Author Archives: samanthagdickinson

UNGA Second Committee discusses Internet issues

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On 26 October 2011, the UNGA Second Committee discussed three documents of interest to the Internet community as part of agenda item 16, Information and communication technologies for development:

  • A/66/77-E/2011/103 Report of the Secretary-General on enhanced cooperation on public policy issues pertaining to the Internet
  • A/66/67-E/2011/79 Report of the Working Group on Improvements to the Internet Governance Forum
  • A/66/64-E/2011/77 Report of the Secretary-General on progress made in the implementation of and follow-up to the outcomes of the World Summit on the Information Society at the regional and international levels

First, a little bit of context

The Second Committee’s discussion was only days before the Working Group on Improvements to the Internet Governance Forum (CSTD WG) convenes for its third meeting in Geneva, 31 October – 2 November 2011). (As a member of the CSTD WG, I’ll be blogging about its activities next week, so stay tuned.)

The Committe’s discussion on enhanced cooperation comes in the wake of IBSA work on Internet governance in September and earlier this month. Following an IBSA Seminar on Global Internet Governance, 1-2 September 2011, IBSA issued a set of draft recommendations on Internet governance, in which they called for a new UN body to house the Internet governance enhanced cooperation process.

The draft recommendations resulted in a flurry of discussion in the Internet governance community:

Following the large amount of time spent on discussing the IBSA proposal at IGF, the language used by IBSA about Internet governance in its October Tshwane Declaration (paragraphs 52-55) was significantly toned down, but still was the cause of much discussion in the Internet community.

The Second Committee’s discussion on World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) follow-up took place after recent decisions by the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) 2011 Council to take the lead within UNGIS on a multistakeholder WSIS+10 process, but to keep its own newly renamed Working Group on International Internet-related Public Policy Issues open to Member States only.

Note:

    While all workings of the Working Group on International Internet-related Public Policy Issues will remain closed to non-Member States, there is the opportunity for other Internet stakeholders to submit input as part of “open consultations” called by the WG.

Discussions at Second Committee on 26 October 2011

Below are some of the more interesting extracts from the long UN press release, with some initial reactions from me:

1. Role of UN in Internet governance

“HAIYAN QIAN, Director, Division for Public Administration and Development Management, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, said that five years after the World Summit on Information Society, there was no common perspective on how to achieve enhanced cooperation on Internet-related international public policy issues. However, cooperation would be helpful on a wide range of key policy issues, including cybercrime, privacy and capacity-building, she said, adding that, although opinions differed on the most appropriate mechanisms, there was agreement on shared principles. While authority over Internet-related public policy issues was the sovereign right of States, management of the Internet should continue to follow a multi-stakeholder approach, she said, adding that consultations had reaffirmed the facilitating role of the United Nations in the relevant policymaking.”

My thoughts: It’s encouraging to see DESA referring to the UN’s role as playing a “facilitating”, rather than authoritative, role in Internet governance-related public policy issues. This is in the spirit of the multistakeholder approach to Internet governance agreed to at WSIS.

2. Information technology and the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) deadline

“YUSRA KHAN (Indonesia), speaking on behalf of the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN) and associating himself with the Group of 77 and China, said information and communications technology was a key driver of economic and social transformation. With barely four years left to meet the Millennium Development Goals, it was important to harness effectively its full potential as a strategic tool to help in meeting development goals.”

My thoughts: Will the looming 2015 MDG deadline, CSTD WG deliberations on how to better help the IGF better accomplish development goals, plus upcoming meetings like the ITU 2012 World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT) and 2013 World Telecommunication/ICT Policy Forum (WTPF) refocus Internet governance discussions in a more strongly developmental direction? The increasingly crowded calender of Internet governance related international events, while aiming to help progress issues, can paradoxically hinder progress. This is because no stakeholder group, whether they be government, civil society, business or technical, have the resources to track all activities at the exploding number of Internet governance related forums. When this happens, it’s very possible that balls get dropped. Yes, one of the suggested improvements for IGF being discussed at the CSTD WG is having IGF be the lynchpin for connecting and sharing various Internet governance discussions, for the IGF Secretariat to attend other Internet governance meetings and disseminate IGF materials to all relevant parties. But to achieve this, the IGF is going to have to find a lot more funding in a world where the UN has across-the-board budget cuts, and other stakeholder groups are similarly financially stretched across competing, worthy projects.

