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Member State views on opening the CWG-Internet

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[This post is part of a series on the ITU Council 2013 discussions on CWG-Internet. To read from the beginning, go here.]

Photo credit: ITU pictures via Flickr

Photo credit: ITU pictures via Flickr

Member States on the Council were divided on whether or not to open the CWG-Internet to non-government stakeholders. There weren’t any surprises about which States supported which side; the divisions played out like pretty much all previous discussions on Internet-related issues at the ITU. One State didn’t want the CWG-Internet meetings opened, but were amenable to making its document available to all. Other States didn’t like the formal proposals to open the CWG-Internet, but were okay with the idea of an Informal Experts Group (more here) as proposed by the ITU Council 2013 Chair.

The various reasons that Member States in the two main camps gave for their positions are described below. Where some of the reasons seem to be more specific examples of a broader reason, I’ve sub-bulleted them. This doesn’t mean, however, that the same Member State stated both the main and sub-bulleted reasons.

Open the CWG-Internet because:

  • WTPF-13 had shown how well multistakeholderism can work.
    • Now is the right time to seize the opportunity to build on the momentum of the highly successful WTPF-13.
    • The outside world’s view of ITU changed with multistakeholder success of WTPF-13. If ITU chooses to keep the CWG-Internet a closed club, suspicion may return.
  • The Tunis Agenda has stated that the multistakeholder model is the appropriate model for Internet governance
  • Opening the CWG-Internet will have benefits for everyone, and particularly for developing countries.
    • Opening CWG-Internet sends an important political sign to the outside world that ITU is committed to openness and transparency.
    • Other stakeholders will bring the necessary expertise to CWG discussions on Internet issues. Diversity encourages broad and creative problem solving rooted in maximizing the effectiveness, efficiency and utility of the global Internet.
  • In the end, the work of the CWG-Internet will always be a Member State affair (it must report to Council), so there is nothing to be lost in opening participation in CWG-Internet meetings.
  • ITU Council shouldn’t be focusing on matters of process (“does Council have power to modify Plenipotentiary resolutions?”) but on matters of substance and principle (“Because CWG-Internet discussions affect all stakeholders, all stakeholders should have the opportunity to participate”).
  • The CWG-Internet is the only place in the foreseeable future that can make real decisions about Internet governance, and therefore must have multistakeholder input.
    • Other venues that discuss Internet governance are too far away or are non-decision making forums:
      • The next WTPF could be years away, and may not address Internet issues.
      • The IGF is annual event, but doesn’t make decisions.

Don’t open the CWG-Internet because:

  • ITU Council has no legal right to change any resolution adopted by the Plenipotentiary
  • ITU Plenipotentiary Conference 2014 is only a year and a half away. There’s no need to rush and change things now.
    • It would be better to continue studying the issue and submit a more detailed report to Plenipotentiary to consider.
  • ITU Council is only a subset of ITU Member States and such an important decision should be discussed by all Member States.
  • CWG-Internet isn’t a forum. It’s a working body of the ITU.
  • Proposals to open CWG are basically changing the rule for decision-making on public policy issues within the ITU.
  • The openness of WCIT led to politicization on issues still at an early stage, making it very difficult for countries to reach agreement, and reducing effectiveness of the process. (The Secretary-General, who had proposed opening the CWG-Internet, also referred to this same issue during the Council meeting.)
  • WTPF-13 wasn’t the great success that some of the Member States say it was. When Member States arrived onsite, they found they weren’t supposed to reopen any texts that had reached consensus at the final IEG meeting. Brazil’s proposed “Opinion 7“, because it hadn’t reached IEG consensus, also couldn’t be adopted at WTPF, but was instead deferred to the CWG-Internet.
  • Multistakeholderism in Internet governance is problematic because it doesn’t represent all stakeholders.
    • Only stakeholders with the resources can attend. In particular, stakeholders from developing countries aren’t represented effectively.
    • Until multistakeholderism is more representative of the true diversity of views, a government-only approach, which allows the diversity of all country’s views to be adequately represented, should be maintained.
    • Multistakeholderism itself should be addressed by public policy since stakeholders do not come in similar sizes and packages. These days, some of the companies involved in Internet activities are bigger than most of the countries in the Council. At WCIT, some of the delegates were put under immense pressure, and even threatened. (The Member State representative who made this comment didn’t know who made such threats, but had heard that it had happened.)
  • There are lots of other Internet governance related forums that other stakeholders can attend, including WTPF and IGF.
  • CWG-Internet has a very specific mandate: to discuss international public policy issues related to the Internet. Public policy is a government responsibility so it is only right that the CWG-Internet remain an exclusively governments-only environment.
  • Under the multistakeholder model in Tunis Agenda, each stakeholder group has a different role to play. International public policy is sovereign right of each country.
  • Stakeholders can and should take part in all the work of the ITU, but within the regulatory framework described in the Constitution and Convention.
  • CWG-Internet already has a method to engage with other stakeholders: the open consultation process.
  • It is a sensitive issue that Member States have discussed for a long time, without finding a solution.
  • ITU shouldn’t take any action, just to “appease the masses”. Instead, it’s important to take the appropriate action.
  • Why can’t individual stakeholder groups have their own space to discuss Internet governance issues amongst themselves? Why must everyone be in the same room when we discuss the Internet? Inclusivity of discussions is laudable, but it doesn’t mean that there can’t be side discussions for individual stakeholder groups as well.

In addition, Member States voiced some general concerns and opinions during the discussions:

  • Opening up the CWG-Internet could create an imbalance in terms of representativeness. If ITU were to open the CWG-Internet, it would have to take steps to ensure that developing country participants were supported.
  • One Council member had no problems opening the CWG-Internet to stakeholders who are responsible for public policy, but not for stakeholders who aren’t responsible for public policy.
  • How can stakeholders engage in the CWG-Internet’s work (in whatever form) if they can’t also have access to the documents?
  • One Council member believed that to gain the capacity to do the CWG’s work well, outside involvement could be useful, but the modalities of such participation needed to be addressed.

In response to the discussions by Member States about whether now was the time to respond to community calls for greater openness, the Secretary-General reflected:

“Let’s not be influenced by people who are listening to us. No. We should just be influenced by what is right. We’ll not be judged by only what we do and the way we do it, but we’ll also be judged by what we did not do. That’s also something we need to keep in mind.”

By not reaching a formal decision, but allowing the Secretary-General to energize the CWG-Internet open consultations, the 2013 ITU Council seemed to have achieved that delicate balance between action and non-action that the Secretary-General alluded to.

How ITU Council 2013 reached its non-decision on the CWG-Internet

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[This post is part of a series on the ITU Council 2013 discussions on CWG-Internet. To read from the beginning, go here.]

The four phases I describe below should not be confused with the four separate occasions that the ITU Council 2013 discussed the Council Working Group on international Internet-related public policy issues (CWG-Internet) in its plenary sessions. Instead, the phases are an attempt to help readers better understand how the discussion changed focus over the two weeks of ITU Council 2013.

Phase 1: Member States discuss the formal proposals on opening the CWG-Internet

It was clear from the initial Member States comments about the four proposals to open the CWG-Internet that it wasn’t going to be easy to find middle ground between the “open CWG-Internet” versus “keep CWG-Internet as is” positions.

Phase 2: The Chair suggests an ad-hoc group to find potential middle ground

After the first round of comments, the Chair of ITU Council 2013, Catalin Marinescu, from Romania, initially proposed an ad hoc group to examine ways forward that would be acceptable to the Council. However, a Council member stated that, in Council, all Member States needed to participate in the discussions. An ad hoc group was fine when used for drafting documents at ITU meetings, but was an inappropriate to use within the context of a Council session.

Phase 3: The Chair suggests bypassing need for official Council decision altogether

The Chair’s second suggested compromise was to invite the ITU Secretary-General to convene a balanced informal group of experts open to all stakeholders (IEG-Internet).

Photo credit: ITU pictures via Flickr

Photo credit: ITU pictures via Flickr

This IEG-Internet would be composed of experts invited by the Secretary-General from ITU sector members and non-ITU member entities with Internet governance expertise and experience based on the roles and responsibilities they may possess according to paragraph 35 of the Tunis Agenda. Under this second compromise suggested by the Chair, the Secretary-General would work to improve the participation of developing country stakeholders in the meetings of IEG-Internet. The IGF-Internet would meet on the day before the CWG-Internet’s own meeting, with the Secretary-General summarizing the IEG-Internet’s expert opinions in his own submission to the CWG. To enable ITU to get the best expert opinions on issues under discussion at the CWG-Internet, the IEG-Internet would need to have access to CWG documents.

The compromise was designed to sidestep the problem of reaching a decision in the Council by reframing multistakeholder participation in the CWG-Internet’s work as an administrative support function of the Secretary-General. As such, there was no need for the Council to publish a decision or resolution on the issue at all.

You might think that at this point, given the Council didn’t need to make a decision on the issue at all, that the discussion would come to an end. But you would be wrong. The Council was currently only halfway through the discussion at this point.

Phase 4: The Council discusses whether or not they like the non-decision option

  • One Member State was concerned about the relationship between the IEG-Internet and CWG-Internet.
  • Another was concerned about the financial ramifications of holding IEG-Internet meetings.
  • A Member State who supported the Chair’s compromise suggested that having the IEG before PP-14 would be a good way for PP-14 participants to be better informed about how Plenipotentiary Resolution 102 (Rev. Guadalajara, 2010) could be updated to include the participation of other stakeholders.
  • Another Member State was concerned about the legal implications of having an IEG-Internet meeting the day before CWG-Internet. ITU Council 2012 Resolution 1344 states that public consultations must end one month before CWG. A meeting the day before CWG would contradict that resolution.

The Chair had made his compromise proposal verbally, which had confused some of the Member States (English is not everyone’s first language and simultaneous interpretation doesn’t always allow the finer nuances of a proposal to be communicated). He therefore offered to produce a draft explaining the proposal in more detail. However, one Member State objected to this.

The Member State believed that as the action of the Secretary-General didn’t need the approval of the Council members, it would be inappropriate for the Chair of the Council to document what he thought the Secretary-General should do. Instead, recording the discussion in the minutes would suffice. The same Member State also insisted that it was up to the Secretary-General to decide how to energize the public consultation—which the same Member State noted had not received much public input to date—and not up to the Chair to suggest to the Secretary-General that an IEG be created.

Where we are now

It will be up to the Secretary-General to decide how he will encourage stakeholder participation in the CWG-Internet open consultations. However, the deadline for current open consultations is now less than a month away: 1 August 2013.

It is very unlikely that the Secretary-General can do much at all to support multistakeholder input into the second CWG-Internet meeting for 2013. Any face-to-face meeting for multistakeholder input before the 1 August public consultation deadline is likely to be poorly attended given the short timeframe involved. So it is likely that all the Secretary-General can do in the short-time is send letters to various Internet governance stakeholders and ask them write a written response to the open consultation. Right now, there are only four responses to the public consultation, which is pretty poor given the open consultation opened back in February. (As an aside, it’s interesting to note that none of the responses to date are from the key Internet organizations which have, in the past, been vocal in calling for greater inclusion of multistakeholder views in ITU’s work on Internet issues.)

There is the possibility that the Secretary-General could perhaps do more than send letters to non-government stakeholders for the CWG-Internet’s meeting early next year. Perhaps there could be a proto-IEG-Internet meeting in the fourth quarter this year. The issue, however, would be in ensuring that developing country stakeholders could be equally represented at such a meeting without affecting ITU’s already tight budget.

Toward the future

Depending on how successful the open consultation process is in the lead-up to the next two CWG-Internet meetings, there may be the possibility to allay many of the fears of Member States who currently oppose any form of opening up the CWG, no matter how minimal. But the future modalities of the CWG-Internet is not the only issue that we should think about here. We should also think about how we can all address some of the very real concerns some governments have about the multistakeholder Internet governance model.

Formal proposals regarding the CWG-Internet

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[This post is part of a series on the ITU Council 2013 discussions on CWG-Internet. To read from the beginning, go here.]

There were four CWG-Internet related proposals by Member States and one proposal by the Secretary-General:

Contribution 64, ITU Secretary-General

Annex A of the report on WTPF-13 was a draft resolution, Participation of all Stakeholders in the Council Working Group on international Internet-related Public Policy Issues. It recommended that, given the success of multistakeholder participation in WTPF-13, PP-14 make CWG-Internet open to all stakeholders. It recommended that in the interim, the CWG-Internet be make open to all stakeholders on a provisional “test” basis. The rationale for the “test” opening of the CWG-Internet before PP-14 was that it would help Member States at PP-14 make a better-informed decision on how the dynamics of multistakeholderism in the group would work.

Contribution 67, Russia

This proposal states that as many WTPF-13 delegates supported both the need to define the role of governments in the Internet governance model and the need for further discussion of the issues raised in Brazil’s “Opinion 7“, the CWG-Internet should define general principles for State participation and the role of governments in the Internet governance model for consideration at PP-14.

Despite the similarity to the “operationalizing enhanced cooperation” discussions happening at the CSTD Working Group on Enhanced Cooperation (WGEC), the proposal avoids directly referring to “enhanced cooperation”. Instead, it refers to WTPF-13 Opinion 5 by number, rather than by its full title, On supporting operationalizing the Enhanced Cooperation Process.

Contribution 69, USA

USA proposed amending Council resolutions 1336, which created the CWG-Internet in 2011, and 1344, which in 2012 defined how CWG-Internet open consultations would take place. USA proposes opening CWG-Internet to all stakeholders and making all CWG-Internet documents freely available to all. The successful use of open and transparent discussions during the deliberations of the Informal Experts Group during WTPF-13 preparations is used as the reason to open the CWG-Internet.

Contribution 70, Sweden

Sweden’s proposal suggests that all CWG-Internet documents should be freely accessible to all stakeholders, with a provision that, on a case-by-case basis, individual documents still be kept accessible to governments only, if felt necessary. This is Sweden’s second attempt to get CWG-Internet documents made publicly available. The first time was at last year’s ITU Council 2012 meeting, where it submitted Contribution 65, Contribution from Sweden – Council Working Group on international Internet-related public policy issues (CWG-Internet. It uses WTPF-13 as an example of how well multistakeholderism can works within ITU’s Internet-related discussions.

Contribution 84, Poland

Poland proposed holding a discussion to amend Plenipotentiary Resolution 102 (Rev. Guadalajara, 2010) to open CWG-Internet to other stakeholders. Note that the proposal isn’t to open the CWG-Internet. It’s a proposal to discuss opening the CWG-Internet. As with the USA, Sweden and ITU Secretary-General proposals, it uses the success of multistakeholder participation at WTPF-13 to explain why opening the CWG is a good idea.

Why it’s good China is part of the IGF MAG

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igf-2013-logoLast week, as part of a series of posts about preparations for the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) in Bali later this year, I blogged about the MAG’s consensus-minus-one decision to remove Critical Internet Resources (CIR) as one of the themes of the main sessions (it’s still a workshop track theme) and include human rights and freedom of expression as main session themes.

One thing I didn’t manage to fit into the flow of that post was why, even though China was alone amongst MAG members in its objections to these theme changes, it is important to recognize how significant it is that China chooses to remain a MAG member.

China’s positions on Internet governance issues in MAG discussions

Critical Internet Resource management aka “ICANN is a tool of the US government”

The Chinese government has had a representative on the MAG since the preparations for the first IGF in 2006. China, like a number of States, was-and still is-very unhappy with the US government’s unique role in the global CIR management system. No doubt, therefore, China saw a place on the MAG as another venue for keeping discussion on the USA government’s pre-eminent role in CIR management alive. Of course, we’re all already well aware of the need for ICANN to truly internationalize. It’s just that China, and a number of other States, would prefer it internationalize by moving its CIR functions into an intergovernmental body such as the ITU, or perhaps a completely new body under the UN system.

China should not be criticized for continuing to push for a spotlight on the US government’s role in the IANA and ICANN. It is a legitimate view. And just as legitimate as the view of many members of the Internet technical community who have spent their time on the MAG doing the exact opposite: trying to shift IGF’s discussions away from a sole focus on the CIR management model to a wider range of Internet governance issues.

