Agenda
Internet Governance Forum 1 November 2006
Note: The following is the output of the real-time captioning taken during the
The Inaugural Meeting of the IGF, in Athens. Although it is largely accurate,
in some cases it may be incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or
transcription errors. It is posted as an aid to understanding the proceedings
at the session, but should not be treated as an authoritative record.
-Summing Up Session Transcript-
>>CHAIRMAN DESAI: Good morning. My name is Nitin Desai. I'm the chairman of
the organizing group which chairs this event. The purpose of this morning's
session is for people to get to know about what happened in the previous day in
the events they could not be part of. Because, after all, when you have a main
session and you have lots of working -- workshops going on, it's difficult for
particularly small delegations to keep track of everything that is happening.
And the idea behind this morning's session was essentially a reporting in by
people and any questions which may arise. It's supposed to be a short session.
We should try and end, I hope, by about ten to 10:00 so that there is time to
set the place up for the main session at 10:00. We will begin with a short
report from the executive secretary, Markus Kummer, who will report on the --
what happened in the main sessions in a general sense. After that, I will open
the floor and invite those of you who wish to report in your perceptions of
what happened yesterday in the main session, if you like, if you feel you need
to add something, or what happened in the workshops. But the idea here is to
inform people about what has happened in the previous day so that those who
could not participate in all of the events can also keep themselves abreast of
what is happening. So with that, I will turn the floor over to Markus Kummer.
>>SECRETARY KUMMER: Thank you, chairman. Good morning. We had hoped originally
to have the moderators with us to give also their impressions of the sessions.
But, unfortunately, they are both unable to be with us this morning. Let me
start with a few words on the format of the sessions, which is common to all
main sessions held in this room. There are interactive multistakeholder panels
with questions and comments from the audience. We also offer the possibility of
remote participation via blogs, chat rooms, and e-mail. Unfortunately, we had
some teething problems with the wireless Internet access. But by now, while not
perfect, it should work. And we hope for more comments today from those who
cannot be with us in Athens. Please find your point of entry on our Web site,
www.intgovforum.org. One of our moderators, Nik Gowing, from the BBC world,
called the panel sessions "a giant experiment" and "a giant brainstorming." He
also recalled the Secretary-General's comment that the IGF entered uncharted
waters in fostering a dialogue among all stakeholders as equals. The innovative
format was generally accepted and well received and some commentators called it
a true breakthrough in multistakeholder cooperation. The depth and breadth of
the discussions make it difficult to summarize the sessions. The issues are
complex and in many cases, there were more questions than answers. The openness
session was moderated by Nik Gowing from BBC world. It focused on free flow of
information and freedom of information on the one hand, and access to
information and knowledge on the other. Much of the discussion focused on
balance, the balance between freedom of expression and responsible use of this
freedom, and the balance between openness and protecting copyright. Some
panelists pointed out that the two themes are linked and that for developing
countries, issues such as better access to the Internet and access to knowledge
is more of a priority. One panelist called the possibilities offered by the
Internet to create content "a new form of free speech." He referred to the
creative use made by the new medium -- made of the new medium by young people,
which under today's legislation, can be illegal in some instances. While all
panelists emphasized the freedom of expression, two of them reminded the
audience that this freedom is not absolute and that freedom of speech is not
without limitations and the Internet is not above the law. Hate speech, for
example, is illegal in both the on- and off-line world. What are the limits of
free speech? Hate speech, defamatory speech? Are there cultural differences? Is
terrorism a good reason to limit speech? were some of the questions asked.
Also, what effect does misinformation on the Internet have on the citizens, on
the media, and how should this be combated with national laws, with more speech
contracting the defamatory and hateful speech, with information ranking by
search engines that gives a grade ranking the reliability of the information.
The session addressed different types of freedom, different types of freedom
and different aspects of freedom, such as freedom from government surveillance,
free access as necessary precondition for human rights, and also necessary for
social and economic rights. The session also looked at the relationship between
the laws of the market and human rights and asked the questions of
responsibility of corporations. There were calls for balance in terms of the
systems sold and the use of systems to encroach on rights, and points were made
such as the systems are sold that can be used to repress freedom of expression.
