 |
| Brazilian President Rousseff Opening NETmundial |
The NETmundial conference (www.netmundial.br) which was held in São
Paulo on April 23-24, 2014 was a culmination of events brought about by
revelations of former NSA contractor turned whistle blower Edward Snowden.
This meeting which was organised by the
Brazilian Government and ICANN sought to address two issues namely;
- Internet Governance Principles, and
- the Roadmap for the future evolution of the Internet Governance Ecosystem
Normally, these two issues would not appear to be
contentious, neither would they be areas where governments/states seek to have
a greater say. However, in light of the startling revelations about NSA mass
surveillance on the American public plus a number of world leaders. It was
inevitable that issues of internet governance had to crop up especially given
the role internet currently plays in a globalised world.
Hence, with the issue of internet governance on the fore, the
main question was how the world was going to address this issue. Was this issue
going to be solved through a multilateral approach? In which case you have the
tried and tested approach, where you would have world governments/states
discussing issues on internet governance. In such a scenario a key constituent
would have been locked out. Therefore, the less tried multistakeholder approach
which is usually synonymous with civil society had to be tried.
In an audacious gamble the Brazilians choose to try the
multistakeholder on issues of internet governance in a world conference where government’s
delegations would also be present. The Gig as it were was aptly named - the Global Multistakeholder Meeting on the
Future of Internet Governance [some delegates went as far as calling it the
‘world cup’ before the world cup]. For those not in the know Brazil will be
hosting the world cup from June this year].
The NETmundial conference organisers invited delegates from
four main background categories, namely;
- Government
- Private Sector
- Academia
- Civil Society and
- Technical Community
In the run up to the conference there had been a call for
submissions and under this there were 187 submissions made in time which formed
the basis of NETmundial draft outcome document which had been updated as of
March 14, 2014. This document was then made available for public comments. The
document attracted over 1370 comments.
The submission made have been excellently analysed here
The Conference
I arrived in São Paulo a day before the conference kick-off
and thus I missed the usual pre-conference roundtables and opening cocktails
which normally give you a pulse of the meeting before kick-off and the expectations
we all have before such events. However, I was able to chat with a number of
folks before the conference kick off at my hotel and most of us were
pessimistic about any outcome document given the diversity of delegate’s
backgrounds.
Day 1 – Wednesday,
April 23 2014
The first think that captured you when you arrived the meeting venue itself, the Grand Hyatt. The majestic
building at the heart of São Paulo business district meant the Brazilians meant business!
The registration was very smooth and took very few minutes
plus, the security was adequate.
The opening ceremony went on quite well with speeches from;
Virgilio Almeida [NETmundial Chairman who has a striking resemblance to the
former Brazilian President Lula], Wu Hongbo [UN Under-Secretary-General who
made the announcement of the appointment of Janis Karklins as IGF chair],
Nnenna Nwakanma from Civil Society who gave an excellent speech, Vint Cerf from
the Private Sector, Tim Berners Lee [Academia] and Fadi Chehadé [Technical
Community]
The Brazilian President H.E. Dilma Rousseff accented to the Marco
Civil Act before giving her address and formally opening the meeting.
After tea break, there was a long session dedicated to
‘welcome remarks’ mostly from government representatives and other stakeholders
present. Out of this session, of note was Michael Daniel Speech – special
assistant to the president & cybersecurity coordinator [US], on USgovernment’s announcement earlier this year of its decision to relinquish the
oversight responsibility on IANA exercised by the USA’s government.
As has been pointed out in other articles, this session
could have been better used but it is understandable that when you have
governments represented – such ‘welcome remarks’ sessions are inevitable.
The real business of NETmundial forum got cracking in the
afternoon with setting of the goals session immediately after lunch and the
first working session dealing with internet governance principals following.
The submissions were open to the floor under four
categories; Governments, Civil Society, Academia and Private Sector.
For those not physically present there was the remote hubs participation – through video and online participation through a text stream.
Under the working session 1 – Principles part 1. Most of the
submissions centered on human rights with South American CSO’s delegates pushing
for a stronger wording of the human rights clause. Other principles had a
number of submissions with cybersecurity strongly following esp. issues of
internet surveillance. Culture and linguistic diversity also had a number of
submissions.
Day 2 – Thursday, April 24 2014
On Day 2, it was a continuation of the working sessions with
working session 2 – Road Map part 1 taking place in the morning. This session
was initially scheduled for Day 1 but took place on Day 2 due to time
constraints on Day 1 and the fact that the executive committee had to retire for
deliberations on Day 1 submissions.
Thereafter, there were two more working sessions; principles
part II and road map part II.
