Internet Governance Forum
Open Consultations
Geneva, Palais des Nations
14 February 2012
Afternoon Session
15:00
>>CHENGETAI MASANGO: Ladies and gentlemen, we'll start in three minutes.
Ladies and gentlemen, we'll start in two minutes.
[ Gavel ]
>>ELMIR VALIZADA: Dear colleagues --
>>CHENGETAI MASANGO: Ladies and gentlemen, can we please sit. Thank you very much.
>>ELMIR VALIZADA: After lunch, this is our afternoon session, and now we will discuss the other event topics of our agenda, and please share your comments on this topic but now I want to ask the Secretariat of IGF, Mr. Masango, for some comments, suggestions, on this moment. Yes.
>>CHENGETAI MASANGO: Thank you, chair.
[ Gavel ]
>>CHENGETAI MASANGO: The submissions received were very thin on this point, but I'd like to take this opportunity to encourage discussion and comments on any of the other events topics, like open forums, the dynamic coalitions, best practices, and if you think that there's something missing that should be on the IGF meeting agenda, or a type of discussion that should be on the IGF meeting agenda but is not on the IGF meeting agenda.
We also discussed the regional IGFs and national IGFs, but last year in Nairobi we also had the interregional dialogues, so if you have any comments on this, that would be good as well. Thank you.
>>ELMIR VALIZADA: Thank you. I want to share my -- some remarks about our first sessions, and after, we will continue our debate.
I found this debate at this morning as very interesting, and I think we have generated many ideas to feed into the preparation process.
What was clear this morning is that the IGF 2011 was seen as great success, but it was also reach ideas for IGF 2012.
Some of the comments which I think were important to the meeting include: First, the opening and closing session should be proportional to the meeting and be representative of the multistakeholders' commitment of IGF.
Second, we should make great effort to accommodate all six U.N. languages.
Third, merging the workshops shouldn't happen re exceptions, the MAG need to handle workshop merge with care.
Four, there must be enhanced opportunities for dialogue between IGF activities at national and regional levels, and with the IGF as a process.
Five, that clearly objectives and goals should exist for main sessions and workshops. These goals should be expressed by questions.
Workshops should report back through the questions.
Six, new opportunities should be created by synthesis discussions and this synthesis report and not decisions.
Seven, more attention should be given to the delegate/participant feedbacks at the level of workshop, main sessions, and as a whole.
Eight, attention should be given to the -- improving -- to involving young people in all aspects of the IGF.
And nine, greater certainty and commitment to the detail and precise timetable.
This is remarks about our discussions on the first session. Now I open the floor for the afternoon discussions.
Please if anybody have some comments, you are invited to the discussions.
European Union.
>>EUROPEAN COMMISSION: Thank you, chair. Speaking on behalf of the European Commission, I would like to react just briefly to the point raised by Chengetai on the open a fora.
The commission has been organizing open fora. It organized one at the Nairobi meeting, which unfortunately, due to some logistical misunderstandings, didn't go as well as it could have gone, but this is to highlight that we believe there is a value in organizations that are particularly active in the field of Internet governance to have a space to engage with stakeholders to open fora so we would support the continuation of the open fora. It is said that we are flexible to discuss the allocation of time in view of the possibility to somehow reallocate the workshops or the main sessions, et cetera. In particular, to give the possibility, as was suggested I believe by Brazil or by some other delegate to have the time for appropriate synthesis of the discussion and a discussion following -- and a follow-up discussion following that synthesis. Thank you.
>>ELMIR VALIZADA: Thank you. Other persons? Okay.
>>CHENGETAI MASANGO: APC.
>>ELMIR VALIZADA: Right?
>>CHENGETAI MASANGO: Right there in the corner.
>>ELMIR VALIZADA: Yeah. Please APC, yeah.
>>APC: Thank you, chair. I was going to wait but seeing as there was no one else, just firstly a follow-up on participation. And I want to commend the Secretariat for the excellent work they're doing in analyzing participation in the IGF, and in particular, with the Nairobi IGF they did an analysis of the breakdown of how many men and women speakers there were, and panelists there were, in workshops and main sessions.
And my organization did our own gender report card of the Nairobi IGF where we looked not just at speakers, but also at topics, and -- to see if there's an agenda awareness or sensitivity in the content of the discussions.
So I just wanted to congratulate the IGF Secretariat for the work they did in gender disaggregation of data on participation, and to request that we can collaborate with them in the coming IGFs to also work with workshop organizers in analyzing whether the content of workshop discussions has any focus or awareness of women's participation in Internet governance, for example.
And then secondly, I want to make an input on behalf of my organization.
With regard to the theme for the 2012 IGF, we want to propose -- and this stems from the 2011 IGF -- that human rights be adopted as a main theme for the 2012 IGF or that it's, in fact, incorporated into the overall IGF theme.
And we have a statement that we can distribute that justifies or tries to reason why this is important, and I'll just run through some of the key points in that. I won't read the entire statement.
Firstly, in Internet governance there is a need for principles and for guidance principles that can underpin a variety of Internet governance decisions, and we believe that human rights and drawing on the tradition of human rights discourse, we can develop such principles, which could then be useful to all stakeholders in the IGF.
And then secondly, in WSIS and in the WSIS documents, there's been a prominence of human rights, which we've not always reflected on sufficiently in WSIS follow-up, but it's there and if you refer to the Geneva declaration there's a strong reference to that.
At the 2011 IGF, a lot of the discussion focused on access and looking at where access is a right or not a right or an enabling right, and this is a discourse that's also taking place at national level in some countries and it's taking place in the Human Rights Council, where there, in fact, will be a panel on human rights. And this all follows on the report of the special rapporteur, Frank La Rue, that looked at freedom of expression on the Internet.
So there are parallel discourses which are not necessarily focused on Internet governance but that do relate to human rights on the Internet.
And then thirdly, there's been quite a lot of support -- and if you refer to some of the chairman's summaries as well of the last few IGFs, there's often a recognition of the importance of human rights and how you approach it, from what perspective, from different stakeholder perspectives.
So at this point, we want to recommend that the MAG takes this suggestion and explores it and sees if it, in fact, could -- if human rights or human rights on the Internet or the promotion of human rights through the Internet be incorporated or considered as a main theme for the 2012 IGF. Thanks.
>>ELMIR VALIZADA: Okay. Thanks.
We will continue discussions.
>>ISOC: Thank you, Mr. Chair. Bill Graham for the Internet Society.
The Internet Society has long said that we view the Internet as an enabler for a wide range of human rights such as the right to freedom of expression and opinion and access to information and knowledge, as well as the right to association.
2011 highlighted the relevance of the Internet and particularly of social networks in voicing individuals' aspirations for freedom. However, as we know, the global, open, and accessible Internet which is really instrumental in fulfilling people's aspirations cannot be taken for granted.
In that context, we suggest that filtering be part of the main agenda of the 2012 IGF. DNS filtering particularly is increasingly used by governments to combat allegedly illegal online activities, and this technical measure raises strong concerns, not only with regard to underlying Internet architecture, in which case this would fit in any discussion of critical Internet resources, but also with regard to due legal process and human rights. And it, frankly, does not solve the problems at their source.
This topic has garnered a large amount of attention in this last year, with discussions around various legislative proposals in the United States and in the international arena in discussions around the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement or ACTA.
These are all sources of concerns for the future of the Internet and the IGF can provide an excellent platform for all stakeholders to share their views on this issues and work together to ensure that the people who -- that the people enjoy the same fundamental rights, whether on line or off line. Thank you.
