I second Harold's proposal. --c.a. -----Original Message----- From: Harold Feld <[log in to unmask]> To: [log in to unmask] Date: Wed, 8 Sep 2004 16:32:55 -0400 Subject: Re: [NCUC-DISCUSS] [governance] Substance: What issues should the WGIG focus on? > Allow me to suggest an addition: > > 5. Access to number space in a manner that fosters non-commercial > access > and is competitively neutral. > > Harold Feld > > At 11:38 AM 9/5/2004, Milton Mueller wrote: > > >>> "William Drake" <[log in to unmask]> 9/5/2004 12:23:56 AM >>> > > >Can we identify five to seven leading issues and recommendations > > >that we think are the most pressing with regard to IG? These can > > >be either individual issue-areas (e.g. management of identifiers > is > > >obviously one of them) or cross-cutting meta-level problems. > > > >Our forthcoming report will clarify many of these issues. > >We (the Internet Governance Project) will be able to release > >it in a few days. At the moment we are still subject to a > >vetting process. Unfortunately, some of the actors are playing > >games, either strategically refusing to comment or commenting > >privately but telling us that they are officially "not commenting" > >(but still giving us some valuable insight into what they think). > > > >Nevertheless, I can identify several areas that I think will > >prove to be strategic: > > > >1. Relationship of Intellectual Property Protection to > >Free Expression and Privacy. > >I believe that certain international organizations and > >perhaps some business interests will attempt to claim > >that IPR is off the table, and that it has nothing to do > >with Internet governance. Nothing could be further > >from the truth. The Internet has forced a complete > >revision of global copyright and trademark agreements > >In a variety of venues, including > >WIPO and ICANN, we see IPR protection issues > >coming into direct contact with free expression and > >privacy norms and even some scientific inquiry norms. > >These issues should not be worked out exclusively > >in arenas such as WIPO, which are historically mandated > >to serve IPR interests and see IP owners as their > >constituency. > > > >2. ICANN's status as a non-state actor. > >This is a tricky one. ICANN is under attack on three fronts, > >1) its basis in US Govt/law 2) its non-governmental nature > >3) the degree to which it does "policy" as opposed to > >"technical management" (which may be just an extension of > >issue 2). There is no doubt that specific governments intend > >to make an issue of this, and there is still the possibility that > >it will overwhelm everything else. Imho, we need to defend > >the multi-stakeholder, non-state governance of the regime > >against the possibility that it will become more governmental > >and regulatory, while recognizing (critically) that ICANN *does* > >do policy and supporting efforts to find a model that > >does not rely on US govt contracting. There are some even > >deeper issues regarding the use of contracting as a global > >governance mechanism, too much to go into here. > > > >3. Relationship between security/surveillance on the > >Internet and civil liberties. > >Here again, the narrow, issue-specific regimes focused > >on attacking terrorism/crime tend to override other legitimate > >concerns. We could promote a broadened dialogue > >that forces Internet surveillance and security measures to be > >respectful of human rights in a globally uniform way. > > > >4. Right to internetwork globally > >The most fundamental issue is the hardest to convey. > >Territorial governments must formally recognize and > >explicitly accept the non-territorial nature of IP networking > >and the Internet's architecture. No serious agreements about > >Internet governance in any given area can be made until that > >issue is dealt with. Either the potential of global networking > >is accepted as a factual starting point, or governance > >gravitates toward chopping it up into territorially-controlled > >architectures and resource allocation procedures (thus > >destroying much of the value of the Internet). It may be > >too much to ask territorial governments to accept the > >reality and salience of nonterritorial interconnection, but > >that is really the choice they are faced with. > > > >--MM