The following are the outputs of the real-time captioning taken during the Tenth Annual Meeting of the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) in João Pessoa, Brazil, from 10 to 13 November 2015. 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 event, but should not be treated as an authoritative record.
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>> MARKUS KUMMER: We will be getting started in a few moments. We are waiting for a few more people to show up from our group. I think some people may be ‑‑ some people may be having trouble finding the room. That's the other problem because we were moved on the schedule and they ‑‑ it is online but the printed schedule is old. But we are not the only ones ‑‑
>> And the room is difficult to find.
>> MARKUS KUMMER: But we are not the only ones with the problem. As long as there is not a bunch of people online waiting, which I don't think there are, I think we can probably give it another couple of minutes.
Okay. Let's get started. I was looking forward to this meeting. It is an old classroom, old colleagues in the Working Group on Internet Governance. To mark the 10th anniversary we thought it would be a good idea to produce a book and the book will be out December 1st, published by NBC as a new book. Thanks to Bill Drake who put it together. I would like to start with hearing from you a few sound bytes, mini Tweet type why is WGIG still important. I think we all share that. Otherwise we would have contributed to the book and not sitting here. Unfortunately the room is not what we had hoped for. It would have been nicer to have a Round Table setting but we changed the slot first. We were given a 9 o'clock slot and Bill jumped up and down and said we wanted an afternoon slot. And now we are here. We have a few roaming microphones. Ayesha, why is WGIG important?
>> AYESHA HASSAN: WGIG was a very important start to building relationships across stakeholders.
>> It goes more to look to the WGIG, the Internet Governance Forum was proposed by the WGIG. The definition was processed by the WGIG and adopted. And the four models we proposed led to enhancing cooperation. WGIG has paved the way in to the future where we are now.
>> MARKUS KUMMER: WGIG, the mother of Internet Governance. Who else? A quick sound byte, 30 seconds.
>> BAHER ESMAT: WGIG was an eye opener. Those coming from Developing Countries, eye opener for how we could, you know, engage in open discussions on Internet Governance issues. So that was, you know, a unique experience for us.
>> MARKUS KUMMER: There's also a roaming microphone in the back in case anybody in the back would like to speak.
>> CHARLES SHABAN: I wasn't going to speak, but I remembered this morning everyone was talking what is multi‑stakeholderism. WGIG was the first practice with the United Nations practices that started the multi‑stakeholder, that the group had people from Governments, from the private sector, Civil Society, academia.
>> MASAAKI SAKAMAKI: I am Masaaki Sakamaki from one of the major cell companies in Japan. I think WGIG was the one of the or maybe the first, very first multi‑stakeholder consultative body for the global issues. And having seen this extraordinary success of IGF this past decade, I'm really amazed to see this phenomena. And I think modestly we can say we had an excellent report ten years ago. Thank you.
>> MARKUS KUMMER: Juan.
>> JUAN FERNANDEZ: I endorse everything that my colleagues said. WGIG was extraordinary in the sense that a difficult task was given to WGIG and we did the work. We were able without going in the negotiation mode of document but more through really discussions and depth in the discussion and with the real concept we were able to do the extraordinary document which has just been said.
>> MARKUS KUMMER: Yes. Also nonWGIG members can say.
>> MERVI KULTAMAA: I am Mervi from UNCTAD. I only joined the WSIS community in 2005, but I heard a lot of good cooperation that reigned that group. Why WGIG is important to me? WGIG established the working definition of Internet Governance which is still very valid. And the issues that were reflected by WGIG are still reflected by the international community today. So it is definitely good to go back to see what WGIG did.
>> MARKUS KUMMER: Thank you. And I also see Tarek Kamel. I was in the process of recruiting him as a WGIG member back ten years ago at Telecom Africa and then a few weeks later he was promoted to Minister. Who else would like to say something? There is another old veteran, Carlos just arrived. There are sound bytes. You have a microphone. You can talk, yeah.
>> WILLIAM DRAKE: Good morning or good afternoon. Bill Drake. I actually in the ‑‑ we did a book, the WGIG members ten years ago which I edited in which this was just a little side activity informally alongside the report, and I wrote it including a chapter why the WGIG process matters. And for this book I have written a concluding chapter of why the WGIG process still matters. I will mention the arguments I made then which I think as I went back and looked at them with the benefit of ten years hindsight made sense to me. The United Nations setting equal basis, facilitated success, conclusion of the WSIS negotiations and promoted public engagement in a way that had not happened in the earlier phases of the WSIS. Those were procedural issues, and it demystified the nature and scope of Internet Governance and made some broad but useful recommendations on key vertical issues, offered four models for the oversight of core resources that helped focus the global debate and proposed the establishment of an Internet Governance Forum. I think all of those are still quite valid points and things that have evolved since then.
>> MARKUS KUMMER: And the book was written before WSIS 2. And when you look at the Tunis Agenda, the Tunis Agenda essentially endorsed the WGIG report. Without the WGIG report we wouldn't have the substance in the Tunis Agenda. All this was found in these initial sound bytes already. We had multi‑stakeholder cooperation. And then in terms of substance, we came with a working definition and all substantive issues and the proposal took a great platform for dialogue, policy dialogue related to the Internet. That's the IGF and we are here to celebrate the 10th ‑‑ the 10th edition, not the 10th anniversary but the 10th anniversary of WGIG. This is reason enough to celebrate.
Bill had circulated ahead of the meeting a series of questions, what does it mean in terms of procedure and substance and has IGF lived up to the recommendations coming out of WGIG. And also a last question could WGIG be a model of the policy issues. In terms of substance we are right in the middle of discussing one of the proposals coming out of WGIG that is a model for Internet Governance without any Government oversight. That's the IANA transition. And that was one of the four proposals included in the WGIG report. So we have come round full circle. And when I looked at my notes, I saw at one point Nit Desai's current framework has no business to be sustainable in the future. That's wise words of a wise man and here we are to try to correct this.