>>ELMIR VALIZADA: Thank you. Okay. Yeah, please.
>>RAUL ECHEBERRIA: Okay. Thank you, Mr. Chair. My name is Raul Echeberria. I'm the COO of LACNIC, the Internet registry for Latin America and the Caribbean and also a member of the Multistakeholder Advisory Group.
I just wanted to endorse what Bill Graham has said. I think that this is one of the most important points, and if we don't include this in the IGF, we would be ignoring what is happening around the world.
I think that we -- we have to feed the expectations of the community that surely is waiting for IGF to have a broad discussion on this topic and I think that we don't have -- beside discussions on DNS filtering, I think that it is important to also do -- discuss the implications on privacy of many of the proposals that have been discussed in different countries, motivated by some objectives that I would not discuss at this moment. Thank you.
>>ELMIR VALIZADA: Thank you. Please.
>>ROBERT GUERRA: Again, my name is Robert Guerra. I'm with the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto. I'd like to echo my colleagues' comments in regards to the issue of DNS filtering, and of human rights.
Unlike an earlier intervention that mentioned that human rights needs to be focused just in one session, I believe given the developments over the last two years that multiple aspects -- it is a key theme that goes throughout.
I think maybe a proposal in terms of a larger way that it could be seen as the securitization of cyberspace, be it filtering or other aspects to change its nature, could be discussed amongst the different stakeholders. Particularly, best practices and exchange of cybersecurity policies and also legislation that's being introduced. It would be a great capacity-building exercise to develop to have an engaged discussion on how these policies are being developed, what are the tradeoffs or not that take place, and in the context of the different rapporteurs from the U.N. that have talked about the primacy of human rights, how we can make sure that human rights is kept as increasingly the Internet is, I would say, under attack and far less stable because of the attacks on surveillance and privacy.
So again, I want to say that this would be a keen topic and I look forward to other interventions on this issue. Thank you.
>>ELMIR VALIZADA: Thank you. Mr. Jamil.
>>ZAHID JAMIL: Thank you. My name is Zahid Jamil. I am from Pakistan, on behalf of Internet businesses and speaking on behalf of the ICC right now.
We wanted to basically bring up the issue of emphasizing the development in IG cross-cutting themes. The development in Internet governance issues were important to last year's IGF program. We believe that an enhanced focus on development issues in each main session will be essential and suggest that there be a development track and more concerted efforts to gather and distribute best practices and practical support.
And in this respect, we have certain recommendations for the next IGF.
We strongly encourage workshop proposals that include developing country perspectives, a specific angle of discussion on development concerns or opportunities should be prioritized. We urge discussion about what developing countries can do to attract private investment, both domestic as well as foreign, in broadband infrastructure deployment and to encourage innovation and the growth of ICT services, including mobile.
Having a session focused on the exchange of best practices on this topic could be very productive. And in that respect and on this point, maximizing benefits and minimizing restrictions could be a particular focus.
Exploring the importance of relevant content for development which can include local content issues and commercial content services would be useful for 2012.
We encourage discussions to foster a better understanding of the impact of the economic downturn on Internet governance issues as well, and in that respect, greater cooperation.
We also, lastly, suggest including a team on new trends and technologies building on the previous discussions regarding cloud and mobile Internet and their impacts on social development and economic growth and how this helps to discuss for developing economies and improve their competitiveness.
And lastly, I have a -- maybe something we can play around with a suggestion to next year's theme: Sustainable Internet economic society maximizing benefits, minimizing restrictions.
Thank you, chair.
>>ELMIR VALIZADA: Thank you. Council of Europe, please.
>>COUNCIL OF EUROPE: Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'd just like to concur with Anriette and with others about the overarching theme of doing something on human rights on the Internet. It's very easy for the Council of Europe to concur on that point because it's part of our core business, one could say.
I think overall when you look at events happening across Europe and the world, there's too much happening to ignore this overarching theme. We shouldn't forget that there was the EG8 and the G8 outcomes from last year which was followed up in the London Cyberspace Conference in November, which will be followed up this year in Hungary in the fall.
The U.K. have the chairmanship of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe and one of their priorities is freedom of expression on the Internet and Internet governance, so they're very supportive. We've heard about Sweden and the Human Rights Council. We've -- some of us have been to the Netherlands recently and the Hague on freedom on line, which is an ongoing initiative which is very good and we heard from Hillary Clinton on that occasion.
Recently, the OSC, Ireland has taken up the chairmanship of the OSC and one of its key priorities is Internet freedom, not speaking about ACTA and SOPA and the demonstrations across many countries.
So within a human rights context perspective, there's much to be discussed here, much synthesis to be made about maximizing benefits and minimizing restrictions. Thank you.
>>ELMIR VALIZADA: Thank you. ICC, please.
>> Mr. Chairman, my name is Thomas (saying name) from the Walt Disney Company and I'm here on behalf of ICC/BASIS.
I would just like to pick up on some comments which were made earlier by some of the people across the room. From a business perspective, it is clear that -- and I really want to stress that, because I did not hear the word yet, but we are always, always focused on growth and jobs, and that growth and those jobs are not only for developed economies, they're also for emerging economies and developing countries, so it's -- we are looking at it from an all-inclusive perspective.
And under that overarching growth and jobs theme, we believe that IGF 2012, the issues of security, and again, some people mentioned those, openness, so openness you can of course include human rights or nonhuman rights there, and privacy should be on the agenda. But we also believe that those are excellent vehicles to promote, again, positive messages around those topics. So we definitely would like to see discussions on -- on the value of those three issues. Again, security -- so resilience, for instance -- openness, human rights, and I just want to stress here for the business community, we are not absent from the discussion. We are concerned about human rights as companies. We have some duties there and our employees and citizens care about it.
So again, security, openness, and privacy should be on the agenda. In particular, when it comes to privacy, we'd like to see focus on kids, children all around the world, which have the right to have a safe and secure Internet. And again, it's not only for developed countries, it's for everybody around the table, and everybody around the globe, and, you know, we live in an era of big data. We've seen many articles and contributions, so we really believe that for us, big data is actually translated into those three issues of security, openness and privacy, and we'd really like to have those represented at the IGF 2012.
Last year in Kenya, it was already talked about, but we definitely would like to see those greatly discussed in Baku. Thank you.
>>ELMIR VALIZADA: Thank you. Now, I invite Argentina, please.
>>ARGENTINA: Thank you, Mr. Chair. My name is Olga Cavalli from the Multistakeholder Advisory Group.
I would like to support Anriette from APC in considering the issue of human rights and the Internet.
I would like to support Bill Graham and Raul Echeberria about the issue of discussing filtering in the Internet. And also I would like to say that IGF, I think it's the ideal space for an open debate about new models of sharing content, which should be sustainable and viable for being used in the Internet.
I think as being a multistakeholder space for discussion and debate, we should approach that issue and talk about it. Thank you very much.
>>ELMIR VALIZADA: And please, Raul. No? Thank you. Thank you. APC.
>>WILLIAM DRAKE: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. William Drake from the University of Zurich.
I wanted to just pick up on the point that Bill Graham made on behalf of ISOC about filtering.
I think it's a really good direction to go in, but filtering is just one of a wide range of increasing barriers we're seeing now. There are many other kinds of technical and other barriers from notice and takedown kinds of regimes to denial of service attacks, et cetera, et cetera.