Human rights and freedom of expression

It’s clear that China is not going to be the poster child for human rights at any point in the foreseeable future. It’s no surprise, therefore, that China’s representatives on the MAG would not support human rights related themes for the IGF. In past years, there have been IGF workshops with a human rights angle, but they’ve been placed under other headings (development, access, etc.), so less of a threat than a clearly stated main theme. This year, however, the preparatory meetings clearly showing community and wide MAG member interest in having human rights and freedom of expression as main IGF themes.

If you’re a State with a less than stellar history of meeting UN obligations in a certain area—whether it be freedom of expression, women’s rights, environmental protection, or more—and there’s a UN conference that will include that topic as a main theme, you’re going to do everything you can to get that theme removed. So it’s no surprise that China was vocal in opposing human rights and freedom of expression on the Internet in the main themes of IGF 2013. It is surprising, though that other States on the MAG weren’t supporting China. Azerbaijan, for example. Let’s also not forget that only a few months earlier, many States were madly opposing the inclusion of human rights in the preamble to the ITRs at the WCIT in Dubai. (Human rights were eventually included, but probably only because the ITU Secretary General, Dr Hamadoun Touré, actively lobbied dissenting States to agree to the reference.)

Reframing China’s participation in the MAG: multistakeholderism in action

Listening to China repeatedly take the floor during the May open consultations and MAG meetings to express its views on CIRs and human rights may have seemed frustrating at the time, but with hindsight, it was a good example of multistakeholder consensus decision making in action.

The value of the multistakeholder nature of the IGF’s advisory group is its deliberate incorporation of stakeholders with vastly different viewpoints on Internet governance issues. China stated its objections to the theme changes; other MAG members engaged with China to explain their reasons for supporting change and to assure China that CIRs remained a key theme of IGF 2013, but in a different way—via the workshop track.

As we know, by the end of the May meeting, China still hadn’t been swayed by the discussion and remained the dissenting view in the MAG on the main themes for IGF 2013. China did, however, accept the interim Chair’s proposal that the final report to the UN in New York would both include the MAG’s consensus themes as the recommended themes for IGF 2013, while also noting China’s dissenting opinion.

China didn’t get its way at the first IGF in Athens. CIR management wasn’t a main theme at that IGF. But China stuck with the IGF and has remained on the MAG ever since. China may not agree with many of the principles and values of the multistakeholder bottom-up Internet governance model, but it has engaged in the system.

It’s been noted by various IGF supporters over the years that States opposing the current Internet governance ecosystem tend not to engage in the IGF. China opposes the current CIR management model, but is engaging with the IGF. And even more importantly, it is recognizing when its view isn’t the consensus view and accepting, with a degree of grace, the decision by the overwhelming majority of MAG members. In response, its relationship with other MAG members becomes stronger, and helps lay a better foundation for future deliberations.

Towards the future

The open and frank discussions at WTPF last month on Brazil’s draft “Opinion 7” have helped pave the way for constructive and collaborative work to enhance the participation of governments in Internet governance in future. Similarly, China’s willingness to participate in the MAG, even when the MAG reaches general consensus on issues it doesn’t agree with, bodes well for an IGF that can encourage stakeholders with divergent views to engage with each other and make progress on Internet governance issues.

China shouldn’t feel that it lost an argument at the IGF MAG meetings this year. Rather, it succeeded in having its view clearly expressed and understood by others. Equally, the other MAG members shouldn’t feel they won the debate over the main themes for IGF 2013. Instead, for the first time, they had to accommodate a dissenting view in the report to the UN in New York.

Multistakeholderism isn’t easy. And it’s increasingly difficult to navigate our way to mutually acceptable solutions as more stakeholders, with a wider range of views, enter the discussions.

We will all lose if holders of dissenting views leave the system, or never enter it in the first place. That’s why China’s continued participation in the MAG is encouraging for the long-term health of the Internet governance ecosystem. China may still prefer Internet governance to be a largely intergovernmental affair, but it’s engaging with the multistakeholder model, even when the model heads in directions it may not agree with, as with the MAG’s CIR and human rights theme decisions.

So let’s view China’s interventions at the May MAG meeting less in the vein of “Here they go again” and more in the spirit of “They are participating and that is good for us all”.