Now shall we discuss this ‑‑ well, it is obviously closely related procedure and substance is very closely related, but I would like to hear from you a bit, this time maybe a little bit longer statement, what in terms of procedure you found was groundbreaking in WGIG opposite the multi‑stakeholder model, but what were your impressions? What were your least experience as a WGIG member?
>> AYESHA HASSAN: We had been through the preparatory process for the first phase of the Summit before the WGIG was established and during that period we were Nongovernmental stakeholders. At the time most of you know I was representing global business. We were not on an equal footing. We had our allocated moments where we could potentially contribute and that led to collaboration across multi‑stakeholder units and by Government. By the time we had gotten to WGIG we had not had an experience where we were all on an equal footing as stakeholders and within the WGIG we were. We were all there with the same task to do it jointly. And I think that procedural point was groundbreaking at that time. That would be my procedural input. On the substance I think it led to discussions in a much freer atmosphere than during the hallway discussions we would have with Governments or others about the preparation of the first phase, the Geneva phase documents. So in the WGIG we could finally really express to each other and explain to each other why we thought something about a particular substantive issue and I think that helped to deepen the understanding for many of the various facets of different substantive issues.
>> MARKUS KUMMER: And if we ‑‑ as we have many contributors to the book here in the room, we can actually go ahead and follow the line of ‑‑ the outline of the book. And the first chapter was on understanding Internet Governance. And there Wolfgang wrote about the impact of the WGIG definition. And I'm sure he will be happy to talk about that.
>> WOLFGANG KLEINWACHTER: Yes, I think it was the first mandate of the WGIG to produce a working definition. But because in the first phase what Ayesha just mentioned it was confusing what Internet Governance is. Different parties use the same terminology for different purposes. And there was no agreement what Internet Governance is. And insofar it was extremely helpful that we in the group could agree on a working definition. And I was very happy then in 2005 that this working definition made its way word by word in the Tunis Agenda. And I am very pleased that I expressed satisfaction already on Tuesday in the Plenary that the WSIS 10 plus review appears in paragraph 41 word by word by working definition. This is the definition which really is broadly accepted. And it was a balanced. So this has three sentences. In my Article I try to go a little bit deeper, you know, what the meaning or the interpretation of the three sentences are. The first sentence was the nomination of the stakeholders. I have already spoken to this.
In the second sentence I think the key element here was using of the word share. Shared norms, principles and decisionmaking procedures. Sharing is the basic philosophy of the Internet. Sharing is different from what traditional Intergovernmental negotiations produce. You try to find, you know, the lowest way to compromise among parties, but in the sharing means, you know, this is a win‑win situation. When we are sitting together in one boat we have to share this. And look how we can move forward to the benefitting of everything. This sharing has introduced a new way to move forward. In particular when it comes to the last word sharing decisionmaking procedures this is a big challenge. How you share decision making amongst stakeholders. And you know, we did not have such an example until the Sao Paulo conference because the document which was adopted finally by Governments to private sectors, Civil Society, technical community was based on a process of shared decisionmaking. I think this was really an innovation. And insofar the definition paved the way for this innovative Sao Paulo multi‑stakeholder conference. And I hope it will continue to pave the way for further developments which go beyond Sao Paulo. And that's why again I am very happy that this definition is now in the draft of the final outcome document. And I will say a little bit later something to multilateralism and multi‑stakeholderism because there is a lot of confusion about it. But to be very clear, the WGIG definition put multi‑stakeholderism or a multi‑stakeholder approach ‑‑ bilateral treatment among Governments or arrangements among single stakeholder groups. So far the multilateral which was defined by the WGIG. Thank you.
>> MARKUS KUMMER: Thank you. And the next chapter in the book was about institutionalizing I think multi‑stakeholder cooperation. Ari wrote about that. Has she gone out again? Oh, there she is. Could you maybe talk about ‑‑ what you wrote to the book?
>> Did I actually write on that?
(Laughter).
>> I'm sorry. I don't remember what I wrote. It was so long ago.
(Laughter).
>> MARKUS KUMMER: About institutionalizing multi‑stakeholder cooperation.
>> I think what I wrote about, if I remember correctly, though I may be confusing it with chapters that I wrote for something else, was that since then we have certainly seen more participation by the other organizations, by various technical and other organizations in some of these issues. But I think that was what I wrote about. I don't ‑‑ I'm sorry, I wasn't planning to come to this session. I snuck in.
>> WILLIAM DRAKE: You wrote about the WGIG and the technical community.
>> That I do remember writing about. Sorry about that. So yeah, what I wrote about is that the technical community has participated more over the years since then. The time before that it sort of was as any notion of this governance stuff was sort of beyond the pail and not something that, you know, was ‑‑ it was in the layers one didn't talk about. One avoided. That's right. I wrote about, for example, when I was appointed to the WGIG I found out while I was at an IETF meeting and it was considered almost a disaster that, you know, someone from the technical community would actually get involved in such activities. You turn around now and you see lots of really well‑established members of the technical community. They are experts at various protocols, et cetera, who participate quite normally and dress better, in fact, than many of the Government representatives these days. One of the things that always astounds me.
Yes, they do. They wear ties and jackets. You guys have learned to dress down.
(Laughter).
>> So basically what I was really writing about is that it was the beginning of what turned out to be a transformative process in terms of having those technical community people start participating. And so it wasn't only the policy people that were talking about the Internet and how it would be governed or shepherded or we can agree or disagree on what word to use, managed. There still is a little bit of touchiness on some of those issues. But I think it was a very brief chapter, but that's what I was basically getting at is that we could see an incredible difference.
>> MARKUS KUMMER: Thanks. And that's a very relevant comment. And at IGF there were not that many technical people and now you see at this year's IGF both the Chairman of the Internet Engineering Task Force and the Internet Architecture Board are here. That's as top notch as it gets from the technical community.
We also had Peng Hwa Ang wrote in this chapter, but he is not here but his coauthor Shirley is here.
>> WILLIAM DRAKE: Maybe you could introduce.
>> Hi everyone. My name is Shirley. I am from Indonesia and I am a Ph.D. candidate under the supervision of Peng Hwa Ang. Please accept his apologies for not being here in this session.
So it was mostly believed that the multi‑stakeholder approach was an open, inclusive, transparent process. There is quite a lot of things these days that multi‑stakeholder actually could be used to conceal an exclusive initiative. So therefore this paper we aim to address whether this problem of Democratic deficit is apparent or real. And if it is real what are the possible solutions. That's the purpose of our paper.
So initially we tried to trace back the concept of multi‑stakeholderism. And we figure it out that actually the WGIG, the one who consolidated the use of multi‑stakeholder approach and also the one who identified the gap that there is no such global dialogue Forum for Internet Governance. And that is why the IGF was formed because of the WGIG. And our technical message by tracing back the concept of multi‑stakeholder is that multi‑stakeholderism was understood to be inclusive in Democratic governance. And that's our take‑away lesson and because of the problem, Democratic deficit that we encountered. So we proposed one particular democracy type which is the liberative democracy. If you don't have a baseline in talking about democracy people might have different interpretation and definition. So we proposed the concept of the deliberative democracy because deliberative democracy highlights the importance of publicness of democratization. The process and outcome could be attestable by the public. And also in here we propose that if you would like to see multi‑stakeholder not to be seen as happening in one particular Forum or institution, but it should be seen as a system where the public views should be held, should be listened and accommodated in the authoritative space. However we also identify that there is a limit that in the global level actually there is the so‑called trilemma of globalization and national sovereignty and democracy. Usually countries they only could pick two goals of these three different goals. So in short that mostly Democratic could be the one that would be left out from these three different goals. As a way forward we propose that multi‑stakeholder is the most important in the Internet Governance, for people to come together and discuss in a deliberative and multi‑stakeholder approach.
>> MARKUS KUMMER: Thank you. And Charles.
>> CHARLES SHABAN: Sorry, I didn't participate in the book itself but I will talk about another issue about institutionalizing. As Ari said about the technical Committee we noticed many regional IGFs. And I remembered when the Arab IGF and the African IGF was started it would be Governments, but at the same time what the IGF did and the multi‑stakeholderism that everyone talked about I remember being involved with the Arab IGF, I can see when they started yes, we needed some kind of legitimacy in the region and usually Government should let's say support this. So the two umbrella organizations, the United Nations and the League of Arab States, and still it means some kind of the same concern which is mainly are they only Governments, in the last four years for Arab IGF the example that can be seen now it is really when they went back to the definition as many of the colleagues said in the beginning in their respective role you can see from the Arab bank the numbers of the non‑Governments are low. We have more members from Civil Society, private sector, more than Governments. It helped a lot in these regional IGFs. And the example I gave from the Arab I think shows that. Now it is really multi‑stakeholderism that all the multi‑stakeholders in the region are represented. Thank you.
>> MARKUS KUMMER: Thank you from that. And the next chapter was there from oversight to stewardship and Juan contributed to that chapter.
>> JUAN FERNANDEZ: Because have no doubt about it Internet governance is a political issue. That's why in the first phase of WGIG it could not be resolved. Here we have the unique situation in which 30 ‑‑ more or less 30 experts from all stakeholders and from all parts of the areas were given this task to discuss a thorny issue of politicalized issue. And as I said before we were able to have a result. Even in and with rough Consensus without going in to negotiation mode. I don't know if this is the moment to talk about the procedure that I think that WGIG contributed in there. I can recall or well, the WGIG members can recall that we did a two phased approach. We had a first phase in which we did the extended report in which everyone because this is ‑‑ sorry, one of the key ingredients of the WGIG work is that every idea and every proposal was included. Nobody else, not even the Chairman, nobody said this idea could not go in. It was total liberty to propose all the ideas. So in the first phase we had this big compendium of ideas. Of course, ideas that is based in facts and scientific and technical accuracy because that's why it was selected. People that really knew about the things. But it was a big compendium that by the way it is available on the Web. You can see it. And it is extraordinary work and with that already done we went to the phase of extracting from there the report that it has to be presented to the second phase of WSIS. And to do that our very wise Chairman and Secretariat put all of us in a shuttle in Switzerland and threw out the key until we could come out with a text. And in that part I remember the first day, it was commented to our Chairman, Nitin Desai, I would like to send greetings to him. Please Markus pass it around. I mentioned I have this flaw that sometimes I talk too much or most of the time. I remember my colleagues could remember that I said okay, what we have to do is very easy. It is like the editing of a film. The big compendium is like the ruckus. When you have all these bit of films that are and then to make the actual movie you have to edit and cut it out. I said that. Maybe Nitin would remember that. As the work proceeded we came to the final part or one of the most complicated parts in which we have to draft the oversight functions. And I remember that he appointed me as facilitator for that drafting group together with the representatives of the United Kingdom, David Handom and I think that was wise because he wanted to have some sort of balance in the moderation of that group. That was the group where the four models came out. I don't know if you remember the methodology that David and I selected. Not curtailing anybody's ideas.
First we went relatively fast in to the noncontentious part, like the premises, that we have two premises. You can see it in the WGIG report. It is paragraph 49 and 50. I am not going to read it here. Go and check it out because it is still very important and then we move to the principles and we divide three principles that in my way, in my view is still very relevant now. The principles that in which this oversight should be based. It is very fast. And I would call to the principles the first win is no single Government should have a permanent role in relation to international Internet governance and the form for the Government will be multilateral and Democratic with the full involvement of the Government and Civil Society and international organizations, what that means multi‑stakeholderism. I don't like the word multi‑stakeholderism but I like the definition. That's the definition or one of the definitions of multi‑stakeholderism. And the third principle, the organizational work for Government functions will involve all stakeholders and relevant Intergovernmental and international organizations within the respective roles. It is the second time it has been endorsed in multi‑stakeholderism. Then we came to get the dual institutional proposals and what David, and I decided in that moment was to receive all proposals from all the members. And to ‑‑ put it on the screen and then try and do rounds to begin to eliminate or merge those that were very similar.
I remember the first round were nearly 30 different proposals or something like that. But immediately there was then a break. People go on and start merging. The second one was around 16. And after two more rounds we came down to the four and we were unable to lower that number. There was three. Because two of the proposals are similar. That underscores there was no negotiation, no ‑‑ because sometimes the negotiation as you know goes ‑‑ gets a minimum dominator and the documents are very watered out. It was unfortunate that we could come for only one proposal and that's okay, there was four. Because that reflects the diversity of views of the group and that's how. So I think that the ‑‑ just to finish my intervention now, that the WGIG had importance for three things. The first thing it was able to deal with a very complicated political problem. And it shows that these problems can be dealt with. The second is that in a very Democratic and equal footing and respecting everyone's opinion you are able to get results. And the third is that the collaboration spirit, that the collaboration spirit of the members of WGIG, I think that was the spirit that gave the result and I think that in the progress that we still have because all the problems of the WGIG writing is still relevant after all these years. I think the situation might have changed a little bit, but many of the key problems are still there. And the WGIG recommendations are still relevant. But I remember that the ‑‑ that the collaboration among the WGIG members shows that if now we can get back that spirit of collaboration among all stakeholder Governments and all the rest of stakeholders without trying to impose the position of one's group or countries or group of stakeholders to the other ones and to respect the difference and to take in to consideration all other interests I think it is possible to have a solution to this problem because the WGIG approved it and we were able to do it.
>> MARKUS KUMMER: Thank you. And as I said thank you for that. And as I said in my introductory remarks we are in the middle of defining one of the WGIGs and that's the IANA transition. You wrote about Internet Governance for Development, Baher.
>> BAHER ESMAT: So yeah, I wrote about Internet Governance for Development. It was an integral part of the entire WSIS process, the WGIG exercise itself. It was sort of a narrow exercise focusing merely on Internet Governance issues, but it also touched upon many of the developmental aspects, like access and other capacity building and so forth. But the point I was trying to make in this paper was that the debate about Internet Governance has evolved over the past ten years and so has the notion of developmental aspects or IG4D, it has also evolved. Have seen IG4D as either an implicit or explicit theme at many IGFs, cross‑cutting theme, et cetera, and have seen many sort of materials coming out of the IGF in terms of workshops and reports on this ‑‑ on this issue.
And back home in the countries, in the Developing Countries we have also seen efforts to increase Internet access penetration, mobile but then the ‑‑ what I am trying to say there is that this concept of digital divide may not be relevant anymore. We have been seeing a lot of debate about bridging the digital divide and I was trying to look in to the question of whether this is relevant, whether this is important and what I think is that the digital divide will continue to exist. It may increase. It may shrink but that's the point of it. The point is how far the Developing Countries, Civil Society embrace technology and embrace the Internet so that these tools become part of our daily lives, become part of the business education and the economy at large.
Then I highlighted some of the experiments and the bottom line, well, we still have a long way to go in Developing Countries without looking in to numbers of access. And my numbers are good and meaningful, but the thing is are we able to see ourselves as part of this digital economy thing and how to do that. What needs to be done so that we can say well, we have a digital economy that is growing, that is sort of promising. So yeah. That's my point. Thank you.
>> MARKUS KUMMER: Thank you for that. And Raul, you wrote about WGIG+10 in the WSIS+10 context.
>> RAUL ECHEBERRIA: Yes, I tried to show in the piece that I wrote the difference between the situation before WGIG and the current situation in the light of the WSIS review process. This is one of the things that we are reviewing in the WSIS review is the experience of the IGF. And it is impossible to think about IGF and analyze all the progress we have done without having in mind the WGIG and where we stood the day before the WGIG started.
And so already Ayesha mentioned the situation in 2003 where the Nongovernmental representatives were not allowed even to go in to the rooms. And I say that if we think about the time, that was 12 years ago, it is important to remind that there were no Twitter, no Smartphones, no ‑‑ and so it was very difficult to follow what was happening in the room. Today it would be possible even without being in the room to follow what is happening. But at that time we didn't have streaming. We didn't have any of the tools that we have now for facilitating the follow‑up of meetings. And so it was very frustrating and that was the situation before WGIG and I remember, I can't forget my feelings, the first day that I went to the UN in Geneva for attending the WGIG meeting. I didn't know how to go in to the building. How to ‑‑ it was a very difficult process. We had to go to some place and to fill forms out and show documents. And so we got the badges for going in to the building. And we didn't go ‑‑ we didn't know how to manage ourselves in to the buildings. And what our surprise was when we realized that there were no power supplies for plugging in our laptops and there was no WiFi network. And so I remember talking to other colleagues and say how will we be here three days without the Internet and without electricity for connecting our laptops and that's crazy. But it is why I say that because it shows the cultural clash that's experienced means. And for us it was very strange, a very different environment that we were trying to learn how to move it in that new environment. But it was also strange for the Governments, for the Governmental representatives that they didn't know how to ask. They realized that the same rules that they were accustomed to following in other meetings didn't apply in this group. So they had to understand that some of us had the same right than them to speak whenever we wanted to speak and all the work of the Chair and the Secretariat were very important in that sense. I am sure you had to manage a lot of pressures for different actors. Each of us wanted to do something more similar of what we were accustomed to work in.
And ‑‑ so when ‑‑ we went to the Summit, to the second Summit. That's ‑‑ the discussion was absolutely different than in the first one. And the discussion was much more informed. This was one of the main impacts of the ‑‑ of the work of WGIG. That's the ‑‑ that's the level of information. That's all the ‑‑ Juan and Raul have spoke about the contents and the recommendations and ‑‑ but it was very useful for it because all the newcomers, even the new people from Governments that come ‑‑ that had not been involved in the process so far had to go to the Summit for discussing the last ‑‑ for participating in the last negotiations. They had an opportunity to be informed about the ‑‑ this report. I'm sure that this was read and a lot of people read the report in order to have a more meaningful participation in the debates. One consequence, another consequence was the trust that it created in the multi‑stakeholder experience. When we discussed at IGF that was one of the recommendations, that I remember the first time that William Drake mentioned the idea of proposing a kind of Forum in the ‑‑ in our meeting in San Jose and we moved it from idea to proposal and we moved from proposal to concrete negotiation outcome and there was a trust in the multi‑stakeholder model. Without that trust it would have been impossible to approve the creation of a Forum, but there was also trust in other things. There was a hybrid model. I think that's the ‑‑ if we look at the IGF, one of the beauties of the IGF is that it is something that is under the UN umbrella. So it creates, gives confidence to those Governments that are more accustomed to working under the UN. So they feel comfortable but it is not a formal UN body. So it is not ‑‑ it was exactly the same as the WGIG. The WGIG works with experiment. This is something that we will meet in the UN and we will use the UN rooms and the UN will be following and taking care of all the process, but it is not an UN official body. It was linked just to the UN Secretary‑General. So the same model. The success of WGIG, creating this hybrid model was useful for showing that it could be possible to repeat that, that model with the creation of the IGF.
So when we see that that's how we move from that basic idea in the ‑‑ in the WGIG, to what we have today, that is not only this event that is attended by 2500 people, it is the 10th one that we organize, excellent organization. And so all the remote participation mechanisms and translations and a lot of very controversial things being discussed in the ‑‑ ‑‑ and all the national and regional IGFs that have been organized is connected with the global IGF. We made a huge progress that started with that discussion. The difference between the discussion in 2003 and 2005 was the WGIG. Because the problem in 2003, one of the problems was the lack of information of the participants. And we turned that situation in a situation in 2005 when we ‑‑ where the people was discussing much more informed way. And this was the beginning of creation of all the things, not only what we see as guided consequence of the WGIG and work that is, for example, the IGF, but also how all stakeholders have been gaging voluntarily in process for improving their mechanism to be understanding the value of the multi‑stakeholder processes and importance of providing equal opportunities of participation of all stakeholders. Even those like my ‑‑ like me, for example, that work on ‑‑ at a time that we have excellent mechanism, almost perfect Government mechanism in the organization that we use it to refer. That was the motivation. The WGIG work and the WSIS outcome was motivation. All that experience for working in continued improvement of our mechanism for having a much more open and participatory mechanism of governance.
We stand now to say okay, how we evaluate it what we have done in the WSIS review. That's very important. Where we were the day before the WGIG started and where we are today. This is incredible. I am very proud of what we have done in that time. I am very proud as a community of what we have done in those ten years. And I am very fortunate of having been part of that experience at that time. I don't remember how confident we were at the time that we could create something that would be ‑‑ have this life that the outcomes of the WGIG have had. But really we did something great. Happy to be part of that.
>> MARKUS KUMMER: Thank you for that. That brings many memories and one thing worth to remembering that WGIG was not just the report. It was also a process. We had open consultations where people participated, listened to each other and as you said it did create confidence and it was absolutely unusual in the UN building that there was no differentiation between stakeholders and that the ‑‑ those who actually were dealing with the issues could speak first, not at the end of the meeting after the Governments, that is normally the process. It had tremendous impact as people listened. And they realized these guys know what they are talking about and that inspired confidence. And then the other element was that WGIG, some deliberations were private, often the chat house rule and that created confidence among the WGIG members. They knew they could speak openly and they would not be quoted because some Government representatives said as much. If we did not speak on the chat house rule, I cannot be as open as I am now. That created a lot of confidence.
And on a more anecdotal evidence I chaired some of the meetings on WSIS 1 and at one point I had to send out the CEO and President of ICANN because he was not the Government member. So many Governments asked this is a closed session. And that changed completely in 2005. Then the doors were open and the Nongovernmental stakeholders were allowed in the room and even given the floor at some point. The Chairman called on them, now I would like to hear from you and it was indeed day and night between 2003 and 2005 and definitely WGIG had an impact.
Bill, you had some conclusions on that? Oh, you have a mic.
>> WILLIAM DRAKE: Yeah, sitting in front of one actually turned out to be a good solution. I wish we had had a Round Table for the kind of discussion we had planned but c'est la vie. Part of the inspiration for doing this book was not a bunch of old veterans of the WGIG wanted to get together and write stuff again. That would be a little bit self‑indulgent. It was actually more than that. We are dealing ‑‑ we are going in to a WSIS+10 review process where for a while a lot of things were up in the air and some things still are. You never know what is going to happen once Governments get in to the room and start making tradeoffs and so on. Earlier in the process that was unfolding, there was a lot of indications that old unresolved issues in the minds of some countries could come back again and become quite problematic politically. So we really felt like, you know, if this is going to be an Intergovernmental WSIS+10 discussion why not have a multi‑stakeholder WGIG+10s as a compliment and recall how that multi‑stakeholder process that we did was really relevant to bring the WSIS to a successful conclusion back then. And it built a legacy that we are still living with today.
One thing I would want to note, folks talked about how back in those days stakeholders would get thrown out of the room or not be allowed in. There is other measures of change, too. I remember somebody who was particularly interested in this sort of how do we conceptualize these issues question, that back in 2003 when the WGIG was at the end of the WSIS phase 1 there was a lot of complete disconnect about what is Internet Governance. A lot of you people who are in the room who are veterans were around back then, I call it governance denial. And if there was such a thing, a governance it meant Governments and hence any kind of governance had to be based on an Intergovernmental mechanism. You had people if there is governance of the Internet it meant ICANN. And there were people who said okay, well, if there is governance and it is something that should be Intergovernmental, this means that the ITU should replace ICANN in some of its activities. We were in this stage when we got to December 2003 and the Summit in Geneva you had parties completely disconnected and unable to talk to each other on a lot of fairly fundamental questions, and how do you take forward a negotiation on a topic area that nobody has a shared conception of what this actually means and who should be involved and so on. So I guess one interesting thing to do would be to ask the counterfactual; what if the WGIG had not existed. What if at the end of 2003 there had not been a call for the Secretary‑General to form a group to propose a working definition and identify respective roles and responsibilities and identify the issues and all of that, how would WSIS phase 2 have played out?
If we had had the same process going on with governance, negotiating in the model they did, treating the stakeholders in the way they were being treated at that time and so on, could we have possibly imagined that the WSIS process would have come to anything like a successful conclusion? I would submit we would not have. I think we would have gone to Tunis and had a disastrous debate about the U.S. won't give up control of ICANN as some people would put it, and there is a refusal to change the governance model. The headline could have been U.S. Summit breaks down in acrimony. And we came up with an agreement agreeing, first of all, to create a new mechanism to continue dialogue going forward and by that point we had bounded and structured the question of what are we talking about in a very important way. The WGIG went through a whole process of sorting the issues, of coming to the notion that when we are talking about governance we are not talking about Governments. We are talking about a process of steering. It is something that's done, you know, in a lot of different ways, top down bottom‑up, there is various models. And we came to a definition of Internet Governance that including both the underlying physical and logical infrastructure and the use of Internet for ‑‑ information communication and commerce so that really meant that we now understood Internet Governance in that much broader way. And we understood there was a galaxy of different types of governance networks with regard to different aspects of Internet environment and all these had to be addressed in some kind of coherent manner, and the WGIG set out a sort of process for doing that with the IGF and some of the attendant discussions. So I think the WGIG played a really important role in promoting collective learning among all the participants in terms of how both tactically we learned to work together, the Civil Society learned that they had to sort of straighten the hair and brush their teeth, maybe take out the nose ring and learn how to talk to an Ambassador. The business people, the technical people had to learn how to talk to Government people and the Government had to learn how to talk to the rest of us. There was learning of a substantive character. Where we came to understand the issues fundamentally richer and deeper and broader way which this process in the IGF is carried forward. And I just can't imagine if we had not reached some conclusion around that, if we had gone in to, you know, the second half of the WSIS with people still debating what does governance mean and should it be ITU versus ICANN and not only would the WSIS have been a wreck I can't imagine what the next decade of discussion would have been like. So I think that we really ‑‑ the WSIS ‑‑ the WSIS process in a lot of ways is a watershed and a turning point in the way dialogue went forward around Internet governance issues and this became deeply institutionalized Government built mechanics, and everyone started to get focussed and involved. There is underlying infrastructure aspects. There is standard aspects there is Intellectual Property aspects. And the whole kind of global mechanism began to kick in to gear of bounding and structuring and making sense of the topography and figuring out how to carry that forward. I think that was really a big deal quite frankly in terms of the trajectory that we have all been on since. So I think in the current context it is worth taking on board what some of the lessons were in terms of how you organize a process that leads to a productive outcome. We got people to change their opinions. You saw it all the time. You would sit with colleagues on an equal basis and they would start out saying one thing and evolve towards a completely different viewpoint. That's the kind of thing that I think we want to continue to have going forward. Kind of dialogue where it is equal footing and people have the ability to evolve positions and read and calibrate and move towards Consensus. And the WGIG played a key role in that. And I hope that's where we go in December with WSIS. Thank you.
>> MARKUS KUMMER: Hands shooting up in the back, Fiona and, Anriette. Can you pass on the microphone? Who first?
>> I'm on the end. Sorry, I didn't hear the whole conversation, but just the last bit and I wouldn't disagree with any of the assertions and things that Raul and Bill were saying. So take this question with that in mind. Be a little bit controversial just because it makes the conversation a little bit more fun. So keeping in mind all the great things that have resulted because of WGIG and the great achievement, I mean having been part of the WSIS negotiations where some of you were forced out of the room in the beginning, never take for granted this kind of conversation we have today. My recollection of the terms of WGIG were three tasks. One was to develop a definition of Internet Governance, go over the list of issues and figure out the roles and responsibilities of stakeholders. And at the end of the day the group I don't think finished the complete tasks. What do you think would have been the results of the last ten years if the full terms of reference had been addressed or do you think they were?
>> ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: I will add because I had the same question and particularly the last one, roles and responsibilities, which just remains, I was in a national Internet Governance session in South Africa with our Government tens days ago and roles and responsibilities is the issue. It underpins the ongoing tension around enhanced cooperation, for example. So yes. What do you think would have happened if you finished the job?
>> MARKUS KUMMER: Let's collect a few questions. There are more hands up. Tarek and please also introduce yourself when you take the microphone.
>> THOMAS FITSCHEN: Thank you very much. Thomas Fitschen from the German office. I am just back from three years in Geneva where I struggled with the procedure of WIPO, WHO and UNCTAD. And I look forward to receiving the book and the chapters on procedure because that is really what I have to grapple with also. That's why my question and it really ‑‑ what you have told us sounds like from a different world. If you look at proper General Assembly procedure, question, my question to you was the success, the procedures we developed, the procedural understanding that guided your work, was that due to the complexity of the issue, or can we in our widest dreams imagine that something like WGIG or a process like can be applied elsewhere in the UN? Or is it Internet specific and nobody had an idea in the beginning and everyone was desperately looking for results? Thank you.
>> MARKUS KUMMER: Thank you for the question. And next.
>> Thank you. Tarek. I just wanted to shed light on the paradigm shift that helped also the whole evolution at that time that we sometimes forget. In the '90s we had the case that the Internet community was mainly around the ISOC, iNet conferences and the academic community and technical community that was gathered and known each other and have grown with ccTLDs worldwide. During that time, during the year 2000‑2001 we have seen a paradigm shift in the market. The telco and telecom community got close to the Internet and understand the value of the Internet. And we have seen the interest to acquire ISPs. This is the Internet people that are isolated. Let them do whatever they do. Whether it is ICANN or ISOC, that's not that important. And this is the Telecom World that really the business is the lines started to converge and we started to see them closer coming to each other. They have provided the whole process with a completely different meaning as such. We approached WSIS 2003 and WSIS 2005. Not sure that the ITU realized that when they decided to have the two WSIS conferences back in Minneapolis in 2009. But I am sure that this has empowered the process drastically and has shown interest and has helped also in this multi‑stakeholder nature that we have seen during the WGIG+10, during the WGIG process and the multi‑stakeholder format. I am not sure the technical community alone as it was in the '90s would have that power to make that shift alone without the tele community.
>> MARKUS KUMMER: Thank you. Now we have a few questions and I would like to ask all WGIG members to react to them. Let me take the question on whether WGIG as a model could also be used for other processes. I don't think the design of the process was exclusively aimed at Internet technology. I think the whole underlying idea was to make WGIG and the selection of WGIG members as open, transparent and inclusive as possible in order to get the buy‑in of the respective communities and that included Governments. I saw some learned Articles looking at the list of WGIG members and questioning what kind of contribution they could possibly have made the diplomat, Geneva based diplomat of some developing country. That is totally underestimating and not getting it. The idea behind it was to precisely bring out of the WGIG process and report on, bring it to the diplomatic community in order to get the buy‑in. And without that we would never have gotten the buy‑in of the diplomatic community. And by having people respected by their respective communities, technical communities, Civil Society, business that gave us the buy‑in from important stakeholder groups and I think this basic model can be used for any kind of global issue. And the importance was to create a climate of trust and confidence and to have relevant experts there. And we also got when being tasked with setting up all this the secretary I consulted widely and many people in the room were my regular interlocutors and wants to know how the thinking was going. And I listened to their input and I listened to many other people. And one example, and I mentioned that in my contribution to the book, was the global commission on dams. That is not related to the Internet, but that was a World Bank sponsored project on a highly controversial issue, dams, flood valleys and have to eject villages and empty villages. And they brought together a big industry and Civil Society and created also a commission where people talked to each other. And at the end result they were still on talking terms. And that was a highly influential process. And setting up WGIG we learned from that and got inspired from that.
The guy who was then the secretary and he is now the head of UNEP, he said whatever you do, make sure that there are no surprises when people read the names of the expert group. And I think looking back I can say with some degree of satisfaction I think that was the case. When the members were announced, they were generally applauded because people recognized the value of the various experts chosen. Carlos, he hasn't said anything. There is a microphone behind you if you can have the roaming microphone.
>> CARLOS AFONSO: First of all, I think we didn't have a template on which we work it in terms of methods to practice the multi‑stakeholder procedures we dealt with with the WGIG. We are learning by doing. It was an experiment as well and we learned a lot.
The second thing is that the working definition of Internet Governance I think it continues to be valid and very useful, especially because there is a very little words inside which is shared. And the sharing of decisions, obligations, dialogues, discussions, et cetera, et cetera, and I think that it continues to be very useful until today. So this was a major achievement, major achievement because that working definition was Consensus in the multi‑stakeholder. The questions of Fiona and Anriette were interesting. And they could be asked to anyone who participates in the Internet process since then because we have ten years from there. And all of us went through these processes and have, of course, new ideas in a new Internet. This is a new setting which many things happen. It is very difficult to report as the past and try to finish the report. It is a question to be asked more broadly than just to the members of WGIG. Thank you.
>> MARKUS KUMMER: Thank you. I forget to repeat, people should say their names when speaking. That was Carlos Afonso.
>> CARLOS AFONSO: That was Carlos Afonso from CGIR.
>> JUAN FERNANDEZ: The gentleman that asked about the process, I want to read something that Nitin Desai, that was the Chairman of the WGIG under the Secretary‑General of the United Nations. He wrote this in the preface to the book that WGIG, that William Drake dated in 2005. That he mentioned, and I quote Nitin Desai, this is only a fragment. You can read the whole preface of Nitin Desai and I quote "The most difficult issue was that about institutional arrangement for global public policy oversight. It soon became clear that a single view would not emerge and would, in fact, be misleading as it would note, reflect the diversity of the opinions in the group and with the wider community outside. We correctly decided that we were not a substitute for the political process and the WSIS PrepCom. And our duty was to spell out options clearly rather than to find a compromise. Had we presented just a single option then all those outside who disagreed with that option might have rejected the rest of the report", which contained valuable suggestion. And he finished, "In the end the WGIG produced an anonymous report. It was not a report that replaced the need for the broader political process. But it was a report that made it possible for such a process to start further down the road to the ultimate compromise." I think this in a way reflects what you ask about a process.
>> MARKUS KUMMER: Thank you. And Raul.
>> RAUL ECHEBERRIA: I think that Fiona and Anriette made a clear question, but I think they don't expect us to have a real answer to that. My impression what Juan read now it is very important. Because it has ‑‑ it is part of what I would have said, it is ‑‑ my impression is that if we would have done that and tried to define the roles and responsibilities of all stakeholders this would have been a big failure. Because if now that we are ten years after we completed the work of the WGIG, we are still in a situation where we are not ready for making significant progress on that. I think that's ‑‑ at that time the Governments were even less ready for that. So they would have probably all the reports. And I agree very much with what Anriette said in the sense that when we talk about the discussion of enhancing cooperation what really is behind the discussion is the roles and responsibilities of all stakeholders. But this is a discussion that came up again during the NETmundial last year and we were able not able to sell it. We are still in the same situation and a few days ago discussing with some Governments about the enhanced cooperation I told him but this is about discussing roles and responsibilities. Do you really want to discuss the roles and responsibilities of all stakeholders? So that might say oh, we don't know.
(Laughter).
>> RAUL ECHEBERRIA: We are not there. Why? Because probably if we get some conclusion, the conclusions will not reflect the view of all the stakeholders and for sure not all the Governments. And probably some Governments will realize that the conclusions means that they should have less roles than what they expect to have or what they think they should have. So I think that's fulfilling two‑thirds of our mandate is not bad. It is a good right in the international Diplomacy international governance context. It was good.
>> MARKUS KUMMER: Thank you. And it says in their respective roles and I know that's not something that everyone is happy with. And in NETmundial and we changed it and we said it should be reflected in interpreted flexibility. Yes. Yep.
>> WILLIAM DRAKE: Actually a conversation I have had ‑‑ I am William Drake. This is a conversation I have had before with Fiona because she has told me before you guys didn't finish. Roles and responsibilities was as I think Raul correctly said, we could not have come up with a formulation that I think would have passed muster with the whole WSIS process. I think it would have been very difficult. It was one of the most tormented parts of the conversation as I recall. I remember us spending an afternoon in that chateau trying to ‑‑ had three ideas up on the wall and list the different functions of actors. And first of all, we couldn't agree whether or how to list the technical community. In the report after listing the respective roles of the private sector and Civil Society we had said that WGIG recognizes the contributions of the academic community and are very valuable, blah blah blah and are deeply involved in Internet operations and standards and service development. That was a punt. The technical community should have been recognized much more directly, but the problem was that in the UN system the technical community is a fourth category, basically didn't exist. And it was hard to get everyone on board with sort of the embracing it as having a defined, bounded, separate kind of role. And the Governments were very insistent. We were under Chatum. So I couldn't say. There was a view by some at the end of the day the report had to say that Governments had a unique role in policy making, which, of course, if you look at ICANN where we have multi‑stakeholder policy making processes doesn't track with reality.
Similarly what was said about Civil Society, that we are mostly active at the local level. This is ridiculous and we have lived with the legacy of this ever since. So there is no question that that part of the mandate was not fulfilled. But the question is whether as Raul said could we have come to any formulation that the PrepCom III would have taken up and said yes, we accept this as a description of what all these respective roles would have been. I find it hard to believe personally.
>> MARKUS KUMMER: Wolfgang, you want ‑‑
>> WOLFGANG KLEINWACHTER: I think the interesting point ‑‑ my name is Wolfgang Kleinwachter. And I was a member of the WGIG. And I think the interesting point here was the WGIG was not the end of the process. It was the start of a beginning. And we have to put all the recommendations from the WGIG in to this future or end process. And if we want to have sustainable results, do not make big jumps. Make small steps. And I think this was the wisdom of the WGIG, that we were very realistic and say if we propose small steps, which is doable here and left the door open for the next steps. This was part of the success. Bill used the terminology that was watershed. What would have happened if the watershed would have not taken place? We probably would have had a similar situation that ITU faced in Dubai in 2012. Missed changes in the environment and ended up in a very complicated situation which risked that the whole organization will collapse. So they learned their lesson and they are now on the turning point. You
Know, nine years after the WGIG we had the NETmundial conference which added to the definition a declaration of principles. So let's look forward. Probably we can have a next step in the year 2020, 2025. So there are still 85 years to go until the 22nd century. That's a long process. And we are in the early days of the Information Society. And insofar to have a definition, to have a declaration which is based on the definition, let's move forward and look at what we can add in the next five to ten years. So be not in a hurry. So that means we have still a long way to go. Thank you.
>> MARKUS KUMMER: Thank you. And I think we also should recognize there is a cross‑fertilization of processes. Wrote last year in an Article that without the IGF and without WGIG NETmundial would not have been possible, but at the same time I think that NETmundial energized also the IGF to look more towards an outcome oriented session. There is a cross‑fertilization of all those processes. And I think we ‑‑ four minutes. Three minutes according to my ‑‑ so who else would like to comment? People who have not spoken yet? We have remote participation I wonder? Nope.
Don't feel shy. Masaaki, you haven't said anything. Come on. You have said something at the beginning.
>> MASAAKI SAKAMAKI: Thank you. Give me two minutes then. Okay. What's ahead from now? I want to see the IGF, I mean I could, you know, continue for forever, but it is not enough. That's not enough. And I want to see it happen in many other countries. The multi‑stakeholder sort of process as Ayesha mentioned in equal footing basis, among the private sector and the Government and academics. Actually in our country we have this kind of multi‑stakeholder sort of conference that meets every month or so. And so the Government is treated quite equally. Maybe just for ‑‑ it is an innovative field. So that works. As a matter of fact the guy that is sitting at the last one, Mr. Kendai is in my former position, director of Internet, but he is treated equally with the private sector people. And that's really functioning. So I think it is more important. I mean not just IGF but it is more important to have this kind of phenomena in many other countries. Although the each ‑‑ each country has its own culture and social and political environment that differs very much often, but we want to see this happen in many other countries. Thank you.
>> MARKUS KUMMER: Thank you for that and ‑‑
>> My name is Emilia. Thank you, Bill and Markus. How do I participate in this WGIG thingy? What do I do it? Is it still in operation? Or it is over? How do I participate?
>> MARKUS KUMMER: The WGIG thing is over. That finished with the report and that was ten years ago. And the WGIG essentially fed in to WSIS+1. We are now ‑‑ the IGF is in a way the child of WGIG. And so by being here, by participating in the IGF you are very much involved in what is a follow‑up to the WGIG and the legacy of WGIG.
We have reached the end of our time and happy to conclude this session. I think it was nice hearing from you and seeing back old colleagues and confirming the relevance of WGIG. And I think it was very informative. And I will thank you for participating. And thank you for your attention. Thanks a lot. Thank you.
(Applause.)