So I'm wondering if we couldn't maybe back it up a little bit to a higher level. Robert Guerra mentioned the term "securitization." That's certainly a major part of what's going on. The growing claims that, in the name of security, one must engage in a wide variety of actions. But there's other sources of these kinds of controls being imposed on the Internet as well.
So it's really, to me, more about sort of the spread of territorial kinds of models into a sort of transnational space, and maybe a simple way of talking about that would be to talk about avoiding fragmentation in the Internet as a sort of overarching approach that would allow you to get into a number of the different modalities, including filtering, but also others as well, that increasingly mean that users' experiences around the world in the -- dealing with the one Internet, quote-unquote, are, in fact, highly, highly variable, and that's a question I think of growing concern that will -- and a trend that will certainly gather steam as we go forward so it's worth talking about in a sort of broader way, I would suggest.
>>ELMIR VALIZADA: Thank you. China, please.
>>CHINA: Thank you, Chair. We would like to concur with comments made by our Pakistan colleague. We think that the Internet governance for sustainable development could be a very good option for this year's -- for this year's IGF as an overarching theme. And we think the word "sustainable development" is broad enough to include all the relevant topics rather than just to touch upon one specific area.
And I also think it is consistent with the spirit of WSIS and is a mandate for IGF. Thank you.
>>ELMIR VALIZADA: Thank you for your comments. And European Commission, please.
>>EUROPEAN COMMISSION: Thank you, Chair. What I'm saying now is said on behalf of the European Union as a whole. I would like to highlight how human rights and fundamental freedoms are a core value of the European Union and are reflected both in its internal policy and our external action. As such, we would welcome human rights as an underlying thematic -- underlying theme for a discussion at the IGF 2012. In order to have a constructive and a respectful dialogue, we should not detract from the many other core issues that we need to discuss at the IGF 2012.
And on this, what follows is said on behalf of the European Commission alone. I would like to highlight what is our main concern. It is a word that has been echoed, has already been said by many people in this room but perhaps not with the same meaning that we may attribute to it, which is the word of "sustainability."
Now in our perspective, the Internet -- we need to build discussions to ensure that the Internet is sustainable from different dimensions. From an economic dimension, we need to discuss, we need to engage in discussion to understand how the Internet can truly be a driver for jobs and growth.
This is extremely important, not only for developing countries but, let's face it, the times that we are facing today, also for developed regions in the world. That's a discussion that we definitely want to have. And to be very honest, this is a discussion that we believe would attract a number of stakeholders in the IGF which until now have perhaps not been convinced of the relevance of the IGF for them.
Sustainability can also be social. And I don't want to bore everybody with a long treatise on what this may mean. But from our perspective, "social sustainability" means that basically people have to feel confident that they can use the Internet for whatever legitimate purpose they want to. And in order to do that, it is very important that we engage in a discussion on how to ensure the security, the stability of the Internet, how we are sure that privacy and personal data are protected on the Internet without inhibiting jobs and growth; and that everybody in the end, but especially more disadvantaged groups such as kids, youngsters, but also older people, can feel safe while using the Internet.
And last, but certainly not least, for us, what is very important is the issue of political sustainability of the Internet. What I mean by the term "political sustainability," it is high time that we engage in a frank and open discussion on what are the roles and responsibilities of the different stakeholders that participate in the whole Internet governance processes.
Until now we have been using the term "multistakeholderism." As you know, the European Commission is a strong supporter of the multistakeholder model. We have demonstrated it with facts, I believe, that I mentioned this morning.
However, there is a clear need that we engage in a discussion -- with an inclusive discussion with those stakeholders to understand what every stakeholder has a responsibility and the right to do. This does not mean that we should not continue talking, not at all. Dialogue is great, and we want it to continue.
But we believe that IGF 2012 should devote a significant amount of time to discussion of what are the roles and responsibilities of all the actors.
Underlying all of this is the notion which, again, is a core goal for the European Commission to keep the Internet open. The openness on the Internet is what has allowed it to become the incredible driver for economic and social growth we have seen. And we need to find ways to continue preserving that openness while at the same time respecting other legitimate concerns and needs of all the stakeholders. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
>>ELMIR VALIZADA: Thank you. Fouad, please, Bajwa.
>>FOUAD BAJWA: Thank you, Mr. Chair. Fouad Bajwa from civil society, from Pakistan. A very important thing to consider while the discussion about human rights happens is that today it is not just one entity or one stakeholder being affected when the issue comes up.
When in my country the issue about "Google" comes up and the possibility that terrorist networks are using those platforms somehow for communication, guess who gets sort of under attack? The Google representative. That is a major question. That is about the security of this individual who though he is working for a company but is a Pakistani citizen and the problem realizes. That is a key concern.
So human rights is now actually cutting across the issue of that, number one, the citizen can be affected; number two, the service that the citizen used can be affected; number three, the example being quoted or used by one government can actually be used by another one later on.
The point is this, that human rights itself has become a broader discussion for all of this and that we might want to look into it as one of the main themes in IGF 2012. Thank you.
>>ELMIR VALIZADA: Thank you. (saying name).
>> CHILDNET: Lucinda Fell from Childnet. I just wanted to add our support for the APC suggestion as human rights as a theme. It is something that our young people picked up on. And in Nairobi last year at the IGF, they tried to raise it as a point several times in the main session on access and diversity. Although, I don't think any of them actually managed to do it. It was something they felt very strongly about.
We will shortly be consulting with the young people that will be bringing about potential themes that they wanted to discuss. We are pretty sure that human rights would be very high on the agenda, as it is something they brought up a lot last year. Thank you.
>>ELMIR VALIZADA: Thank you. Brazil, please.
>>BRAZIL: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'd like to express Brazilian partial support to APC's suggestion, not just because we don't agree but because I would like to specify it a little bit more.
We have discussed it in Nairobi with Joy when she first appeared with this suggestion. At that time, I have already expressed to her I would like to specify a little bit more in order to avoid extreme polarization of the theme and to allow us to bring this discussion with more focus on what we are supposed to deal with.
So my suggestion would be to have the theme as effects of the political options to human rights on the Internet. It's -- obviously, it's related to human rights, but we avoid the extreme polarization that this kind of issue normally raised within the discussion. Thank you.
>>ELMIR VALIZADA: Thank you. Finland, please.
>>FINLAND: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I've listened carefully to the suggestions made, and I just wanted to throw into the discussion the notion of Internet freedom from a broad perspective so that it wouldn't cover only human rights but many other aspects of freedom. And the way I understand this is that the freedom would also cover the right to access, the right to get information and share information in a secure environment, the right to create multilinguistic content and freedom to innovate through Internet and expand economical growth.
So I'd like to understand it from a very broad perspective and integrate the development aspects to this. So just one suggestion.
I also liked China's suggestion on sustainable development and sustainability, which is understood from broad perspective as explained by the representative from the commission. So perhaps we can innovate these terms and see if we can find something that would cover a diversity of ideas and views.
>>ELMIR VALIZADA: Thank you. I think nobody else wanted to discuss this issue. Thank you. Thank you for your discussion, for your comments.
And now we're going to next topic of our agenda, and we will discuss the main theme and subthemes of IGF meetings.
And I ask Secretariat to provide some information about this, please.
>>CHENGETAI MASANGO: Thank you very much, Chair. I take it that we have discussed the main theme and cross-cutting themes. IG4D has been said. So that's okay. And the main themes as well have been discussed.
