodies themselves ignore the Internet for quite a long time after it was created.

Thank you.

 

>>EMILY TAYLOR:   Thank you very much.

I have Bertrand De La Chapelle and Izumi and Raul Echeberria.

Could I ask, could anybody take the floor if you want to -- So you don't want the floor.  Okay.

 

>>WILLIAM DRAKE:   But please be concise.

 

>>EMILY TAYLOR:   Sorry.  Okay.

Izumi.

 

>>IZUMI AIZU:   Thank you.  I was a member of the G8 task force in 2000-2001.  We came up with the plan of action.  Point number 5 was universal participation from developing countries to the new and emerging policy fora such as ICANN and others.

For ten years -- This is my question to maybe Avri or Patrik or Fiona.  How much have we achieved from the participation from developing countries to this fora?  Have we really responded to the concerns, frustrations?  It has been ten years.  So we can have a good review.  If we have done this satisfactorily, we would not have this proposal, perhaps.  That doesn't mean the current setup is wrong, but are there rooms to improve?  That's a question to you guys.

But I also have a question to Tulika.  Why U.N?  Why not U.S.?

The U.S., it doesn't mean the United States, but united stakeholders.

The intergovernmental only arrangement is just going back to the 50 years back in history or shall we look into 50 years into the future to have united stakeholders?  Thank you.

 

>>EMILY TAYLOR:   Thank you very much, sir.

I have a question, a gentleman at the back.  Thank you.

 

>> May I ask a question?

(Dropped audio)

I have a couple of reactions.  It seems to me the proposal that's under discussion or the draft that's under discussion is sometimes presented as a new idea.  I'd suggest that if people would go back and look at the historical record, at least from my standpoint, that we have had this debate in depth, and the Tunis outcome opted for (garbled audio) approach rather than a multilateral organization.

I know we have evolved over time and things can be improved, but I would say the fundamental debate has been held and we can open it up again.

One of the things that I have heard most loudly here or clearly, as a justification for a new multilateral organization is enhanced participation by governments or by all people.  Let me say that the experience has been that participation has been very limited in multilateral organizations in some cases for a number of reasons.  And nothing to think that a new multilateral organization would draw more people, reduce -- solve some of the financial aspects.

So I think we need to have some discussion as to what the explicit problem is that's trying to be solved and how the proposal would explicitly address those to have better results that be we now have.

Increasing participation from multilateral -- multistakeholders, I remember that not so long ago, five or six years ago, that in the context of the U.N. discussions, private sector, civil sector, nongovernment sector were kept out of the rooms, were not participating in the discussion, and this environment that we have now really has transformed that in so many ways.  And the notion that you could have a single organization that brings all the diverse aspects of Internet under one roof, standards, you name it, I think is not -- does not recognize the great pluralism and dynamism of the Internet system.

Sorry to have been so long.

 

>>EMILY TAYLOR:   Thank you very much for your comments, sir.  Felipe, you were looking for the floor.  Did you want to comment now or I have a few more people in the cue.

I have Raul Echeberria, I have.

(garbled audio), this gentleman here at the back and then to you, Bertrand.  We obviously are going to move on after this.  Wasn't to take these comments, and then I want to hear from Olga Cavalli on the feeder workshop and also from Kieren McCarthy on the feeder workshops which relate to this topic, and then we will go on to the next issue, which is capacity building.

Can I ask for these comments to be very short, very precise, 30 seconds each, please.

Raul.

 

>>RAUL ECHEBERRIA:   Thank you, Emily.  My name is Raul Echeberria.  I am the executive director of LACNIC.

I would like to say that this proposal is very respectable.  And I think if those governments feel that they don't have in Internet governance the kind of participation that they expect to have, they have all the right to claim for that.

It is our duty as participants in this Internet governance community to try to understand the expectations and try to fit they will, but I think on the other hand, I think that this is not the right approach, for many reasons that have already been pointed out by other participants.

But my first (garbled audio) proposal is that it aims to find a single solution for the government participation Internet governance.  And Internet governance is very complicated.  It's composed by very different mechanisms that have different characteristics.

And so I think that we have to try to satisfy the expectations of all the stakeholders by analyzing each of the mechanisms and respecting the particularities.

So I think it's the wrong approach to try to find a single solution for all the complexity of the Internet governance.