3. The future of IGF

“FÁBIO FARIAS (Brazil), associating himself with the Group of 77 and China, […] Calling for more investment in broadband infrastructure, he said that in light of the Internet’s standing as a global facility, according to the World Summit, its governance should be multilateral, transparent and democratic, with the full involvement of all Governments, the private sector, civil society and international organizations. The Internet Governance Forum should continue to focus on policy dialogue, on Internet governance and on creating mechanisms for greater participation by representatives of different stakeholders from developing countries, he said. It should also produce clear outputs of its discussions in order to fulfil the goal of contributing to the shaping of policies on the various actors involved in Internet governance.”

My thoughts: I’m not sure about the use of “multilateral”, given, within the same sentence, Brazil talks about involving stakeholders outside government as well. Brazil has been consistently supporting the need for more clear outputs in the CSTD WG, so no surprises here. Also no surprises that the UK and Sweden stated their support for leveraging the multistakeholder IGF for enhancing Internet development. For the UK and Sweden’s statements, see the very bottom of the UN press release.

4. The call for a UN Committee on enhanced cooperation

“DUSHYANT SINGH (India) proposed the establishment of a new institutional mechanism within the United Nations for global Internet-related policies, to be called the United Nations Committee for Internet-Related Policies. The goal of such a mechanism would not be to control the Internet, but to ensure that the Internet was governed in an open, democratic, inclusive and participatory manner. The proposed committee would take on the task of developing international public policies to ensure coordination and coherence in cross-cutting Internet-related global issues, and addressing Internet-related developmental issues, among others. He said that his multi-ethnic, multicultural country, as a democratic society with an open economy and an abiding culture of pluralism, emphasized the importance of strengthening the Internet as a vehicle for openness, democracy, freedom of expression, human rights, diversity, inclusiveness and socio-economic growth. The governance of such an unprecedented global medium that embodied those values should be similarly inclusive, democratic, participatory, multilateral and transparent in nature, he said, emphasizing that India attached great importance to the preservation of the Internet as an unrestricted, open, and free global medium that flourished through private innovation and individual creativity. In order create the proposed committee, India called for the establishment of a working group to draw up the detailed terms, under the auspices of the Commission on Science and Technology for Development.”

My thoughts: So of the IBSA countries, neither Brazil nor South Africa mentioned the enhanced cooperation body that caused so much consternation after their draft recommendations in September this year. But India still supports it. Being totally selfish, I’m hoping this proposal for yet another CSTD WG doesn’t derail the CSTD WG on IGF improvements discussion next week. I also wonder how India’s proposal for this new committee interacts with ITU’s work on Internet public policy issues through its own Working Group on International Internet-related Public Policy Issues and its discussions on Internet policy at WCIT and WTPF. The last thing any of us need is yet another body that duplicates (even partially) the work of another existing Internet governance body or forum.

5. Critical Internet resources

“XIE XIAOWU (China), endorsing the statement made on behalf of the Group of 77 and China, […] He stressed that States had the sovereign right to make decisions on any Internet-related public policy issues, adding that though the United Nations should play an active role in Internet governance, the principles of multilateralism, democracy, and transparency, should be respected. Efforts should also be made to include developing countries on an equal footing in the management of key Internet resources, he said, emphasizing that every State and individual was entitled to an information society that benefitted all citizens.”

My thoughts: It wouldn’t be an Internet governance discussion without someone referring to ICANN/IANA being based on US government contract. China’s 2010 Internet white paper states that it “maintains that all countries have equal rights in participating in the administration of the fundamental international resources of the Internet, and a multilateral and transparent allocation system should be established on the basis of the current management mode, so as to allocate those resources in a rational way and to promote the balanced development of the global Internet industry.” So the statement made by China at the Second Committee is merely a reaffirmation of its stance.

Where to from here?

The deadline for draft resolutions on item 16, Information and communication technologies for development, is 28 October 2011. Watch this space…

Georgia supports UN’s involvement in international cybersecurity

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On 11 October 2011, during the UN General Assembly (UNGA) First Committee general debate, Georgia noted its concern about rapidly evolving cybersecurity risks, and stated its support for UN and UNGA First Committee to include activities on cybersecurity. Georgia’s statement follows China’s statement in the same First Committee, on 7 October, about the the reasons it had worked on a draft international code of conduct for information security with Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.