We partially discussed security, openness and privacy. And in the submissions, there was suggestions for -- to build discussions on Internet intermediary liabilities under the theme of openness and privacy; to highlight cross-border issues on major components of the privacy and security discussions; developing a clearer sense of the roles, duties and responsibilities and liabilities of government and other actors regarding online security, openness and privacy, which I think the European Commission expanded on.
And then the last topic from the submissions was responding to violence against women online.
For access diversity, which we briefly touched upon as well in the preceding discussion, we had submissions, suggestions for discussion on how Internet exchange points are reducing the cost of local content and government issues involving blocking of Web sites.
And then a theme that links several areas but just not associated with access and diversity is that of access to and the use of the radio spectrum.
One submission argued that this area of spectrum needs far greater attention including new debates on secondary use of spectrum and the use of white spaces, dynamics, spectrum sensing and the use of that.
It was acknowledged -- the debate over access was extended in the debate in IGF 2011 to include access to knowledge. And it was noted by several and further -- by several that further consideration should be given to this theme.
And then on the theme of emerging issues, the session on cloud computing. They supported the continuing practice of selecting new emerging issues as a theme each year.
There was a suggestion to include network neutrality, mobile Internet, and there was also conflict minerals.
In the term for critical Internet resources, several comments, was that there was need for further debate around issues such as the structure of Internet governance including ICANN, IP addressing, root servers, Internet exchange points.
Several suggestions were made for the critical Internet resource theme, that included best practices for eliminating barriers to access to the Internet, IPv6 and the impact and opportunities for developing world that may result from their transition from I.P. Version 6 and how does the coming depletion of I.P. Version 4 address and affect developing countries.
Another point was what is the effect of the deployment of multilingual domain names, i.e. idn.idn; issues of ICANN's naming policy and impact of the new gTLDs and IDN gTLDs; technical issues such as DNS blocking; how such technical issues drive or impact policy.
Cross-border issues was also noted. Many of the most difficult and pressing issues in Internet governance are described as concerning cross-border effects of national laws, policies, enforcement policies and the action of intermediaries on those who have no representation in making of the laws or policies. One submission suggested that a session that investigated formulations to the cross-border issues would be important.
Those were the submissions that we received. And I would also -- a comment from the Secretariat -- just in your discussion, also, I think we should also discuss whether or not we should keep the themes as they were last year or we should modify them, drop one, add another, et cetera. Thank you.
>>ELMIR VALIZADA: Thank you.
Mr. Masango mentioned many items and many topics for the discussions. And I invite you to have some comments and discussions on this issue.
Please, Argentina.
>>SWEDEN: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. This is Maria from Sweden. I'm sorry. I was going to make an intervention before you, Chengetai, but I do it now instead.
Anyway, I would like to concur with many of my other colleagues talking about the main issues and the perspective of the IGF.
Sweden acknowledges, of course, and appreciates that human rights has become more of a civil part of the IGF. And we believe also the IGF through its multistakeholder characters has an important role to play as a facilitator of human rights based on the approach of Internet governance.
And the human rights and freedom on the Internet abilities to spread and reach information and services are actually fundamental conditions for social development as well innovation, economics and social growth -- and job creation has been raised by some of the colleagues here -- and, therefore, also I think the fundamental development for the whole Internet. And this perspective, of course, Sweden thinks, should be mirrored in the main theme of the upcoming IGF.
And I also would like to concur with other colleagues that there are extra issues that have been discussed today that should be visible on the upcoming meeting. We talked about -- we heard about locking, filtering, security, resilience of the Internet and so one. These should be mirrored and be visible, as I said, for the upcoming meeting, to be able to discuss actual ideas, exchange ideas and discuss important issues during the meeting. So that would be very valuable, I think. Thank you very much.
>>ELMIR VALIZADA: Thank you. Our remote participant joined our discussions, and I want to give the floor to our first participant.
>> TOGETHER AGAINST CRIME: We have a remote participant following from the Webcast. Her name is (saying name) from Against Cybercrime. TaC, a non-profit organization, would like to raise the attention of the need -- of the respect of human rights and values and particular attention to be paid to most vulnerable people of the society in order to include this part of society into the building process of the information society. Hoping to have this suggestion to be taken into account.
>>ELMIR VALIZADA: Thank you. Please, yeah. Please say your name.
>> ICC/BASIS: Thanks, Chairman. My name is Ricardo Pedraza (phonetic). I'm from Colombia, South America. I appreciate the opportunity to provide comments on behalf of ICC/BASIS regarding the access and diversity thing. It is one of the broader aspects covered in the IGF meetings, even if each year there's a great effort to narrow its scope.
To say that four issues were highlighted from the Nairobi meeting. First one was infrastructure as an enabler of the access to Internet as well as a platform to ICT solutions that may have a social benefit in education, health, disaster relief and other purposes.
Let me share a personal experience at this point. I had the opportunity to participate at the first IGF in the Pacific Islands in Noumea, New Caledonia last year. And being there, there was the opportunity to see and to understand the real importance of disaster relief for these countries and territories that are formed by thousands of islands that are affected by climate change.
And ICT's base on an Internet platform are unique solutions for prevention and disaster relief in this part of the world. So another aspect discussed at the infrastructure level was the need to improve security measures at different levels.
And another key aspect of the infrastructure discussed was the investment required across different countries. The regulatory policy, regulatory conditions needed for facilitating these investments in infrastructure we'll also discuss.
The second issue is the relevance and potential of mobile, wireless, and spectrum issues on the development of the Internet infrastructure. We recognize the growing use of wireless broadband services around the world as well as the importance of ensuring continued growth of development of society through these channels.
The third one is the need of deepening transparency and accountability with Internet -- with Internet governance as the Council of Europe representative mentioned this morning. This is a key aspect to continue building a climate of confidence among different stakeholders.
And the last, but not least, is the empowerment of women. There was a very dynamic workshop at the IGF in Nairobi on women and IGF. We believe it will be constructive to build and open up that dialogue and include the empowerment of women in the access and diversity main session topics.
These will include exploration of empowering women's access to information, access to the Internet and positive economic impact this has on societies and what Internet governance policy approaches need to be in place to make this happen.
Thank you very much.
>>ELMIR VALIZADA: Thank you. Mr. Izumi, please.
>>IZUMI AIZU: Thank you, Chair. I cannot help but follow what my previous speaker just mentioned about the use of the Internet and perhaps ICT for the disaster management. That could include prevention, reduction, relief and reconstruction work all together.
As you may all know, Japan has experienced the largest of natural disasters about a year ago. And I'm now working on the examination of if Internet and mobile and social networks really worked to help people during the disaster and the post-disaster until now. We will be finishing in the book soon, in Japanese now.
And our answer, we have done quite a survey on that and discussed with government as well. The answer is very much mixed. That technology of some types didn't really help with managing the disaster.
If you are a long-time veteran of the WSIS and IGF, you may remember Harish Kumar (phonetic) who is the chairman of the Basic Consortium. It makes technical standards for persons with disabilities.
(Indiscernible) After my next colleague from Indonesia attest that after the large tsunami, he initiated Real Works on the peoples -- I don't know how you term it in English. But there is some home in (saying name), Japan with many people with mental disabilities to give trainings to the evacuation right after the tsunami case.
If you think -- if you can read the screen or you can hear the voice from your mobile devices, it is easy for you to recognize the danger immediately coming to you, be it tsunami or earthquake.
But those people who have both physical and mental disabilities, it is very difficult. But they try to use all the ICT as well as the training to evacuate. And that town was hit by tsunami this time. And his institution was awarded by, I think, the government that all the trainings and exercises helped every mentally disabled people to evacuate very safely.