 

>>EMILY TAYLOR:   Thank you very much.  And I have a comment here, sir.

Thank you.

 

>>PETE RESNICK:  Hello.  My name is Pete Resnick.  I work for Qualcomm, but though I don't represent them, I also am an area director on the IETF.  And I was surprised to hear Tulika speak about the participation in the IETF specifically.

India itself has 54 different authors currently accomplishing in the IETF in at least 18 different working groups.  We have many people from Africa, from different countries in developing parts of the world that are participating directly.  One of my working group chairs is from Mauritius.

I have a young man 17 years old from southern Ukraine who is participating by e-mail.  He is one of my most prolific contributors.

I don't understand, with regard to standards development, what problem you think it is that you are trying to solve.

 

>>EMILY TAYLOR:   Thank you very much, sir.

Bertrand, and then I will come back to you, Tulika.

 

>>BERTRAND DE LA CHAPELLE:   Thank you, my name is Bertrand De La Chapelle from the International Diplomatic Academy.

When a couple of years ago the International Telecommunication Union created exactly the same kind of body internally which you suggest which is a working group exclusively for governments to discuss public-policy issues.  It was extremely surprising to see that actually the people who were in the room were basically the same countries that are here today.

It didn't enhance a bit the participation of people who nonetheless had representation in Geneva.

So the solution is not there.  And I cannot believe that countries like Brazil and India, who have hosted both IGF and ICANN meetings, have actively participated the way you do in the multistakeholder model or developed it at home, actually do really mean the creation of a full new multilateral intergovernmental only body.

And as I don't understand how it could be the objective, I wonder whether the objective is not a very legitimate classical negotiation tactic, and very legitimate, to force and put pressure on those who don't want to move the IGF fast enough, to make sure that they take into account the other proposals that Brazil and India are putting on the table on the improvements of the IGF.

And if that is the purpose, fine with me.

 

>>EMILY TAYLOR:   Thank you very much.  I have got one more gentleman who is desperate to make a comment at the back.  Please, sir.

 

>> Yes, Brazilian government.  Well, as we are on the stage, I would like to make just three clarifications.  The proposal is a draft proposal.  Second, it adopt -- it's not directly related to IGF.  It's more broadly related proposal.  And third, it's not a single solution.  It's a call for discussion.

We do give an important role to participation, but we do also give a special role to legitimacy.

We really have a lot of work to do to increase these two elements within that global governance system.

Maybe capacity building training programs, maybe more clear outcomes of IGF, maybe more accountability of bodies like ICANN.  But there is room to work.  There is room to creativeness.

For example, the problem raised by IETF, it's quite far from our thought that IETF could be put in the same way in the same kind of problem that IGF and ICANN could be put.  Of course, we are open to discussion.  And this doesn't mean at all a single solution, and it doesn't mean at all a shift on the Brazilian historical position committed to the multistakeholder model that we have inside the country; okay?

Thank you.

 

>>EMILY TAYLOR:   Thank you very much, sir.

Tulika.

 

>>WILLIAM DRAKE:   Tulika, could I just ask you to add one thing.  When would this go to the General Assembly under the plan that you have now?

 

>>TULIKA PANDEY:   I will start with certain clarifications.

Number one, the understanding that is perceived, that I perceive from all of you todays that the body proposed is under the U.N. only.  That's not true.  It is a proposal.  It is not bound and doesn't state U.N. only.  That's one, first clarification.

Clarification number two, the body is multilateral and therefore essentially intergovernmental in mechanism and processes.  I beg to differ.  We still talk multistakeholder here.  The discussions were multistakeholder.  We had participation from the civil societies and others in this discussion, after which the deliberations were taken up and a draft formulated.  And this draft is open for comments, discussions, with our own stakeholders within our countries, number one.

And if it does get ratified by other governments in the IBSA summit, it will then be decided whether the formulation of the IBSA statement that could be tabled by the IBSA in the U.N. G.A. would remain the same or the entire document is modified as per the final decisions taken by all the stakeholders, including the governments, the three governments.

So these are the two clarifications I wanted to bring forth.

 

>>WILLIAM DRAKE:  I'm sorry, Tulika.  The time frame.

 

>>TULIKA PANDEY:  Oh, we -- this is just a very basic primary draft, not yet ratified by our governments.  It is one of the inputs for an IBSA statement that would happen in October, after which we would actually have an IBSA statement. 

