Hello all:
I am sending a civil society draft being developed to
respond to a recent US policy statement (read by Michael
D. Gallagher, Assistant secretary at the US National
Telecommunications and Information Administration) in
what was widely seen as an effort to pre-empt the
release of the report of the WSIS Working Group on
Internet Governance (WGIG), and assert US interests more
emphatically in its control over core Internet resources
including root zone file, root server operation, Domain
Name and IP address management, and related resources
Gallagher's statement of the US positioin is here:
http://www.ntia.doc.gov/ntiahome/domainname/USDNSprincip
les_06302005.htm.
The WGIG report has since been released. It can be found
at:
http://www.wgig.org/docs/WGIGREPORT.doc
http://www.wgig.org/docs/WGIGREPORT.pdf
Civil Society, through the WSIS IG Caucus, is developing
a general statement in reaction to the WGIG report, and
also longer text to address certain issus and concerns
in the various meetings that are happening from now till
PrepCom3 in Geneva.
Here is the evolving draft of the CS positioin on the
Gallagher statement, which will be referred to in the
general CS statement.
I am reposting this to the various lists as articles and
reactions to what has been referred to as the US
"bombshell" had been posted to these lists. (Apologies
if you receive this more than once.)
FYI
Thanks
Al
=========
** DRAFT - WSIS Civil Society Internet Governance Caucus
Response to the Gallagher NTIA Statement **
1. The US statement recently made by Michael D.
Gallagher, Assistant secretary at the National
Telecommunications and Information Administration
(NTIA), has caused much concern and raised a number of
questions.
2. In the absence of any clarification, the statement
is interpreted as a manifestation of a US strategy that
it will never give up its control over core Internet
resources including root zone file, root server
operation, Domain Name and IP address management, and
related resource management.
3. More specifically, it indicates that the current
framework regarding US unilateral control over the root
zone file currently working under the contract with
VeriSign, will be maintained for an indefinite time into
the future. This directly contradicts the consensus of
WGIG: "No single Government should have a pre-eminent
role in relation to international Internet governance"
(in para 48 of the WGIG report").
4. The US statement also appears to indicate that US
will maintain its oversight of ICANN, without describing
which areas or functions of ICANN are the target object
of the oversight. This contradicts our understanding of
the widely publicized positions of the US Government and
ICANN that they will not renew the Memorandum of
Understanding at its expiry date of September 2006 and
thus ICANN will gain an international independence, once
ICANN and its community demonstrate its ability to
guarantee stability and security of a critical global
resource under its own authority.
5. The statement makes it difficult for the world to
believe that ICANN is, or can ever become, the trusted
and fair broker it needs to be. We would like to hear
from the US representative whether this apparent
shift/turn around is what it seems.
6. Civil Society does not fully endorse the current
state of ICANN, [especially in their representational
structures and policy development processes], and
recognize that there is a lot of room for improvement to
enhance the participation of all stakeholders as is
outlined in the WGIG report. However, we also consider
that the model the ICANN community has developed to date
is still far better than the direction the US statement
revealed.
7. We understand that the current ICANN model puts the
technical community in charge of technical resource
development, management and operation, while it provides
an adequate framework for coordination and cooperation
among private sector (including technical community),
governments and civil society (including users and
non-commercial entities) in its policy development and
decision making process.
8. We call for the evolutionary yet significant
improvement of this framework, one that enhances the
stable, secure and innovative functioning of the
Internet, and provides increased authority achieved by
the [consensus] [involvement] of all stakeholders, [not
just by the agreements of governments].
9. Unilateral oversight without consent of other
stakeholders will not contribute to the long-term
stability and security of the Internet [for the benefit
of all users and citizens] {and may place stability and
security at risk}.