The afternoon session was occupied with discourse on Beyond
NETmundial – NETmundial and Internet Governance Ecosystem. The critical
question asked during this sessions was how the NETmundial input would find its
way to IGF and other high level forums that would influence a binding document
in future. Also, issues emerging under this session were the
transition/handover of US government oversight responsibilities plus the
reforming of ICANN to deal with the new responsibilities envisioned.
Thereafter, it was a long wait for the final outcome
document, initially scheduled to be announced during the closing sessions
scheduled for 1700 Hrs but which took place from 2000 Hrs as a result of last
minute negotiations.
The closing session was chaired by Virgilio Almeida –
NETmundial chairman and it is at this point it was announced that a final
document had been agreed upon by most of the stakeholders present. This
document was read out by Adam Peake and Jeanette Hofmann who had been
instrumental to achievement of this feat. This final document was aptly named
the São Paulo Multi-stakeholder Statement
by Virgilio Almeida (http://netmundial.br/netmundial-multistakeholder-statement/).
The São Paulo
Multi-stakeholder Statement
Going through the São Paulo Multi-stakeholder Statement one
of the things that you notice from its preamble is that the document is a
non-binding outcome document. Thus, we are still a long way in the journey for
a binding Internet Governance Principles however this is a good starting point.
- Under the Internet Governance Principles
The document identifies a set of common principles and
important values. Also, it goes further to state the internet is a ‘global
resource’ which should be managed for the public interest.
The document goes further to enumerate nine key principles;
- Human rights & shared values,
- Protection of intermediaries,
- Culture & linguistic diversity,
- Unified & unfragmented space,
- Security, stability & resilience of the internet,
- Open & distributed architecture,
- Enabling environment for sustainable innovation & creativity,
- Internet governance process principles and
- Open standards
Under the above principles, of note is the comprehensive
human rights & shared values principle which references human rights
identified in this document to the human rights enumerated in the universal
declaration of human rights.
Unified &unfragmented internet space. Prior to this
meeting there were fears that the internet as we know it today would be under
the threat of countries or regions coming up with their own ‘internets’. This going
forward seems to be an issue that was resolved at NETmundial.
Security, stability & resilience of the internet. This
principle had a quite a number of submission made during the plenary with
issues of net neutrality and incorporation of states and Corporates being
floated. However, the final document did not factor this in and this clause
remains as had initially been formulated.
The internet governance process principles are very well
articulated in this document and of note is this clause -
‘Open,
participative, consensus driven governance: The development of international
Internet-related public policies and Internet governance arrangements should
enable the full and balanced participation of all stakeholders from around the
globe, and made by consensus, to the extent possible’.
Under this clause the only issue I have is the definition of
consensus.
2. Roadmap for the future evolution of the
internet governance
The roadmap for the future evolution of internet governance
is very well articulated in the document and points out;
‘Internet
governance framework is a distributed and coordinated ecosystem involving
various organizations and fora’.
It also points out the Tunis Agenda as a model for
multistakeholder-ism and calls upon the participatory nature for internet
governance.
Under the roadmap the following issues are addressed at
length;
i.
Issues that deserve attention of all
stakeholders in the future evolution of Internet governance.
ii.
Issues dealing with institutional improvements.
iii.
Issues dealing with specific Internet Governance
topics
iv.
Points to be further discussed beyond
NETmundial:
v.
Way Forward
Of note were the points meriting further discussion such as
roles and responsibilities of stakeholders, jurisdiction issues, benchmarking
systems and net neutrality
Politics of
NETmundial plus Overall Winners and Losers
NETmundial had its fair share of political dynamics at play.
For a political scientist one could not help noticing that in an election year
President Rousseff had to portray a strong image esp. against US. With the
enactment of Marco Civil Act during the opening ceremony of NETmundial, this
was to shove up her support.
The rejection of the final document by Cuba
and Russia was by all means not a coincidence. On the final day of NETmundial
the Russian president had been quoted as saying the internet is a CIA project!
India on the other hand is going
through an election and thus perhaps this was at the back of the government
delegates hence they needed time to consult with the new administration. China
on the other hand did not raise any objections during the closing ceremony but
it remains to be seen their next moves. China has been a strong proponent of
multilateral approach to issues of internet governance.
Winners
- President Rousseff – Brazilian President
- Mr. Fadi Rousseff – President & CEO of ICANN
- ICANN - Organisation
- Brazil – Country [leader in South America]
- Internet Governance Forum – Institution [funding and lifespan]
- Africa
- European Union
Losers
- US Government [oversight responsibilities of IANA]
- Russian Government
- China
- Cuba
The final outcome document can be accessed here
No comments:
Post a Comment