The extract about cybersecurity from Georgia’s statement to the First Committee follows:

ALEXANDER LOMAIA (Georgia) : […] New threats, including cyber-attacks, had emerged and were evolving rapidly, he said. The United Nations and the First Committee should contribute to scrutinising the problem and raising awareness and understanding of that challenge, by providing an essential platform for elaborating mechanisms and instruments aimed at diffusing that threat

For a full summary of the First Committee’s discussions during the 11 October general debate, see the UN press release:

ITU Council 2011 to discuss Internet issues

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On Thursday 13 October 2011, the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) Council during its 2011 session will discuss four important issues of relevance to Internet governance:

As the ITU is a union, the documents for the Council meeting are only available to its paying members (Member States, Sector Members, etc). But below is a brief overview of the four issues that will be discussed and why they’re important to the wider Internet governance ecosystem.

1. Implementing WSIS outcomes

WSIS was the process that spawned the Internet Governance Forum (IGF). But the WSIS Tunis Agenda also specified a number of “action lines” to be pursued at the local, national, regional and international levels in the wake of the 2005 Tunis meeting. These action lines include issues like “the role of public governance authorities and all stakeholders in the promotion of ICTs for development”, “capacity building”, and “international and regional cooperation”. There are yearly meetings to discuss how these action lines are being pursued, with potentially another summit (as large as the initial Geneva and Tunis summits) to be held in 2014 or 2015 to mark ten years since the Tunis Summit.

There are three WSIS-related documents being discussed at the ITU Council meeting in 2011:

  • Contribution 33: Summary of the 18th meeting of the Council Working Group on WSIS (by Chair of the Working Group)
  • Contribution 61: Elaboration of a working definition of the term “ICT” (by Russia)
  • Contribution 74: Draft new resolution – ITU’s role in the final stage of WSIS implementation and follow-up activities after WSIS+10 (by Russia)

While none of these three documents are directly related to Internet governance, they do have an indirect relationship:

  • The Council Working Group (WG) on WSIS is open to ITU Member States only. ITU Sector Members cannot participate. Within the context of ITU processes, this makes perfect sense: the Council is open to Member States only, therefore it is logical for the Council’s WGs to also be open to Member States only. The potential anachronism arises from the topic of the WG’s work: WSIS. As the larger WSIS process has become open to multistakeholders, having ITU, one of the key bodies involved in managing the WSIS process, limit its WSIS discussions to only Member States can be seen as at odds with the spirit of WSIS. The Internet governance sphere, as one of the topics of contention during WSIS, 2003 to 2005, is therefore indirectly affected by how WSIS implementers choose to adopt, or not adopt, multistakeholder principles.
  • The proposal to develop a definition of “ICT” has ramifications for the Internet. Depending on how narrow or broad the definition is, it will have an effect on where and how Internet governance issues are discussed and decided upon.

2. Dedicated Group on international Internet-related public policy issues

The Dedicated Group (DG) is an offshoot of the ITU Council’s WSIS WG. As such, its deliberations have also been limited to ITU Member State representatives. Since the DG’s creation in 2009, it has discussed a number of topics of interest to the wider body of Internet governance stakeholders, including internationalized domain names, ccTLDs, IP address management, and IPv6 security. As a result of the ITU Plenipotentiary in October 2010, where the ITU recognized the role of stakeholders in the wider Internet community, the DG is to hold open consultations with other stakeholders. The Council’s discussions on how these open consultations will be conducted, therefore, will be of interest to the wider Internet community.

The two DG-related documents under discussion on 13 October 2011 are:

  • Contribution 33 Addendum 1: Report of the fifth meeting of the Dedicated Group on international Internet-related public policy issues (by Chair of DG)
  • Contribution 72: Terms of Reference of the Dedicated Group on international Internet-related public policy issues (by Saudi Arabia)

3. ITU update on Internet activities (Res 101, 102, 133, 180)

The ITU includes a number of Internet-related activities in its Study Groups, workshops and trainings. Three of its most recent resolutions from Plenipotentiary 2010 that provide Member State authorization for these activities are:

  • Resolution 101: Internet Protocol-based networks
  • Resolution 102: ITU’s role with regard to international public policy issues pertaining to the Internet and the management of Internet resources, including domain names and addresses
  • Resolution 133: Roles of administrations of Member States in the management of Internationalized (multilingual) domain names

During the discussions on the morning of 13 October 2011, the Council will discuss the ITU’s Internet-related activities in the past year, including NGN work, the Internet of Things, child online protection, and cloud computing:

  • Contribution 31: ITU Internet activities: Resolutions 101, 102, and 133 (by ITU Secretary General)

4. IPv4 to IPv6 transition

The ITU has been discussing their role, and the role of their Member States, in the Internet’s transition to IPv6 in a number of its forums. It has the IPv6 Group, and it has also help workshops on IPv6, as well as discussed IPv6 at meetings such as the 2010 World Telecommunications Development Forum.