 This is not -- I repeat -- an IBSA statement at all.  This is not acceptable.  This is not accepted as an IBSA statement.  This is not yet ratified by the governments.  This has not yet had its discussions with all the other stakeholders within our country.  Let's forget the others.

It was not intended -- this was a document very internal to our governments to be circulated amongst the stakeholders first to get their responses, improved based on their inputs, and then maybe submitted for consideration by our high-level communities, whether this could be one of the inputs into the IBSA summit for the formulation of an IBSA statement. 

 So I would like to leave this thought with you, because I do not perceive that the governments of India, Brazil, or South Africa intend to, in any way take, away the merits of the Internet Governance Forum processes or outcomes in whichever form it is available to us or the other mechanisms of the WTO or the WIPO or the CSTD or the OECD. 

 And when I mention these bodies, I would like to again repeat:  These bodies do not have a complete government presentation of the developing world. 

 And to put another point here in front of you, the onus of the large public good in most of the developing nations lies upon the governments of those economies, and therefore it is perceived by many governments that it is important that their voices be included -- at least heard, and maybe included -- at all the media forums where there are these decision-making happening.  That is the one concern that we always would have, till our other stakeholders are strengthened enough. 

 I'm very aware of India's position in the IETF, in the ICANN, and in the IGF.  We're not saying that we are not being taken care of, but there's a larger concern about all the other developing nations who would come across.  They would be demanding it.  We got together to think about it.  We're thinking.  This is a process.  This is yet a very initial process of a thought process which has caused this.  I'm very happy that people have awoken.  They're looking at India and Brazil and South Africa.  We suddenly are in the center of the IGF.  We are happy about it.

 

>>EMILY TAYLOR:  Thank you very much.

 

>>WILLIAM DRAKE:  You've got our attention.

[Applause]

 

>>EMILY TAYLOR:  I think in the 10 minutes that remain in this session, I do want to briefly cover the two major topics that remain on the agenda, which are capacity building, and I think actually a lot of what has been said in the recent discussion relates to capacity building, the capacity to participate, and also, the relationship between local servers and local content and does this give us any hint about how to build capacity.

So I want Kieren McCarthy first on this, the participation, building capacity and participation, and then I want to come to UNESCO to hear about your feeder workshop on capacity building, and in particular, this relationship between local servers, local content. 

 Kieren, thank you.

 

>>KIEREN McCARTHY:  Hello.  Yes.  We ran a workshop this morning, which was called "On the outside looking in, real world solutions to effective participation in ICANN, IGF, and ITU." 

 I'll keep it a little bit shorter than I had here, which was short. 

 We had panelists that were high-level participants in each of these organizations.  We had two ICANN board members, we had an ITU government rep, and we had two IGF MAG members.

Broadly, we reached agreement that these three organizations were very different and they have different systems and different approaches and they serve very different roles.

So -- but they live within an ecosystem and they influence one another, and they are also changing, in response to one another as well. 

 I think we've an example of how an agenda item changed to an ITU meeting is likely to feed into an IGF meeting.  You could very much see the same thing happening through ICANN through to ITU or likewise.

We had great examples of how things were changing.  The IGF now has regional IGFs, which a lot of people have been talking about the value of at this meeting. 

 ICANN is changing how its stakeholders work and has these recommendations.

The ITU is opening out and it recognized the Internet organizations at its at plenipotentiary last time around, so they're changing.

We agreed that participation is a responsibility as well.  You can't just expect institutions to provide you with everything that you need.  It's upon you to also get involved and educate yourself. 

 And in terms of being a successful participant, what was crucial was to talk and to listen to people, to come to meetings and interact with others, that you couldn't work just alone, that you need to find assets and allies.  In that sense, it's a village.

And I'll miss out some bits, but we encourage people to have an active role in the WSIS review, which brings a lot of these organizations together, and we also pointed to youth programs as a very useful way of pulling people in. 

 There was an example given of an ITU youth program in which one of the attendees said that's only how she learned about the IGF.  And there are also IGF programs.  There are also ICANN programs.  So coming out with programs to pull people in would be a very effective situation.  And very briefly, the issues we didn't get to, which were crucial with regard to participation, was the barriers, and there were two major ones.  One was financial and the second was languages.

 

>>EMILY TAYLOR:  Thank you very much, Kieren. 

 Just on the related topic, I have Olga Cavalli, and then coming to you, so...

 

>>OLGA CAVALLI:  Thank you.  I'll try to be brief.  I'll talk about a workshop we held yesterday organized by Bill Drake, Number 178, called "Institutional choice in global internet governance."

The workshop tried to stimulate holistic thinking and dialogue about how we choose between participation models and design global Internet governance mechanisms and how we assess their strengths and weaknesses both in general and in relation to specific current and proposed arrangements.

Discussions was focused in three models:  Multilateral, mini-lateral, and co-regulation.  In particular, the Affirmation of Commitments, as an example.

Some ideas that were shared by the panelists and participants -- and of course we didn't reach any agreement; we had much more questions but it was very interesting -- multilateral intergovernmental approaches.  They include multiple players with no discrimination.  There are new multilateral models being proposed in a more complex scenario.  There are more stakeholders. 

 The problem is, multilateral agreements take a long time to be implemented.  The speed of action seems to be constrained for multilateralism.  And perhaps we should accept that there is not a single global mechanism, or not only one model for Internet governance, which is composed by different ones and in different -- different stakeholders with different interests.

About bilateral or mini-lateral perspectives, it is possible that governments go to regional or bilateral as easier ways to negotiate.  Can those frameworks become global?  And those who do not participate, what happens with them?  They seem to be not so democratic and they seem to have a lack of transparency. 

 It seems there is room for these mini-lateral agreements but they are not the most important pieces in the global mechanisms.

Why some governments are against multistakeholderism?  Perhaps those representatives that participate in these negotiations are not totally informed or have not coordinated at the local level with all national relevant actors.

Is the ICANN Affirmation of Commitments a new model to follow?

It's bilateral co-regulation including private and government representatives, and the United States government has a special role.  The parties involved in this process observe standards, review them from time to time, and then recommend actions.  Is that good?  Is that effective?

There is merit and it reflects some practices and rules that stakeholders have agreed, but it does not seem good enough to modify behavior.

It can be used in different types of ways and contexts, also, with the multilateral agreements, like planning, budgeting, dealing with more equitable participation and other issues. 

 This is in general what was exchanged in the workshop.  We had a very, very nice and interactive debate and we went over time and of course we ended with more questions than conclusions. 

 Thank you very much.

 

>>EMILY TAYLOR:  Thank you, Olga.

UNESCO.

 

>>UNESCO: Thank you, Emily.  I'm going to present a brief report on the workshop we conducted, which was called "The relationship between local Content, internet development, and access process," in collaboration with the OECD and ISOC at a joint workshop which took place on the morning of the 27th of September.

I'd like to thank OECD and ISOC for the support for this initiative.

This workshop brought five panelists representing governments, private sector, and experts from Africa, Egypt, U.S. and Europe and the workshop was very well attended and also remotely followed.

Mr. Janice Karklins, Assistant Director-General for Communication and Information of UNESCO chaired the session and pointed out that understanding the relationship between development of local content, Internet and access prices, could help to demonstrate the economic benefits of expanded infrastructures across countries.

The research, which was presented by Mr. Taylor Reynolds, shows that there are three elements -- local content creation, Internet, and access -- are interrelated and likely feed into each other in a virtual circle.

First, better connectivity is significantly related to higher levels of local digital content creation.  In essence, countries with more Internet infrastructure at all income levels are also the countries producing more local digital content as measured by Wikipedia, entries, and by Web pages under a given country code top-level domain name. 

 Second, countries with more international connectivity have lower domestic broadband prices and countries with better domestic infrastructure have lower international bandwidth prices.

These findings essentially took three key lines of policy consideration. 

 First, fostering content development; second, expanding connectivity; and third, promoting Internet access through competition.

The research has been debated by panelists and participants from various perspectives.  Panelists also exchanged their visions and experiences on promoting local content creation.

Participants shared the observation that more and more Internet content is created in languages other than English.  In Africa, many participants highlighted the phenomenon that most Internet access is through mobile phone, which impacts content creation and should be well considered.

Several good practices were shared from -- by Egypt and the Kenyan governments.

The private sector perceived a challenge to develop a sustainable business model on local content creation.  Mr. Vint Cerf shared Google's experience in developing 15 language translation tools which greatly facilitated information accessibility in different languages.  Participants also debated on the impact of cloud computing on local content development in Africa.  In this -- on this issue, Mr. Cerf suggested that cloud computing is economically -- (audio cutting in and out) -- and it was perhaps important to establish regional and national datacenters to make it economically viable.

Regarding the methodology of the research itself, participants provided some suggestions on the data collection from the dimension of IP address, ccTLDs, and IDNs.

Thank you very much, but before I finish, I would like to just bring to your attention the fact that the UNESCO open forum, which is scheduled to be held between 2:30 to 4:00, will be now taking place in Room 13.  Thank you.

 

>>WILLIAM DRAKE:  Thank you very much, UNESCO.

As is obvious, time frames can conflate in circumstances like this.  We used to spend three hours on the CIR main session.  Now we have two and we have a lot of big topics, so we of course have had to be a little bit flexible in the way we managed things here.

There were issues people really wanted to talk about. 

 I'd like to see if we can't get very brief report-ins, before we close, from the other feeder workshops if they're here in the room with us.

Do we have anybody here from the workshop on policy issues affecting ccTLDs in Africa?  Do we have a representative from that workshop here?

Please raise your hand.  Yes.  Then please go ahead.  I don't see where you are.

 

>>ABIBU NTAHIGIYE: My name is Abibu Ntahigiye from dot tz registry.  That is Tanzania's registry and I'm representing the briefing on the Workshop Number 135.  This was about strengthening ccTLDs in east Africa.  And basically this was about the discussion on the research which was done for the five countries within the region.

It was noted during the workshop that most of the East African ccTLDs are still weak, and before going on, maybe I should say who attended the workshop, in terms of panelists.  We had Anne-Rachel Inne from ICANN, we had Vint Cerf from Google, we had Alice Munyua, who is the convenor of East African IGF, we have (saying name), technical community, we had (saying name) from the civil society in Kenya, and myself. 

 So we noted that most of the East African ccTLDs are still weak in terms of capacity, governance, and operations.  However, there were some developments in the region such as the management of dot ke, which was delegated in 2002, and the delegation of tz which was delegated in 2010, and other registries within the region were undergoing some redelegation processes. 

 Now, during the workshop, we noted that some of the ccTLDs are still technically managed outside of the country.  The ones -- these are like dot rw, dot bi, and dot ug.  And this basically -- historically it has been because of technical reasons such as connectivity and commercial power issues and capacity.

Now, through the workshop, we noted that the governments are now interested in the management of ccTLDs and this was very critical because if we have the political will of the government, then there is a possibility for success.  During the workshop, we noted that the multistakeholder model was the best in the management of ccTLD, and through this model various stakeholders have different roles, like the government, through a regulator, can do the facilitation in terms of seed money, which can be on a short term or a long term. 

 The private sector can contribute on technical issues. 

 The academia can contribute on research. 

 And the youth and the civil society can do the advocacy. 

 On the challenges, the main challenge was on the capacity to develop or to set up the registries and also managing them.

However, this was noted that the -- the original TLD, that is AfTLD, through collaboration with AfriNIC, AfNOG, ISOC, (indiscernible), and ICANN, were assisting, and so far, there are three special programs called the IROC -- this is Initial Registry Operation Course -- AROC, Advanced Registry Operation Course, and SROC, which is Secure Registry Operation Course that have been developed by ICANN, ISOC, and (indiscernible). 

 Now, through AfTLD, in collaboration with these --

 

>>WILLIAM DRAKE:  Excuse me.  I'm sorry.  I think we're going to need to wrap this in order to get a couple others in before the clock is up.  We're past 12:30 already.  If you could conclude, I'd appreciate it.

 

>>ABIBU NTAHIGIYE: Okay.  Let me conclude. 

 The other challenge was about the operational challenges and these mainly were on technology capacity, publicity and awareness, sustainability, and pricing issues, and also the content development. 

 Thank you.

 

>>WILLIAM DRAKE:   Thank you.  We are going to go five minutes over here.  I hope everybody can handle that.

Okay.  Do we have somebody from interconnecting Africa, opportunities and obstacles along the way?

 

>> Yes.

 

>>WILLIAM DRAKE:   If so, a one-minute presentation.

 

>> Yes.

 

>>WILLIAM DRAKE:   Thank you very much.  One minute.

 

>>NII QUAYNOR:  I'm reporting on the Interconnecting Africa:  Opportunities and Obstacles Along the Way.  This is a workshop organized by AfriNIC and ISOC.  I am Nii Quaynor.  The panelists included Dr. Tarek Kamel, an African international expert; (saying name), head of information society division of the African Union Commission; Dr. (saying name), acting head of the NEPAD e-Africa program; (saying name), a regional head of CCOM for East and North Africa;  (saying name), CEO, Summit Strategies; Andrew Austin, network development manager for the UbuntuNet Alliance regional ring.

The session gave an overview of the main challenges, regulatory, financial, and technical, that Africa faces.  It also highlighted some of the opportunities, projects, and initiatives for interconnecting the region.

On the regulatory side, there is a need to support and advance greater harmonization frameworks concerning cross-border interconnection as it is noted that the regulatory patchwork may be inhibiting greater cross-border interconnection.  Recommendations were made for the standardization of regulatory policies for cross-border interconnection and backhaul, and that operators should share more instead of building new infrastructure.

It was noted that a number of initiatives are on their way including the African Union harmonization of ICT policies in SubSaharan Africa aimed at addressing these regulatory and harmonization issues.

 

>>WILLIAM DRAKE:   Thank you very much, Nii.  We are going to have to stop there.

 

>>NII QUAYNOR:  There's much more, but that's okay.

 

>>WILLIAM DRAKE:   I am sure.  Sorry.  And may I strongly urge workshop reporters not to list the speakers on their panel because the scribe is not writing them down anyway and there is no time.

Is there anyone from economic aspects of local content creation and local infrastructure here?

If not, there were two others on IPv6.  The governance dimension of things.  Mr. Wolfgang Kleinwachter, can you say one minute.  On the Internet of things.

 

>>WOLFGANG KLEINWACHTER:   Yes, we had a very good discussion and the basic discussion was is there an Internet of things.  Because the concept of the Internet of things was introduced a couple of years ago when it became clear that with the help of ID chips, IP version 6 addresses, more and more objects can be linked to the Internet.  And some people said, okay, this will be like a new Internet based on a new addressing system called the ONS.  But over the years I think we realized that probably this was an approach which went beyond the imagination, and the reality is that we have one Internet and one world.  And so that means a lot of things which -- or problems which are related to objects and which can be labeled under the Internet of things.

You know, not so different from the other Internet.  The Internet of things is not separate from the Internet.  And also, some issues like privacy issues or governance issues are not so separate from the other issues.  So that means it should be a need for the future activities to clarify what the concept is, and this was the conclusion from the workshop.  We have created a dynamic coalition and we will work on an issue paper, and then to come back next year and to explain probably better what the Internet of things is.

Thank you.

 

>>WILLIAM DRAKE:   Thank you so much, Wolfgang.  I am very sorry to be rushing people.

Lastly, do we have anybody from understanding IPv6 deployment and transition?

 

>>EMILY TAYLOR:   I think we have Adiel.

 

>>ADIEL AKPLOGA:   Yes, thank you.  I will try to go through this report very quickly.  So we had a workshop on the challenge facing IPv6 deployment.  We have noticed few finding.

The first is the outcome of the global survey conducted this year from which we have noticed that almost 90% of people who responded to the survey from 1,600 networks have already deployed IPv6 or are working to deploy it, which is a very positive outcome.  What was also interesting was that we have seen modern 500% growth in Web site which are IPv6 ready in the world globally, which are positive news for us in our work to ensure that we manage the transition to IPv6.

What was also interesting, and is the key reason of this workshop, is the coalition between the capacity building and training with IPv6 development.  Measures have shown clearly that there was a clear relationship between the two where after education, training of IPv6 there was a growth in the uptake of IPv6.

Lastly, we have also seen through the presentation from some government -- Mauritius, Germany, United Arab and Fiji -- the importance of government taking the lead in deploying IPv6 in their network and coordinating the effort is important.

 

>>WILLIAM DRAKE:   Thank you.  That was very interesting and concise.

We can now draw towards conclusion.

We asked our friend and former co-moderator of some of the CIR sessions Jeanette Hofmann from the Social Science Research Center in Berlin to give us a -- she promises three minutes, concise summary of some of the main points that she has heard that we might take away.  Then we will turn it back to the chair to close the discussion.

 

>>JEANETTE HOFMANN:   Thank you, Bill.

We mentioned -- We covered three topics.  The first one was role of stakeholders in managing critical Internet resources with the new GLT process as the example.  We then briefly touched on the IANA contract.  And finally, we turned to the hot potato of the day, the IBSA proposal.

For the sake of brevity, I will skip item 2 and focus on the first and the third.

The role of stakeholders.  As a general remark, the problem in participating in ICANN and probably also the IGF is not one of transparency but, rather, of tools to digest the enormous amount of data produced in these processes.

Then more specifically, the new GLT process has given rise to an unprecedented role of the GAC but also new forms of exchange between the GAC and the ICANN board with the GAC being much more vocal than it used to be and giving much more detailed advice.

Still, there is a concern that the outreach in this process might not reach or has not reached yet all the people who could be interested in applying for a new GLT.

And finally, the community consensus that governments want to be part of hasn't really reached yet, meaning the deepening of the multistakeholder participation we have seen in this process should not be confused with the consensus on the issues.  One of the things mentioned was the application fee, which is way too high for all being interested to participate in this.

Then the IBSA proposal.  The big question is is there a need for a new body to be set up?  Is there a need for U.N.-based coordination to achieve coherent policy-making with regard to the management of critical Internet resources?  Or more general, does the existing arrangement of organizations and processes guarantee a quality of decision-making that would make intergovernmental oversight superfluous?

It seems clear there is no agreement in this room about these questions.  But what I would like to stress is the perspective of developing countries who might find multistakeholder processes very challenging to participate in.

It seems clear that new resources are needed and new skills to effectively participate in these processes.  So we see that while some think that the current arrangement we have is sufficient to manage critical Internet resources, others don't feel they can participate effectively.  And this question is not a new one.  This issue has been around for quite some time, and it might stay around for some time.  So stay tuned.

 

>>WILLIAM DRAKE:   Thank you very much, Jeanette.  That was wonderful, very concise.

I have one quick comment from Chris Disspain before we go back to the chair because I thought it was very interesting.

 

>>CHRIS DISSPAIN:   Thank you, bill, for letting me make a comment.  I want everyone to be really clear about this.  What has happened here this morning in this session is incredibly important.  Normally what happens in these sessions is you get civil society people and ICANN, et cetera, justifying their position.  Today, what's happened is we had the government people being asked questions by everybody else in this room about something that they have put forward, and responding to that.  This is proof that the multistakeholder model works.

[ Applause ]

 

>>EMILY TAYLOR:   Thank you very much.  And thank you to everybody in the room for participating.  I know that many more people wanted to speak than we had time for, and I'm sorry that the workshop reporting turned into a bit of a speed dating session.  But I think one thing that we heard which is very important is some good news on IPv6 for once, and all of those statistics about the take up, which I think is a very good progression.

Mr. Chairman, thank you very much.

 

>>JOHN WALUBENGO:   Thank you, Emily.  My job has been very much simplified by the summary given from the -- one of the moderators.

Before I conclude, Anriette wanted to say something for 30 seconds only.

 

>>ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN:   Thanks very much.  Well, just to thank Tulika and IBSA and countries along with Kenya to make this the most interesting IGF ever.

My proposal is that the IBSA countries, they have already committed to discuss these proposals more in a multistakeholder fashion at national level, and I would like to recommend that they then work with that input and come to us at the IGF 2012, put the revised proposal before the IGF community before presenting to the General Assembly.

 

>>JOHN WALUBENGO:   Thank you, Anriette.

[ Applause ]

 

>>JOHN WALUBENGO:   I know I am standing between you and your lunch, so I will just be very fast.

In the summary, I think she had skipped the point on IANA contract and I think it's a good take-away to remember that the current contract is with ICANN and it expires next year, September 30th.  And thereafter, it will be offered on an open contract.

With those few remarks, I would like to conclude this session by thanking our moderators, our panelists, and of course the participants for a very valuable discussion.

I would have handed over to Chengetai, but anybody who might have housekeeping issues?  Nobody.

So with those remarks I declare this session closed and invite you for lunch.

Thank you.

[ Applause ]