But many systems are multipurpose and the same systems can be used to protect
children at the same time. And despite negative use, there is a positive use in
expansion of the number of people who have Internet access. Any increase in
Internet access is positive and increases transparency was one of the points
made by some of the speakers. There was also question with regard to balance in
terms of content filtering. And the discussion turned to companies who have
given information that was used in political arrest and prosecution. One
question related to when the content, and that can be used -- liable for
breaking national law. And it was also pointed out that companies are complex
entities and often have conflicting priorities which are supported
simultaneously. The question was asked whether major corporations should use
their bargaining power to influence government, and it was pointed out that
many do, not as a matter of force, but as engagement and enforcement. And also
the question was asked whether concerns of human rights enter into the sales
equation or whether it was only a matter of business consideration. The
Internet, it was pointed out, can be seen as an attack on national authority.
And it's therefore, in some instances, apprehension about institutional fear of
new popular empowerment. Even though much of the discussion centered on the
situation in one country, it was pointed out that freedom of expression can be
under threat in all countries. Has there been any progress? Top down, there was
still seen to be still much abuse, but there's also awareness of the power of
the Internet to promote transparency. And bottom up, there is greater awareness
and citizen awareness and engagement in public policy discussion as a positive
aspect. And then questions asked was what the relationship between national
regulation on speech and the Internet and the trans-boundary character of the
Internet, and, ultimately, can there be a consensus among states. And that, I
think it was felt, was almost a thing that was impossible to achieve. With
regard to free flow of information and ideas of knowledge, there was much
emphasis on the balance between openness and protecting rights, the balance
between the citizen rights to information and the rights of the copyright
holder. Some panelists pointed to the need to rethink copyright. And they asked
whether it extends too far into the digital world, and pointed -- they pointed
out that the expansion of the Internet is pushing change in other areas as
well. It was generally recognized that there are different business models.
Some required copyright fee in order to maintain and continue production.
Questions asked included the following: Do governments have the responsibility
to enable free use of access of information on the Internet? And the comparison
was made to libraries, where governments bought books for citizens to allow
them to gain access to information and knowledge. Thus, should governments
remunerate creators and owners of content? It also -- the session also looked
at the effect of businesses protecting their copyrights and combating piracy.
Questions were asked, was it -- does it restrict openness? Is it necessary to
protect business innovation? Does it need to take into account different
cultural traditions, given oral cultures and different notions of knowledge? Is
there a need to find a business model that works with open information, open
software and standards? And it was pointed out that open software and protocol
can also create entrepreneurs. And the example of the South African Ubuntu
software release of Linux was pointed out as a successful business model use
open software. As I said at the outset, the breadth and width of the discussion
makes it difficult to come to a concrete conclusion. But it was also pointed
out by the advisory group member who summed up the session that the
capacity-building should be seen as an important aspect of that and the access
to knowledge the Internet can give in developing countries as an important
point to be looked at. The security session was moderated by Ken Cukier from
"The Economist." And there were some key observations, such as a strong link
between security and economic and social development. There was a generally
held view that the growing significance of the Internet in economic and social
activities and in maintaining the openness of the Internet raised continuing
and complex security issues. Another one was the tradeoff between
confidentiality/privacy and security. The key issue here is the way in which
responses to growing security threats are dependent on the implementation of
processes of authentication and identification. Such processes can only be
effective where there is a trusted third party that can guarantee both
authentication and identification. This raised a debate about which
institutions, the state or the private sector, could effectively act as a
trusted third party. There was also a debate as to whether a bottom-up model
centered on the role of users was more effective than a top-down model driven
by formal government actions. Another key issue was the insufficient attention
to the perpetrators of crime, their reasons, and their methods. It was widely
accepted that perpetrators of security breaches are intelligent adversaries, in
quotes, constantly adapting that behavior in security technologies and
processes. There was a shared view that insufficient attention was being given
to proactive and long-term actions to reduce security threats. Whilst there is
a broad agreement on cooperation at an international level, part of the
complexity is the lack of agreement at the very detailed level of what is a
security threat and who are the key stakeholders. It was generally felt that
security is not a personal responsibility; it is a multistakeholder process
with a shared responsibility. It was a widely held view that the best approach
to resolving security issues is based on best practices and multistakeholder
cooperation in an international context. However, there was also concerns
expressed about the degree to which information was shared in a timely manner
and in a common format, in particular, with developing countries. Good examples
of best practices at regional levels were highlighted, such as those used
within the European Union. At the same time, concern was expressed about the
extent to which information and exchange was being achieved in a fully
inclusive manner. The role of users and the opportunity to exploit the
intelligent edge of the network was highlighted by many speakers. For some, the
role of users had been undervalued in the implementation of enhanced security
measures. Not only were better educational measures required, but user choice