The latest resolution by Member States that endorses ITU involvement in the transition to IPv6 was passed at the 2010 Plenipotentiary, Resolution 180: Facilitating the transition from IPv4 to IPv6. ITU Council 2011 will discuss the ITU’s IPv6 activities in the year since Resolution 180 was passed:

  • Contribution 32: Facilitating the transition from IPv4 to IPv6 as requested in Resolution 180 (by ITU Secretary General)

How to follow the ITU 2011 Council discussions on Internet matters

For those with ITU TIES accounts, you can view the draft time management plan and listen to the webcast in the six UN languages. For those without TIES accounts, ITU publishes news of its activities in its Newsroom.

UPDATE 13 OCTOBER 2011: As Veni Markovski very rightly pointed out to me, he is tweeting the ITU Council meeting from @veni. He also tweets a lot of other very interesting content, so well worth following.

International Code of Conduct on Information Security

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On Friday 7 October 2011 during the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) First Committee discussions in New York, China introduced the opt-in International Code of Conduct on Information Security (A/66/359) it co-authored with Russia, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. The proposed code of conduct is opt-in.

Why is this code of conduct important?

The proposed code of conduct is one part of the large body of Internet-related proposals being discussed in various intergovernmental and national venues at the moment. In particular, cybersecurity is currently being discussed in a number of venues, including:

  • The United Nations General Assembly
  • The International Telecommunications Union
  • The Council of Europe
  • ICANN

To understand China’s participation in the development of the code of conduct, it is useful to read the following:

Code of conduct at the First Committee

The UNGA First Committee discusses issues related to disarmament and international security. In the past, this committee has been dominated by discussions on nuclear weapons, land mines and other military matters. But with the increasing importance of the Internet, matters of Internet security are beginning to be discussed too.

Below is an extract of the Committee’s discussions on Friday, containing China’s introduction to the code of conduct (emphasis added by me):

LEI WANG (China) said that, during the first decade of the twenty‑first century, there have been profound and complex changes in the international security landscape.  The global security issue had become increasingly prominent.  It not only extended to political, economic and financial fields, as well as public health and energy, but also covered a wider spectrum, from outer space to such new frontiers as cyberspace and polar regions.

[…]

Also important, he said, was the active pursuit of preventative diplomacy in the prevention of turning cyberspace and outer space into new battlefields.  The twenty‑first century had become an era of information.  The increasingly wider application of information and cyberspace technologies has helped pick up the pace of development of human civilization.  Meanwhile, the security threats on the front of information and cyberspace have constituted a grave challenge to the international community.

He said it was against that backdrop that China had joined the Russian Federation, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan as co‑sponsors and submitted a draft “International Code of Conduct on Information Security” to the current session.  The co‑sponsors hoped the international community, on that basis, would enter into open, transparent and democratic deliberations, within the framework of the United Nations, with the objective of reaching early consensus on the relevant code of conduct, so as to safeguard the common interests of all parties in this field, and to ensure that information and cyberspace will be used to better promote international peace, security and stability, as well as the well‑being of mankind.

The full text of the summary of Friday’s general discussion at the UNGA First Committee is available in the following UN press release:

Going forward with a cybersecurity code of conduct

It will be interesting to see exactly what is meant by the framework of “open, transparent and democratic deliberations” China and its co-authors propose for the further development of the cybersecurity code of conduct. The Internet ecosystem has long had a mantra of “openness and transparency” and “rough consensus” in policy and standards development. However, many governments have been very uncomfortable with this process, feeling more at home with the structured decision-making at the United Nations.

The United Nations is at its core an intergovernmental organization, and while it does include non-government participation in its deliberations, that participation differs according to the UN body. Therefore, it is not yet clear how the “open, transparent and democratic deliberations” for the proposed cybersecurity code of the conduct may occur within the UN. Will the full range of stakeholders be involved, as happens in the Internet Governance Forum? Will WSIS-accredited organizations be invited to participate? During the 2011 Internet Governance Forum in September, civil society representatives  submitted a letter to the UN Secretary General expressing their concerns that civil society be included in any further development of proposed code of conduct: