The acclaimed second largest public
meeting of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN)
ended October 19 in Toronto, Canada, hopes were raised amidst a key question of
who controls the Internet on the match to World Congress on Information
Technology (WCIT) in Dubai, December 2012 and ICANN’s next public meeting
schedule for April 7-11, next year in Beijing.
The first largest public meeting was in the Praque and this follows
some obvious scheming from various interest groups on Internet from devised
regions, including that of .Africa and continuous agitation by some elements to
hijack the processes, despite efforts to ensure that good governance prevail.
Some of the good news emanating
from the Toronto meeting was the promise by ICANN President and Chief Executive
Officer, Mr. Fadi Chehadé to prioritize efforts at reaching a resolution with
domain name registrars in the on-going negotiations to achieve a Registrar
Accreditation Agreement (RAA), with a majority of RAA community
endorsement.
He is to become personally involved
in ICANN’s efforts to establish a Trademark Clearing House prior to the
introduction of new generic Top-Level Domains (gTLDs) in 2013.
“I’m going to be inserting myself
personally in these issues,” he declared, stressing that discussion is already
on-going with the relevant community and there is frankly universal agreement
that his participation personally in these activities could help the larger
Internet community come to hopefully reasonable conclusions that could banked
upon by all in moving forward to next year and with the new gTLDs.
DigitalSENSE Business News recalls
that the meeting to achieve all these, began a few days after ICANN announced a
plan to use a draw, or drawing, to determine which gTLD applications would be
prioritized. This system would be used as a way to equitably schedule the
release of initial evaluation results, pre-delegation testing, and contract
execution.
Internet Corporation for Assigned
Names and Numbers (ICANN) founded in 1998 coordinates and administers core
resources of the Internet globally. Africa is one of the five regions of ICANN
and Africans have been active members of constituencies in ICANN since 1998.
Africa is an emerging Internet economy and has the fastest growing networks but
its participation in ICANN is not commensurate where the few number of African
Registries and new gTLD applications is the popular example.
 |
| Chehade, ICANN President |
The ministerial meeting held alongside
the ICANN Dakar meeting in October 2011 issued a communique that called on
ICANN to increase its presence in Africa and to be more relevant to needs of
the region.
Towards the conclusion of the
tenure of the outgoing CEO of ICANN there were new hires of Vice Presidents for
some regions. A group of concerned Africans suggested in a public communication
to ICANN that hiring of senior staff for Africa would be better guided by a
strategic plan for Africa.
At the recently held ICANN meeting
in Prague a section of African participants met with members of the board and
the incoming CEO together with the acting CEO. The CEO requested that the group
assist in developing a 3 year strategic plan with clear goals for Africa. The
CEO also asked the group to nominate a special advisor for this assignment
however the group decided to form a working group instead to lead a community
process to develop the strategic plan.
The Governmental Advisory
Committee (GAC) of
ICANN met in Toronto,
Canada during the
week of 13
October 2012, with 50 members
in attendance and three
observers, with GAC’s theme: “Preserving
and Improving the Multistakeholder
Model” as contained in the finale communiqué from the Governmental
Advisory Committee (GAC).
Reacting, the chairman,
Non-Commercial Users Group (NCUG) of ICANN, Ms Robin Gross, described the GAC
latest communique as ‘demand’ ICANN to give-up the multi-stakeholder model and
give all powers to GAC to manage the Domain Name Systems (DNS).
She expressed the hope that ICANN
Board and community should have the will and foresight to resist acceding
control to GAC as it demanded.
Also a top notch of NCUG, Mr.
Kleinwächter Wolfgang, lamented the disaster of GAC communiqué, saying that
after reading the GAC Communique he noticed a strong shift in its tone. “What
we had so far only in the oral presentations of some GAC members we have now in
the written (agreed) GAC Communique.
 |
| Toure, ITU Secretary General |
He was particular of the demand for
GAC to reserve its right to have the last word, at least, with regard to issues
of “public interest.” Wondering, what is not “public interest” in the ICANN
context? This will raise further
question about the relationship between the GAC and the Board and GAC´s
understanding of the multistakeholder model with an open and transparent bottom
up Policy Development Process (PDP).
He cited for instance the theme of
GAC’s meeting, saying, however there are no conclusions or recommendations
which came out of the meeting, but GAC´s understanding of “improving” the
Multistakeholder Model? This seems similar to debate as witness in the UN under
“improving the IGF”? For some GAC members “improving” means obviously to move
decision making power from the Board to the GAC.
This, he said, seems in problematic
and would undermine the understanding of the multistakeholder model. Recalling
that the WGIG definition where it is said, that Internet Governance includes
“shared ... decision making procedures”. The GAC has not delivered a model how
decision making on issues related to public policies can be “shared” with other
non-governmental constituencies within the ICANN context.
According to him, it is still a
battle for ‘the right to have the last word,’ the single decision making power.
And this will continue. All sides have still to find ‘their respective role’
(another quotation for the WGIG definition, adopted by 180+ member states of
the United Nations in 2005).”
Additionally, he argued, this may
sound good that the GAC is obviously considering jumping into ICANNs open and
transparent bottom up policy development process at an early stage. However, he
said, it remains unclear how this will be managed procedurally.
“Will there be a GAC liaison in all
drafting teams? And what is the status of such a liaison? Just as an observer,
reporting back to the GAC? Or as an active member who can speak on behalf of
the 120+ GACies? Will the OK of the GAC liaison be needed to reach “rough
consensus” in a drafting team (which would give the GAC a “veto right” for
everything)? A good field for reaching progress by stumbling forward,” he
lamented.
Dubai enroute Beijing’13:
What the aforementioned dialogue
and outcome from Toronto reflected is the kind of politicking to expect in
Beijing, China in April 2013. But before then, more paradox awaits the global
Internet community as the reports making a round that the International
Telecommunication Union (ITU), an agency of the United Nations is taunted to
have expressed interest on Internet Governance globally and hoisting the current
administration coordination from the ICANN.
Although ITU has severally denied
these reports, the rumour refused to give way, which prompted the ITU Secretary
General, Dr. Hamadoun Toure to declare at the just ended Telecom World in Dubai
that ITU has a lot in its hands and is definitely not interested in acquiring
another responsibility in the name of governing or regulating the Internet.
Nonetheless, the debate is expected
to dominate issues at the forthcoming World Congress on Information Technology
(WCIT 2012) slated to hold in Dubai, United Arab Emirates (UAE) for a 3-day
conference that will focus on the theme of “One Vision for a Global Digital
Society.”
Expert warns on rewrite the rules:
Commenting on this, one of Nigerian
internet experts and chairman, Consultancy Support Services, Mr. Abdul-Hakeem
Ajijola, says it is expected that the Dubai meeting in December is likely to
attract intense fighting over proposals to rewrite global telecom rules to
effectively give the United Nations control over the Internet.
Reports have it that Russia, China
and other countries back a move to place the Internet under the authority of
the ITU, for the fear of dominance of ICANN by the United States. While US
officials and majority of Internet community argue that such step would
undermine the freewheeling nature of cyberspace, which promotes open commerce
and free expression, and could in fact, give a green light for some countries
to crack down on dissidents, who have been to use the Internet to mobilize
support for their courses.
Submission:
DigitalSENSE
Business News reports that some industry watchers are cynical that a number
of authoritarian states will back the move by China and Russia, and that the
major Western nations will oppose it; meaning that the developing world could
make a difference if they key into the Western nations position, all leading to
diplomatic evaluation of the issue to a given country.
While Africa continues to battle within itself
to have a voice for the dot Africa, more closure of the gap therein within the
continent as far as Internet Governance is concerned becomes imperative.
Remmy Nweke
... Making SENSE of digital revolution!
No comments:
Post a Comment