should be respected more clearly. Thus, for example, the setting of clear
expectations and principles within a public policy framework could enhance the
power of consumers to address security measures. Security was also seen as a
multifaceted problem. There was widespread agreement that security is a
multifaceted issue and therefore it is necessary to involve coordination
between different policy communities and actors. For some, this coordination
needs to include a clear legal framework within which to operate. One example
cited was the Council of Europe convention on cybercrime. However, others
raised the issue of jurisdiction and the particular need for intergovernmental
coordination. It was generally recognized that the lack of coordination in
developing multifaceted solution was that individual entities, such as firms,
faced implementing large volumes of complex legislation. The result of this
could be counter productive in terms of enhanced security. Another key issue
was the question public goods versus innovation in new security services. There
was a debate as to whether market-based solution which stimulate innovation, or
a public goods model would deliver better security measures across the
Internet. For some, the public goods approach offered the opportunity for the
widespread adoption of best practice across all countries. The counter view was
that innovative solutions were required and that these could only be provided
by market-based activities. There was a wide ranging but inconclusive debate
about the role of open standards in shaping security solutions. The debate
focused on the appropriateness of the open standards in the security arena. One
of the key questions here was the extent to which free open source
software/standards would enhance the level of security for all users compared
to market-based licenses for proprietary technology. And last, but not least,
the session devoted some time to the role of the -- the role the IGF could play
in security issues. There was a widely shared view that the IGF could play a
significant and positive role in fostering greater debate and action with
regard to security on the Internet. The role of the IGF in collecting best
practices, ensuring the widespread dissemination of information, and breaking
down silo approaches to the problem were highlighted. And the ability of the
IGF to support the development of a common language in the policy debate was
seen as very significant. This ends the report of yesterday's proceedings in
the main session.
>>CHAIRMAN DESAI: Thank you very much, Markus. I will clarify what you heard
is the secretariat's report, and it's not in any sense the report which, let's
say, is something that you should have to approve or any such thing, because
it's simply a secretariat's report for convenience. I thought the next step
would be, to be useful, if there were any workshop organizers here who want to
take two or three minutes just to report on what happened. There's one here.
Can we have the mike here, please. The mike in front here? Are there any
others. Two, three. Four. I have four. Just one here, please.
>> Thank you, Mr. Ambassador. I will be reporting, if you allow me, on two
workshops that happened yesterday. The first one is on capacity-building --
>>CHAIRMAN DESAI: If you'd like to stand, because you are reporting to
everybody, not just to us. So you may want to stand and just report --
>> I won't presume that I'm the moderator, so I'll just take this out of the
way. I'll be reporting, if you'll allow me, on two workshops that happened
yesterday. One is on capacity-building, and with the subtitle on building
policy capacity. And the second one is simulation exercise that the
DiploFoundation organized for anyone who wished to sign up yesterday. The first
one started in the morning, and the concept was to provide a very loose
environment for discussion on how to best go about building capacity on
Internet governance. And the participants discussed -- The discussion was based
around a course that was organized by Diplo, a three-month course, in which
there were approximately, I think, something like 24 participants. They were
there to present their stories, but at the same time, the idea was to give a
chance to the floor to also give their say in what is the best way to build
capacity. But it was also important to raise the awareness that Article 72H
does say that the world does need to focus, to contribute to capacity building
for Internet Governance in developing countries, drawing fully on local
resources of knowledge and expertise. The discussion was based on five
questions, am I speaking too quickly? Sorry. The question is what works and
doesn't work in online building of research communities and online knowledge
sharing. How to make research policy topics relevant. Three, how to bridge
another emerging divide between capacity building rhetoric and ensuring a real
impact in developing countries. Four, how to facilitate a multiplier effect by
having more people benefitting from capacity building. And five, how to link
those emerging experts to national and regional policy processes. What came out
as conclusions is that among the most important things is motivation. So to go
quickly around them is that motivation is quite important. That direction from
the beginning is essential. Other than that, the participants will not feel
where exactly this is going. But maybe most important is the building of
confidence. In all, it was an approach to walk the talk, to manifest into
action what has been said in so many different fora on capacity building. And
in the second session that I have the privilege here to report on,
DiploFoundation again organized, something that is the manifestation of that,
of the aspect and the concept of walking the talk. The simulation exercise
around which this panel was based was organized and led by professor John Henry
from the center of political studies and research at Oxford University. The
participants were divided into eight broad areas or stakeholders, that is. One
was U.S, the second G77, India, the E.U., civil society, business, Russia and
China. Each were given certain theses they needed to defend and a basic kind
of scale of how strong each of these stakeholders felt about these theses. And
what came out was a true understanding of the difficult process of coming to a
consensus in a very complex situation such as the Internet Governance process
has been over the past few years. And I think, Mr. Ambassador, the participants
felt the burden of responsibility that both you, that Ambassador Markus Kummer,
that Adama Samassekou felt, must have felt, throughout the process. It also
gave the significance of good direction from the beginning. If there isn't
good direction, the process deteriorates significantly. I will end there.
>>CHAIRMAN DESAI: I look forward to the results of your simulation. Maybe it
will help us in real life. Janet.
>>JANET HOFMANN: Good morning. Thank you. My name is Janet Hofmann. I am
with the Social Science Research Center in Berlin and I would like to report on
a workshop we did on content filtering and freedom of expression, jointly
organized by the Internet Governance project with UNESCO. The outcome of the
workshop is that the universal declaration of human rights still provides the
best framework possible to both enable and protect freedom of speech on the
Internet, not least because it is very clear and specific about acceptable
restrictions on freedom of speech. And also because it constitutes a framework
for all parties. Individual citizens, governments, but also corporations.
However, the difficult question is how to and enforce the principles set out in
the universal declaration of human rights. What I found quite remarkable about
the discussion is that there was no strong opinion on the question of whether
the problem of enforcement can be best dealt with by industry self-regulation
or whether there is some coordination needed that includes government action.
That's it. Thank you.
>> Thank you, chairman. My name is Matthew Shears with the Internet society. I
just thought it would be useful to report out very briefly on the building
local access workshop that was held yesterday morning, organized by ISOC and
GIPPE. We had a very good multistakeholder panel with good geographic coverage
and I thought it would be interesting to reflect on some of the key points that
were made with regards to local access. And perhaps just three or four of them.
The first and most important was perhaps to see government as an enabler, an
enabler of innovation, of new approaches to addressing access. Another one was
capacity building. One of the panelists went so far to say that the cost of
access is not as important as capacity building. I thought it was a very
interesting comment. Political will. Again, is there a political will? Is
there a multistakeholder process for addressing access at the local level, the
key issue? Commercial solutions may not be the solution in all cases but
certainly has a significant role to play, and market mechanisms are a very
powerful tool. Community building. Again, the community building was seen as a
critical way of driving traffic, driving local content, and getting that
infrastructure in place. And finally, infrastructure itself. IXPs, the role of
backbone, extremely useful ways and effective ways of reducing costs. And we
had a couple of questions that may be picked up again in the afternoon session.
On NGN, what's the role of NGN? What about Internet as universal service?
What's the role of government in providing for that? And more generally, what
about gender? Are there issues related to gender that are inhibitors to
access? Thank you very much.
>>CHAIRMAN DESAI: Would you like to come up?
>>BOB ROGERS: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am Bob Rogers of the Global
Information Infrastructure Commission, which is a confederation of senior
executives from ICT companies from throughout the world. We staged a workshop
yesterday afternoon in collaboration with WITSA, the world information
technology and services alliance, which, like the GIAC, is a private sector
organization. It's an association of I.T. associations from 68 countries
around the world. The topic of our workshop was enhancing multistakeholder
participation in ICT policy making. And our aim was to explore effective means
by which representatives of different sectors of society, in individual
nations, can work together to foster adoption and adaption of public policies
likely to enhance access to ICTs and the Internet. This topic we felt was
consistent with the capacity building emphasis or focus that has been so much
at the heart of this first meeting of the IG forum. And while it would
probably be an exaggeration to say that we left our meeting with any hard and
fast rules, recommendations or bursts of new insight, we did hear a number of,
I think what all of us considered to be very significant success stories from
Egypt, Bangladesh, Uganda, and Lebanon, about how business people, along with
public officials, academics, researchers, and other interest groups, have, in
fact, worked collaboratively to first Al abolish a particular regressive
policies that were needlessly punitive toward or inhibiting of ICT diffusion.