With all these stories combined, I think we can at least make some useful session or theme for the coming IGF in 2012.
We wanted to do it last year in Nairobi, but it was too immediate from the disaster. We couldn't do much. We have the Haiti experience. We have the Indonesian experience that ISPs are still working on.
I am not trying to only aim at what happened in Japan. It could happen to you next time soon.
We had a good session in Nairobi with the American counterparts. So we can do it as a showcase. It is very basic human rights that lives be protected and use of ICT or Internet is fundamental part in information society. Thank you.
>>ELMIR VALIZADA: Azerbaijan, please.
>>AZERBAIJAN: Thank you, Chairman. Actually I want to bring your attention to four important issues, which I think could also be interesting for next forum in Azerbaijan.
I was very careful listening to our Chinese and the E.U. colleagues talking about sustainability and the sustainable development. Of course, that's a tiny bit old-fashioned approach.
I mean, there is a digital gap between west and east still in our region, I mean, in CIS countries. Central Asia and some others also. So, bridging the digital gap could solve many different problems. But everything should start from infrastructure building. I mean, infrastructure for the Internet, infrastructure for the economy and some others.
So, there is a real project on the ground in 2009. United Nations General Assembly has adopted a special resolution which initiated by the Azerbaijani government, the government of the Republic of Azerbaijan. We call it the Trans-Eurasian Superinformation Highway Project, which supports already 35 countries all over the world in the Eurasian continent. And this project could be a good platform to add some new answers to sustainability. Even we can talk about progressive economy and some others.
I mean, and the government coordinating these resolutions, we are making second attempt to get a second resolution from United Nations General Assembly. So if IGF members could be involved to this process, we can get fighting against digital gap in our region, I mean, in Eurasian countries all over the world.
That could be interesting from my point of view. And I guess we can discuss in details this point.
The second point is that's very important in our world. Ethics in the Internet, kind of regulation, I don't know in details. We need to discuss it to understand how ethics should be regulated in Internet, and it should create a new platform or an understanding of preparing new region for young generation.
In the light of that saying, I guess social networking and the role of young generation could be important. I was very careful listening to young generation here and their involvement to the process.
So merging ethics and regulation and social network and the role of young generation could be interesting from my point of view.
Also, there's a fourth point of mine. Women involvement to the Internet development could be interesting from eastern point of view, I mean, especially Muslim world. So it could add another value-add to the economy at all and sustainability and the progress approach at the end of the day. And everybody should have -- everybody has a right to have access to Internet. And within that approach, we will get another part of the population, woman involvement to this process. Thank you very much.
>>ELMIR VALIZADA: Okay. Thank you. Please. I think U.K., yeah? Yes.
>>UNITED KINGDOM: Thank you, Mr. Chair, and it's -- I have to say, first of all, it's been a very interesting and useful discussion, and some pointers have certainly emerged as to key themes of the moment.
I think our approach is basically to retain that of the last IGF in terms of categorizing the kind of issues that Chengetai enumerated before. It's a long list of issues and topics. Many of them very live issues.
And if there is a purpose to this particular session, I guess it's to just kind of do a reality check on the thematic groupings of the last IGF, are they still valid.
I think our view is that they probably are in terms of, you know, establishing categories of issues, and then seeing how the proposals for workshops and open fora endorse that approach as the preparations for Baku get underway.
So creating the enabling environment, especially for developing countries, under the Internet governance for development theme remains a major theme. And as I said this morning, we really see that as perhaps the overarching theme for Baku. You know, the creation of the enabling environment.
And then security, openness and privacy, access and diversity, critical Internet resources, emerging issues -- and we've seen a few references today to new things coming along. Big data. My ears pricked up when I heard that mentioned this morning.
And then ensuring there is an effective interaction with regard to regional fora with the global IGF in Baku. I think that's an agreed objective for the structure.
So I -- I'm not sure where we're going with this discussion in terms of, you know, is there another major subtheme that's missing. I don't quite see it.
So I think that's my reflection on the discussion we've had today. I don't see any reason tabled to change the identified subthemes from Nairobi. Many issues that needed to progress and develop further through multistakeholder interaction, and that will predictably take place in Baku.
So that's my take on today. I hope that's helpful. Thank you.
>>ELMIR VALIZADA: Thank you. GICC, please. GIIC.
>>GIIC: Thank you, chair. My name is Dan O'Neill. I'm executive director of the Global Information Infrastructure Commission.
I appreciate the opportunity to make a few remarks on themes for the 2012 IGF.
I would like to just pick up on some of the comments of my colleague from England just now in that while we are looking at new and different themes going forward, or some themes going forward, I do think it's important to return back to, you know, those themes that are at the core of the IGF, and the one that the GIIC would like to speak about today is about access. It's something that is at the core of IGF and GIIC support for IGF activities. In Nairobi last year, the GIIC had the opportunity to sponsor a workshop on a practical and pragmatic look at creating a successful cloud environment in the developing world. Again, trying to address some of these cross-cutting themes that the IGF has taken on, as well as a strong focus on ensuring that access in the developing world is at the core of what's going on at the workshop level as well as at the main session level.
We were successful in bringing in a number of panelists from developing countries which really created a successful atmosphere in having them relay personal stories -- success and challenges info in their attempts to bring cloud and to use cloud in developing countries.
Second, I'd just like to use this opportunity to reiterate the GIIC support for greater emphasis on regional and national IGFs. The GIIC has had an opportunity to participate in IGF USA. We have also got commissioners that are participating in other regional and national IGFs around the world, and again, in terms of access, I think this is a wonderful opportunity for the IGF to really kind of spread itself to a wider audience and involve thousands more around the world. Thank you.
>>ELMIR VALIZADA: Thank you. Please, ICC/BASIS.
>>ICC/BASIS: Jeff Brueggeman with AT&T speaking on behalf of ICC.
Some general comments consistent with the intervention by the U.K. Also agree that it's important to maintain an overall scope of the IGF that is focused on Internet governance. That said, I think we've talked about a lot of ways to add new areas of focus and timely topics within the current structure of the main areas of organization of the main themes, so we would support maintaining those themes and as the IGF has done every year, finding ways to address the timely and evolving issues that are emerging.
With respect to critical infrastructure resources specifically, just wanted to add some comments that there's a -- I think also a need to focus on pragmatic issues. We're under a time of great transition, as others have noted, whether it's IPv6 implementation, DNS security issues, or the introduction of new domain names and IDNs. I think it's important to continue the discussion on both the practical issues that that creates as well as the broader social and economic issues as well.
Fully support the introduction and perhaps additional emphasis on disaster recovery and preparedness issues. It was actually something that came up in the emerging issues session last year that I participated in, and I think it's a broad area that can incorporate both the underlying infrastructure and how do we think about disaster preparedness and recovery in terms of the infrastructure as well as, as others have said, how do we use technology to help improve both the disaster preparation and disaster recovery efforts on the back end.
So that is a very timely topic related to critical Internet resources.
And finally, I think looking ahead as we always try to do, we see the Internet resources being used increasingly for new types of application, whether it's smart grid, healthcare, and other things, and I think it would be timely to take on some of those new applications as part of critical Internet resources as well, both from a technical, privacy and security perspective, as well as the broader user and social implications of that transition. Thank you.
>>ELMIR VALIZADA: Okay. Thank you.
And now I want -- Adam Peake, please.
>>ADAM PEAKE: Thank you very much, Chairman. Adam Peake from GLOCOM.
Just, again, another person following up from the U.K.'s comments. Mark mentioned big data and that made me remember that a topic I would like or hope the IGF may consider this year is open data.
I think particularly relevant to all stakeholder groups, government making new information available, private sector making reuse in economic and entrepreneurial terms, and of course civil society. And as we heard from (indiscernible) Ndemo last year, we also have developing countries taking leadership, Kenya taking leadership in open data initiatives. So I think this would be one that I hope the MAG could take a look at and try and build into one of the sessions. That's it, thank you.
>>ELMIR VALIZADA: Thank you. Please. European Union.
>>EUROPEAN COMMISSION: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Speaking on behalf of the European Commission.
First of all, I would like to support the statement just made by Adam Peake concerning the importance of open data. That's a topic that we would certainly like to see addressed one way or the other in IGF 2012.
As a second point, I would like to take perhaps a small step back and encourage everybody to ask, first of all, but everybody to think that the IGF, in order to be successful and sustainable, has to be relevant. Relevant not only for the stakeholders that are currently engaged in the IGF, but also for stakeholders who are not sitting at the table right now and that we want at the table.
In order to do that, we have to be careful to be pragmatic to include topics which are significant for everyday people, which doesn't mean to exclude technical topics. Not at all. But we need to be able to frame them in a way that is relevant for the day of ordinary citizens.
In that sense, we feel that the current subdivision in themes, the subdivision in themes that has been used until now, is flexible enough to accommodate the needs, the desires that have been expressed so far by many participants.
Last, but certainly not least, I have listened with great interest to the statement by our colleague concerning the three topics, if I counted them correctly. I thought I heard four but then I was able to count only three, so I hope I'm not missing anything.
The three topics, which I understand correctly, are government fears would be important to address at the IGF 2012. So digital gap and in particular the role of infrastructure.
Ethics on the Internet and involvement of women.
I would like to support, on behalf of the European Commission, that we would be more than interested to discuss these three topics. We think they are highly relevant. We are ready to engage in a discussion, of course, on the basis of the core values of the European Union, including the respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms which are nonnegotiable values for us. But we are more than willing and more than ready to engage in discussion on these three topics, which are very relevant for us in the European Union and we believe at a global level. Thank you.
>>ELMIR VALIZADA: Thank you. Jennifer, please.
>>JENNIFER WARREN: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to follow up on what the EU just said and ICC/BASIS' previous comments.
The main sessions themselves, the subtitles or the titles, are sufficiently flexible to accommodate and focus on a number of the higher-priority topics that have been highlighted here, whether they be sustainability, development, or some of the topics of Internet freedom.
I think it's very important to focus on the overarching theme which then gives the flavor and the direction on how to interpret, then, those main session themes for each of the IGFs. I mean, we've successfully, I think, been able to do that over the past IGFs.
So if we find the main theme, that will then allow us to implement those at the -- at those levels.
And I know we've talked about sustainability, we've talked about jobs, we've talked about societal impact, et cetera, and my colleague Zahid had mentioned sustainability of the Internet economy and society as kind of an approach, a direction. Maybe playing with that, again, trying to accommodate all, and then to drive that down into the main sessions would be a useful starting point.
>>ELMIR VALIZADA: Okay. Thank you. APC, please.
>>APC: Thank you, chair. And just wanted to thank everyone for their input and -- which I think helps to elaborate what the concrete components or topics that a human rights-oriented IGF could focus on. But in particular, I wanted to endorse Adam Peake's point about open data.
Because I see this -- I mean, the open government partnership, which has recently been launched and several governments that we want to be in the IGF or that are already in the IGF are part of that, and I think looking at open government data and open data in the context of the IGF is rights related but it's also a way of making the IGF relevant and resonate with other important global processes that are taking place.
>>ELMIR VALIZADA: Thank you for your comments. One moment. ICC, please.
>>ICC/BASIS: Thank you. I'm Paul Mitchell from Microsoft and speaking on behalf of ICC/BASIS.
One of the sessions that I thought was the most valuable last year was the emerging issues session, just phrased that way. And one of the reasons it was valuable is because it brought together a range of discussants where -- to talk about topics where no one side actually understood all of the technical or business or political ramifications of the issue.
So for example, the topic of mobile Internet was hotly discussed. It has the promise of bringing together connectivity to all portions of societies, and at the same time it represents a huge economic challenge for industry that has to put it together.
By all objective measures, the growth of mobile technology has outpaced all other technologies in this sort of connected world, and it has the ability to rapidly bring people together, but what's the emerging issues next year?
I would argue that a mobile Internet is still one of the emerging issues, but at the same time bringing together the ecology and sustainability, both technically and politically, and for the environment all come together.
In terms of putting together a policy framework or debating policy frameworks to enable this, it's important to balance the technical reality, the fast pace of emerging technology change, with the experimentation that's going on real-time, and have to balance all of that.
And so from that perspective, I would ask the organization -- organizing committee members to strongly consider a session that is able to explore all of the new developments that will happen between now and the time we get to Baku in November.
>>ELMIR VALIZADA: China, please.
>>CHINA: Thank you, chair. We would like to concur with the interventions of previous speakers regarding -- about that we think that the current main sessions and the themes of the main sessions we have in Nairobi is comprehensive enough and can accommodate all these concerns from all the stakeholders. And so we support to maintain these themes of the main sessions. Thank you.
>>ELMIR VALIZADA: Thank you. Azerbaijan?
>>AZERBAIJAN: Thank you, Chairman.
I would like to appreciate EU representative to support our subtopics. Actually, I would like to clarify that. There were four topics: Sustainability, regulation of ethics. Third one was social network and the role of young generation. I mean if we'll go to statistics, almost 70% of users of Facebook, I mean, the social network, are under 35 years old. I mean young generation. So young generation is our future and they will decide in the future how to use the Internet and how to benefit from that infrastructure.
I mean, their role are very crucial right now, and we need to involve them to this process. So that was the third topic.
And the woman involvement to this process, especially the Muslim world, could be another interesting point, so Azerbaijan could play a bridge between the west and east. I mean, with infrastructure and some of the different linkages. I mean, playing this playing-making process, we can contribute a lot to east and west with infrastructure and some contents as well. Thank you very much.
>>ELMIR VALIZADA: Okay. Thank you.
Please, Robert.
>>ROBERT GUERRA: Thank you very much. Well, I wish to echo some of the comments that -- the themes from Nairobi are appropriate. I would say that what would be different for the IGF this year is the emphasis. Again, there have been many developments since Nairobi, or issues that could not be addressed in our 2011 IGF that I think should be -- occur at the IGF in Baku. And the issue of human rights in its multiple dimensions, I think I mentioned earlier maybe scoping it up and seeing it in a larger way, securitization of the space.
These are challenges not just for developed countries but developing countries in Africa and elsewhere are starting to deal with these issues as well.
And finding out what the balances are, what the issues are, and bringing all the stakeholders together I think would be a great session and I wish that it be placed at a higher emphasis than before.
My concern, what I'm hearing in some of the comments, is that it's being deemphasized and I hope that its emphasis is, in fact, enhanced. Thank you.
>>ELMIR VALIZADA: Thank you. Okay. I think -- please.
>>PATRICK RYAN: Is this working? Hi, this is -- my name is Patrick Ryan. I'm policy counsel, open Internet with Google.