And second, to foster diffusion of new laws, regulations that gave birth to new
applications of ICTs, particularly in the realm of rural health services, and
that in other ways resulted in expedited diffusion of ICT capabilities. At the
end of our meeting, our moderator, a GIIC commissioner Hasham El Sharif {sp?}
from Egypt commented that it was evident from the case histories that were
presented that there is power in partnerships. And I think it was this -- this
realization, the power of partnerships in changing and shaping the thinking of
public policy makers that was as overarching a theme as any others that came
out of our discussions.
>>CHAIRMAN DESAI: (No audio).
>>VINT CERF: Actually, this is not intended as a workshop report, Mr.
Chairman. So I appreciate the opportunity to intervene briefly. I have been
listening this morning and I have been participating and listening for the
course of this IGF. And I now conclude that we have the wrong name for this
forum. It should be the Internet facilitation forum, because everything I am
hearing is about how to make this thing work for everybody. And so maybe it's
impossible to change the name because it's been branded into everybody's
skulls. But the fact is that we really are all about trying to make this work
for everyone. So I want to first of all thank you for organizing all of this,
and encourage everyone to at least think in terms of facilitation, because I
think that's what this is all about. Thank you very much.
>>RENATE BLOM: Thank you very much. And thank you for having -- putting the
word on facilitation. I think my name is Renate Blom and I represent the
conference of NGOs in consultive relationship with the United Nations, which in
general has as its mandate to see and promote civil society in the U.N. debate.
So it was therefore naturally that we organized the workshop on how can the
internet facilitate or help to see that it is a real tool for participation.
That it is a harmonizer, to see in which way it can empower people to
participate more actively in all kinds of political debates, at local, legal --
local, regional, national and international level. So we have participants from
all areas. We had participants from indigenous, from women, from youth. But
we also had participants from universities, from research councils, and we had
participants from governments. And I think the questions we raised, is it
really the harmonizer which helps to really empower the people to be really
more effective? I think the potential is there, yet we need to have -- we have
still a wide road ahead of us. And I think when we talk about some of the
indigenous knowledge which is not yet deeply in the knowledge which we want to
create this knowledge society. So we need to constantly be aware that all the
people are at the table. And I think that's where we, as civil society, have
perhaps a little bit more glueing functions to provide this. At the same time,
it was quite interesting to see does it really empower people to also be more
participate in public policy debate at national level? From the government
point of view, there was definitely a view that, at the moment, we have not yet
achieved it. In the European Union they said they have not yet even e-voting.
There is a huge mistrust still. What can it -- I mean for the potentials, it
could. But I think we need to see also how can we overcome this. How can we
overcome that this potential is really used to such an extent that we want to
see -- I mean, we have said from the beginning it should be a people-centered,
really, process, and at the end of the day, all people should be empowered and
all people should have a possibility to participate at their level in whatever
they want to come. So there are a lot of questions. And there was also a
question on -- I mean, we are here in this new process. We are now here. What
do we do? Civil society is not lobbying anymore for any outcomes. We are
looking -- I mean, to whom are we talking, and with what result? So I think the
workshop raised more questions than giving answers. We will have a little bit
more of a better product at the end. But since it was just this opportunity to
share some of that with you, I thank you very much.
>>CHAIRMAN DESAI: I see that I think most -- the workshop organizers, there
are others who may wish to make a comment on yesterday's proceedings. If they
do so -- yes, please, Ambassador. Can somebody -- Why don't you just come up
here, Ambassador. It's much easier in this. There are too many of us. It's
easy for you to come up here.
>> Thank you very much. (saying name) retired Ambassador, now a consultant. I
listened with great interest to the remarks just made by Mr. Vint about
governance or facilitation. I don't see the two terms as antimonous. I think
where as facilitation, perhaps, is a more technical approach, the word
governance, I hope you will not find it as a dirty word, is more inclusive.
And, in fact, I think the choice of governance is very significant. Because it
recognizes the fact that the Internet, although you devised it as a working
instrument for research, it has gone the powers of what you expected. And we
must recognize this fact that it has political content. And the content
influences now even the way the world will develop in the future. One point,
Mr. Chairman, I wanted to make is that last night, just after the general
session, you gave me a very good piece of advice. You said tomorrow morning,
that means this morning, people will be called upon to add whatever little bit
they think they can add, and for after that, they will have to shut up forever.
So this is my only chance to get a message through. Actually, two little
messages. One is that yesterday, when I intervened in the session at the
invitation of the moderator, Mr. Cukier, I did point out that the scope of this
IGF conference was, in fact, going way beyond the only realm of Internet. I
think because chronologically this is one of the first such conferences in the
world to address a global issue in a multistakeholder way, I think this implies
that you, we all here, have a special responsibility in being very attentive to
all the constituencies represented here, including those who have perhaps, for
various reasons, whether linguistic, or preparational or others, have spoken
less. So I think we bear the brunt of standing up to this challenge, and what
we do here about Internet will in some way or another be used or become useful
in other problems of global governance. For instance, access to safe water;
for instance, public health; for instance, energy use in the world, et cetera.
So my second point was that I would like to express the views that have been
given to me over the past two days from gentlemen or ladies from Burkina Faso
or Uganda, and I'm sure what they told me is partly true, at least, from some
countries Asia or Latin America. I intervened yesterday in the session on
security, and what I am about to bring up is, of course, you can criticize it
as not being at the core of technical issues related to security. But I
thought I would give voice to this on behalf of my friends. One of the most
fundamental securities, when you consider yourself as an Internet community
member, is this fundamental security of having access to the basic services of
the Internet. For instance, if you are in Burkina Faso, and you are lucky
enough to be able to connect to the Internet, let's say an hour a day, many
people less than that, so during that hour the mathematical probability of you
being overwhelmed by Spam for 60 or 70% of your available time is a very high
price to pay. And when I say high price to pay, this is not a metaphor. It is
really that you are paying about 10 or 20 times the price that you would pay in
my country, France, for access to the Internet. So I think I just wanted to put
in this little note that fundamental security cannot be dissociated from more
mundane preoccupations such as access. Thank you.
>>CHAIRMAN DESAI: Thank you very much. (no audio). I think we should stop
there because we need time to organize the room for the next session. We need
to leave time to organize the room for the next session, so I have three here.
If you have questions about access and things, please hold them because our
diversity is coming up today. I would request comments on what happened
yesterday. Okay?
>> Thank you, Mr. Nitin, Markus. From Bangladesh, I am Rafi {sp?} from
Malaysia.
>>CHAIRMAN DESAI: Sorry, Malaysia. Not Bangladesh.
>> Thank you. I may look like had a Bangladeshi. Why not? First, I must agree
the word "governance" is one of the difficulties. We are struggling with the
definition. We all have different definitions. So maybe that's one of the key
challenges we have today. Every one of us have a different understanding, and
therefore coming here with a different expectation. That's number one. So
maybe we have to think through about this labeling because it makes it
different to many of us. But moving forward in the spirit of what we were
talking about yesterday, many of us were struggling on discussion beyond talks
and what we do in action. So I would like to propose two things in terms what
have I hear yesterday in what we can do in terms of organization. Number one
was think about establishing a working group in a more technical fashion, a
more focused fashion. I think we could look at the success of IETF where over
time it has evolved into an acceptable standard for which we all, by fact of
using, become an acceptable standard. However, the IETF was focused largely on
the technical environment and it was very successful. What we have faced today
is a challenge on the software side. What we can use is a model around IETF
and be part of IGF. So maybe that would work but we complement the IETF so we
extend their work and maybe don't have to overlap, but we could probably use
the concept of RFCs and all of that for many of us to participate and
facilitate that. That's number one. I see the IGF forum somewhat like the ISOC
iNet type environment, because it was more about advocacy and solicitation.