One of the areas that I would like to see stimulated in discussion at IGF is the role of government requests for information and data. There's been a lot of discussion of government requests in the context of the private sector, including workshops hosted by the private sector itself. However, for a variety of reasons, there are often restrictions on the private sector from addressing these issues in an open way.
Of course the Patriot Act is one example of such laws that are often discussed and controversial, but there are similar laws and processes for getting data around the world.
If there is any -- if there's anything that the IGF can do to promote this government-to-government dialogue about data access in a forum that includes the private sector and civil society, that would be greatly beneficial for us.
For example, governments in certain key countries could explore and articulate the need for government access to data to avoid crimes and to avoid terrorism and to talk through how this is done in a way that protects consumer privacy.
This is a topic that is increasingly difficult for the private sector to address on its own and it's not a topic that is by any means limited to the United States.
Addressing this is going to be one of the most critical areas of discussion as people move more and more data to the cloud and it would be great for the IGF to get more involved in this discussion.
>>ELMIR VALIZADA: Thank you, Patrick. Remote participant? Okay. We have other remote participants, please.
>> Hello. This is Ginger Paque and then she says, "I do not see engagement with Anriette/APC's suggestion that human rights be proposed as an overarching theme. Human rights is a basic theme for the IGF. It ensures that access and CIR will be addressed. Is the IGF going to stick to business as usual? Instead of continuing to be cutting-edge is IGF going to be business as usual and wait for the voices in the street to take up the call for HR as they have done for SOPA and ACTA? Wouldn't it be better to address HR as an overarching theme before it reaches a critical and competitive stage?"
>>ELMIR VALIZADA: Thank you. Mr. Jamil, please.
>>ZAHID JAMIL: Thank you, chair. I just wanted to chime in with some of the comments made earlier about the importance of the issue of blocking and filtering of the net.
I believe Bill Graham mentioned this earlier. I just wanted to mention from a person from Pakistan and from -- that those kind of -- that region generally, the kind of policies we are seeing being put into place are having an impact on people being able to access information, and from that perspective, I would really encourage this being formed as part of the dialogue that will take place in -- at the IGF 2012. Thank you.
>>ELMIR VALIZADA: Thank you. Please, ICC.
>>ICC/BASIS: Thank you, chair. My name is Claudia Selli and I'm with AT&T and talking here on behalf of the ICC and its BASIS initiative. I wanted actually to provide some brief comments on a session which has not been discussed up to now, and which is the taking stock and the way forward which we thought was very useful last year as it promoted very good reflections and collaborative efforts to enhance the IGF.
At the IGF in Nairobi, apart from the main session, there were also two workshops at IGF that took place.
The workshop organized by the ICC/BASIS, ICANN, ISOC, NANOG and ITA again produced a very constructive dialogue and also a number of concrete suggestions for ongoing IGF enhancement, and for instance, ideas were raised on how to further improve remote participation and also more inclusiveness and more accessibility of the IGF.
So we definitely would support having a taking stock and a way forward session in 2012 that deals on the session in Nairobi and the format and the approach used there to also take stock on where we are on certain issues, identifying key themes emerging in a workshop that contributes and takes stock of Internet governance enables continuous focus of the IGF in taking stock of the status of discussion on emerging issues of relevance to participants. Thank you.
>>ELMIR VALIZADA: Okay. Thank you. Jamil, you want to say again? Thank you. Yeah. Okay. I think all participants had the possibility of -- please. The European Union.
>>EUROPEAN COMMISSION: Thank you, Mr. Chairman and apologize for this last-minute intervention.
But I did want to react to the intervention of the remote participant. Because I think there has been perhaps a misunderstanding as I felt that my statement before on behalf of the European Union was, in fact, a reaction to the statement by the APC.
As I said before, the European Union considers human rights and fundamental freedoms as core values of its action, both internal and external. We are very happy to discuss them at the IGF as we do in many other fora, multilaterally, bilaterally, on topics that relate to the Internet or not. That depends on the specific forum.
I do wonder, however, whether it really makes a difference to have this particular topic as a central theme or whether in the end the centrality of the theme, which we agree is an important theme, will be reflected anyway in the workshop proposals that we arrive at.
I mean, if this theme is really felt to be relevant by those that participate or that should participate in the IGF, I'm sure we will see that.
So I'm not entirely clear what is the purpose that having this particular language used in the main theme would want to achieve. Thank you.
>>ELMIR VALIZADA: Thank you. Yeah. Please. U.K.
>>UNITED KINGDOM: Thank you, chair. I just wanted to come in in in support of that intervention by the European Commission, and it -- I think our position is basically as was articulated by Finland earlier on.
I mean, rights issues will permeate across so many of these topics that it's going to be there anyway.
To elevate rights as the overarching theme I think is -- is not doing justice to the diversity of the Internet Governance Forum, and the whole raft of issues that are perhaps a bit further removed from that.
But that -- but as I say, that -- as the European Commission is saying, is not to demean the importance of rights but it's to establish the profile of the Internet Governance Forum more accurately, I think, in terms of enabling environments, Internet for development opportunity and so on.
I think that's our sense of -- that's our reaction to the proposal that rights be the overarching theme. We're not in support of that from the U.K. Thank you.
>>ELMIR VALIZADA: Thank you. Okay. Thank you. I want to express.
Okay. My thanks to all speakers who is -- yeah. Please.
>>WILLIAM DRAKE: Thank you, chair. William Drake from the University of Zurich.
I understand the arguments about human rights as an overarching theme and we've gone around, back and forth on this many times in previous years, and I'm just wondering if maybe an alternative way of getting at this would be to at least have a main session that is nominally on that topic, whether we could drill down a little bit more conceptually on what do we mean when we talk about human rights and the Internet.
There's been a lot of debate, including fairly recently in relation to an article, an op-ed piece written by Vint Cerf that was in the New York Times that got a lot of discussion about whether or not Internet access was a human right and so on.
And this led to a great deal of discussion in many different forums, and it made clear that there are a lot of interesting questions that need to be unraveled here that go beyond simply sort of saying that rights are important and they permeate.
So while I recognize maybe it's too problematic to make human rights an overarching framework, I would think why not consider having at least a bounded main session where we really get some human rights experts as well as others together for a more probing and intensive discussion of that matter. Thanks.
>>ELMIR VALIZADA: Okay. Thank you. We have two speakers. Please. Izumi.
>>IZUMI AIZU: Yeah. Sorry to make another round. I really support what our colleague, Bill Drake, said.
I mentioned about the disaster relief and management, and it's a basic right to survive, but we have to put into the Internet governance context, and as Bill mentioned, there's interesting differences and views, and while we don't really have the good understanding of what the human rights around the Internet is, we may have the understanding of what human rights in the conventional society. But the challenge is, we are, you know, faced with all these new things like the social networks, smartphones, the cloud and stuff, and these are the areas that we really have some merit to have at least a main session around human rights and the Internet.
That's why the very interesting remarks from Vint Cerf really sort of promoted this discussion and we can, you know, keep that within the next IGF. Thank you.
>> ELMIR VALIZADA: Thank you, European Union, please.
>>EUROPEAN COMMISSION: Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and apologies for my repeated intervention. I speak on behalf of the European Commission.
I would not qualify the perception of our intervention as meaning that talking about rights is problematic, but we can discuss semantics at a later stage.
This concerns a suggestion to have an open session specifically devoted to human rights on the Internet. It is something that the European Commission would certainly consider with interest.
>>ELMIR VALIZADA: Okay. Thank you. I want at this time to express my thanks to you, to all speakers. And today we have good discussions about the topics and subtopics of our next meeting. And I think this is good start of our work. And we today have basis for our concentration and discussions in the MAG. And I think the main topics which mentioned in here is -- will be considered and will be included in the topics of our IGF in Baku.
And now I want to, according to our agenda, invite you to discuss our last item of our agenda. This is the next steps in the preparation process. Firstly, I invite Secretariat to make some comments on this topic. And afterward, we will discuss this issue.
Please.
>>CHENGETAI MASANGO: I will just be short. So the next steps in the process is that the MAG meeting is tomorrow and the next day, on Wednesday and Thursday. If the MAG agrees on the main themes and the subthemes, we would like to issue out a call for workshops as soon as possible. So we're thinking about sometime in March a call for workshops. And hopefully by the time that the new -- the renewed MAG meets in May, they'll be able to make the selections of the workshops, et cetera, and then we go on ahead from that.
And the Secretariat, and I think everybody else, has heard the comments that the workshops have to be selected and the workshop proponents notified as soon as possible. So we'll try our best to do that. And I'm sure the MAG, as well, will work very hard to do that.
For the next meeting, we were proposing either to have it just before WSIS week -- which I believe the WSIS summit is on the 14th -- or have it during the WSIS summit. The advantage of having it in the WSIS summit is that everybody comes for one week, and you can be at the IGF and also participate in the WSIS summit.
So those are the choices we had. And if anybody has any comments or preferences on when the next MAG meeting and open consultations should be, please let me know. Thank you.
>>ELMIR VALIZADA: Thank you. Anybody have some comments about? Please.
>> MARILYN CADE: Thank you, Chair. My name is Marilyn Cade. I would like to support the idea of organizing the MAG meeting during that week and note as well that there is a very important related report that will be published in time for the CSTD meeting the following week.
I see the Chair of the CSTD working group on improvements to the IGF here, and he may wish to say more. But many of the participants know that there is a CSTD working group on improvements to the IGF. I have the privilege of being one of the business participants.
Bringing the responsible participants in the MAG and the community to Geneva during the WSIS Action Line forum week, I think, is acknowledging the physical realities of limited funding and maximizing the ability to participate in multiple activities.
There is also another CSTD public consultation on the 18th of that week, and that would ensure that there could be broad participation in that meeting as well.
So my individual preference would be to use the -- some of the days during that week to further the important work of the MAG. Thank you.
>>ELMIR VALIZADA: Okay. Thank you.
The other person I think had some comments. No? Please. Ms. Argentina, please.
>>ARGENTINA: For Argentina, it would be convenient for having the meeting the same week as the forum as we have to travel a long way. If we have to stay here two weeks and adding days for traveling, that's almost three weeks and that's too much for us.
I support what Marilyn also said about having other activities in the same week. Thank you.
>>ELMIR VALIZADA: Hungary, please.
>>HUNGARY: Thank you, Chairman. I fully understand the concerns of funding discussed and the travel problems. We should also keep in mind we have the open consultations for CSTD which is one day. We have the WSIS forum which is a five-day event, overlapping with the CSTD open consultation.
In addition to that, we are going to plan a two or three-day meeting for the MAG and open consultation for the IGF.
So I can't really imagine myself physically to be able to attend all of these at the same time. I'm talented enough to do multi-tasking but not to that extent.
>>ELMIR VALIZADA: Thank you.
Please, Brazil.
>>BRAZIL: Thank you, Chairman. I would like to support Mr. Peter's statement, but I would like to add that maybe the Secretariat could try to draw an agenda, a proposed agenda to submit to the members. Maybe it could be possible if the agenda would be viewed in advance. Maybe it is only a suggestion. Thank you.
>>ELMIR VALIZADA: Thank you. Yes?
>> Mr. Chair, yes, I fully sympathize with developing countries to be coming from different days to the WSIS forum. We did last year, I think, the open consultation together with the WSIS week. But as was said by our colleague, it is extremely difficult for people participating in the WSIS at the same time at the MAG. We had a lot of problems last year, and we had to not do the proper work we are supposed to do because the delegation comes with one person and they have to go to the WSIS and the MAG.
So if, really, there is any possibility to maybe hold the MAG meeting two days before the WSIS, I think that way people can come two days earlier or stay two days late. Thank you.
>>ELMIR VALIZADA: Thank you. Please, Jamil.
>>ZAHID JAMIL: On a lighter note, I just had one request that when we do have the next MAG meeting, we should have the sweets from Azerbaijan as well. They were very nice. Thank you very much for the lovely sweets from Azerbaijan. Thank you.
>>ELMIR VALIZADA: Yeah, okay. I think that no other persons for comments.
I want to say great thanks to all us. We have completed our first item of our discussions, and we started these discussions, and I think we have really fruitful and very interesting discussions today and important for us where all persons which participate in here is fully interested in the issues related to the governance of Internet. Therefore, Internet today, this is our life and this is our economy, our relations, our future. And, therefore, we consider these issues related to the Internet governance.
Today we have here some very interesting, useful ideas. And I think this is good momentum. When we're together internationally, we're thinking about the problems about Internet governance. And we must find some mechanism, maybe some new ways, new roads for the Internet wireless. And in future, we will implement these ideas which are discussed in here. And then we'll have some achievements in this area.
I think today we had good work. And I want to say thanks to all persons. And I want to say thanks to our remote participants which worked well with this process.
And I want to say, again, our great thanks to the Kenya government which held out our last meeting, our last forum and establish at such a high level from the organizations such events. And in Azerbaijan, we will try to be relevant to the requirements of the U.N. and requirements of this forum.
And I think you can -- when you come to Azerbaijan, to Baku, you will find good condition for your work and we will discuss with you some moments which we discussed today.
And I think we finished our work today. I want to thank you all. And Mr. Izumi have some comment. Please, Mr. Izumi.
>>IZUMI AIZU: Thank you, Chair. Very sorry to make this final request. It is not to the Chair but perhaps Chengetai. If you can clarify for the modality of tomorrow and the day after tomorrow's MAG meetings because last year, I think we had asked the first day to open up the MAG meeting with the observers. And I think that's taken granted next time so we can come tomorrow morning and listen to the meetings.
Am I right?
>>ELMIR VALIZADA: Further comments? We consider your comments, and after we will say our opinion on this. Thank you. Okay.
I want to remember to you the invitation by ICANN nomination committee who has invited you to the Delegates Restaurant, Building A, 8th floor, for lunch at 1800. Only in one hour.
We have finished our work. Thanks.
I think, please, U.K.
>>YRJO LANSIPURO: Thank you. Yrjo Lansipuro from ISOC Finland and member of the ICANN Nominating Committee. So on behalf of the Chair of the committee, Vanda Scartezini who could not be here, I have invited you to that cocktail.
Now, when we finished, we were able to finish perhaps a little bit earlier than I thought. So I don't think you have to wait until 6:00 to go up there. I think if you take your time to move up, we should be ready there in 15 or 20 minutes.
So just -- and how to get there, for most people, of course, this building is familiar. But for those who are here first time, you first go up two flights of the escalator, then from the top of the second escalator which is one floor up from the entrance level, you go straight over a bridge between these two buildings, new building where we are and old building, which is Building A.
And then just continue, look for the signs to the Delegates Restaurant. Eventually you will come to a great hall which is -- I think it is called the Hall of Lost Steps or something like that. And you take the elevator up until the 8th floor. So everybody is invited. Thank you very much and welcome.
>>ELMIR VALIZADA: Thank you. Our work is finished today. Okay.