But again, the dimension has changed very much because in the ISOC iNet type
event, we were a bit more technical, although many of us like Vint Cerf has
always articulated beyond the technological issues, and society, political,
economy issues. So I think we have got into that, and I feel as if the IGF is
more like the iNet. And maybe what we can do is to instead of trying to compete
one way or another is to try to combine and that would be one proposal for us
to combine some of this effort. One of all this session of advocacy,
solicitation, and maybe we can begin to divide one on the technical aspect, one
on society, one on socio and all of that. And I suggest that we think of that
one of the key deliverables of ISOC that I felt most beneficial in the early
stage of the Internet penetration was a tool kit for developing countries. So
this is something I felt that many of us coming here, like the Ambassador was
suggesting from BURKINA FASO don't even have connectivity, what more about
security. So maybe what we do is have tool kit work session and workshop
instead of discussions on issues and concept. So maybe that would be helpful.
>>CHAIRMAN DESAI: Thank you very much. That's very useful and helpful
comments. Not more than two minutes.
>> Thank you, sir. It's not a set of questions but a report of a workshop which
we held yesterday. This is a workshop tied to exploring of a framework
convention on the Internet that does attract extreme reactions, but we wanted
people to talk about the possibility, or innovation over that possibility. And
we got he relevant representatives and civil society representatives there. So
the workshop was in two parts. The first was whether there is a public policy
crisis around Internet today. And second was if you accept that there is a
crisis or there is an issue there, is framework convention a possible
institutional response for that. So the first question was first posed to the
panelists, and there was, again, a whole spectrum of views. There were views
which held that there is probably no crisis as such, but most people agreed
that there are some very important public policy issues which need urgent
response. And then we moved on to the second question of what could be that
response. And again, the responses here were ranging from that of framework
convention kind of treaty process should be initiated to saying that there are
existing frameworks which are already taking care of these issues and we should
try to study them, we should try to pull a framework off frameworks. I mean,
somebody compared Internet being a network of networks, so they are already on
the public policy space a lot of agreements, a lot of frameworks, and we should
see what are the (inaudible) between those frameworks. If we are looking at a
principal overlay, overlay of principals we should look more at the procedural
aspects and not at substantive aspects. And all the series of possibilities
were discussed. It was also noted that paragraph 61 of the Tunis Agenda
explicitly talks about evolving a framework, though there has been a little
tentativeness to describe exactly what the process is. And it was left to the
post-WSIS process to evolve something which would fit that -- fit the bill. And
this was the workshop report. And a question which I want also to put up is
that it's -- how easily today the media talks about Balkanization of the
Internet. And there's -- instead of the media using those -- using that to try
to create a kind of language for the public-policy response, it may be kind of
getting used to making us immune to that discussion and saying that there is a
kind of Balkanization taking place. So we were looking for some kind of public
policy responses which can come up.
>>CHAIRMAN DESAI: Our last speaker. The last speaker.
>> KIORA. I followed yesterday's discussion in regards to copyright,
intellectual property, with a lot of interest. And I felt that one of the
things that also needed to be brought up was this whole idea of traditional
knowledge, and, in particular, the traditional knowledge of indigenous peoples.
Because it's like intellectual property but it's not proprietary. And that's
something that we need to really think of as well. And I think the way that we
should also think about how we deal with these issues is having some way that
marginalized groups, and in this case, indigenous peoples, can actually
participate in all the different sort of governance entities we have around
here. And it's -- I think it's all very good and nice to have an open-door
policy, but that open-door policy is not very good if that open door is 2,000
miles away. Thank you.
>>CHAIRMAN DESAI: Thank you very much. I think this has been useful. It was,
again, an experiment, like most of this meeting. But I think we've learned not
from what we could not attend. Let me just mention to the workshop organizers,
you can have a one-pager of the outcome of your workshop available in print.
You should contact the secretariat. And it is possible to have that. It will be
available outside. Not in the room. Not inside the room. No paper distribution
inside the room, because it makes it very difficult to manage. But there will
be provision for distributing all of these things outside. Okay? So -- hmm?
Please.
>>SECRETARY KUMMER: A template for the report is available on our Web site,
www.intgovforum.org. And if you please send it to our e-mail address,
IGF@UNOG.CH. We will then print these we receive while in Athens. If you
receive them later, all of them will be posted on our Web site.
>>CHAIRMAN DESAI: Thank you very much. We now hand this to our facilitator,
who is already here, Mr. Imai. We will have the same type of session tomorrow
morning at 9:00, to report and -- on what's happened today. Okay? Thank you. [
Applause ]
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