FINISHED TRANSCRIPT
EIGHTH INTERNET GOVERNANCE FORUM
BALI
BUILDING BRIDGES ‑ ENHANCING MULTI‑STAKEHOLDER COOPERATION FOR GROWTH AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 22, 2013,
9:00 A.M.
SESSION NO. 300
DEVELOPING A STRATEGIC VISION FOR INTERNET GOVERNANCE
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This text is being provided in a rough draft format. Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART) is provided in order to facilitate communication accessibility and may not be a totally verbatim record of the proceedings.
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>> AARON SHULL: Welcome to Developing a Strategic Vision for Internet Governance. I just wanted to remind everyone in the audience and the participants that workshop evaluation forms are available on the IGF website. So I encourage you to please attend ‑‑
Thank you very much.
I'd simply encourage you to attend the website and fill out an evaluation following this workshop. In addition to that, I'd like to call your attention to the hashtag for social media participation throughout the course of the week; it is #IGF2013.
So without further ado, I'd like to introduce our panelists we have today. We do have a very eminent panel. So without further delay, one of our panelists is Mr. Ambassador Janis Karklins. Before assuming duties as the Assistant Director General of Communications and Information of UNESCO, Ambassador Karklins served as the Latvian Ambassador to France, Andorra, Monaco and UNESCO. He was also the permanent representative of Latvia to the United Nations in Geneva.
I'll try and read the introductions briefly, and simply flag to your attention that full biographies are available linked to the panelists at the IGF website because the panelists that are here today do have tremendous backgrounds and I encourage you to attend that portion of the website to learn more about their background.
Ambassador Karklins also represented Latvia in the Governmental Advisory Committee of ICANN and chaired this community from 2007 to 2010.
Mr. Xiaodong Lee, immediately to my left. On March 4th, 2013, Dr. Xiaodong Lee was officially appointed as Chief Executive Officer of the China Internet Network Information Center. Dr. Xiaodong Lee received a Ph.d. of Computer Science ‑‑ for Computer System Architecture at the Institute of Computing Technology at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in 2004. He also used to be the Vice President and CTO of CNNIC and Vice President of ICANN. Dr. Xiaodong Lee now holds the position of Research Professor of Computer Network Information Center of CAS. He's a member of the Academic Committee, as well as a member of the Degree Assessment Committee.
Miss Olga Madruga‑Forti, sitting in the middle of the panel, has over 25 years' experience as Senior Executive in the telecommunications and satellite industries. She is from Buenos Aires, Argentina, where she represents global and regional telecomm companies before the ITU, the Organization of American States and other standards setting international agencies and trade organizations. She currently represents ARSAT SA, an international satellite company based in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in all international and regulatory matters.
Prior to joining ARSAT, Miss Madruga‑Forti was Vice President, Regulatory and Legal, for Iridium Satellite, where she headed the company's global regulatory market access operations. Miss Madruga‑Forti earned her law degree from Georgetown University Law Center, concentrating on international law and graduating as the Belgrano Scholar to the Organization of American States. She was selected by the nominating committee to serve on the board of ICANN starting in October 2012 through the general meeting in 2015.
Immediately to her left is Dr. Laura DeNardis. Dr. Laura DeNardis is an Internet governed scholar and a professor in the School of Communication at American University in Washington, D.C., and is also a Senior Fellow at the Center for International Governance Innovation located in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. Her books include The Global War for Internet Governance, published by Yale University Press; Operating Standards: The Global Politics of Interoperability, published by MIT Press; Protocol Politics: The Globalization of Internet Governance, published again by MIT Press; and Information Technology in Theory, published by Thompson in 2007. She was also the Executive Director of the Information Society Project at Yale Law School from 2008 to 2011.
Immediately to her left is Dr. Mark Raymond, Research Fellow at the Center for International Governance Innovation. Dr. Raymond earned his Ph.D. from the University of Toronto.
So as you can see, we do have quite a panel today and we also have a very challenging, perplexing, multi‑faceted topic for discussion.
So without further ado, what I'd propose to do is turn to the panel for brief introductory remarks, three to five minutes, to introduce this fascinating topic.
Mr. Ambassador Karklins, if I could ask you to make some comments, please.
>> JANIS KARKLINS: Thank you.
Three to five minutes is very challenging to talk about Internet governance. But let me start with the time of when we initiated the debate, 2003 to 2005, because that is the starting point of all our consultations on the subject. First of all, definition. There are two ways of seeing Internet governance; the narrow one which addresses exclusively management of critical Internet resources, and the wide definition or interpretation of Internet governance which includes basically everything we can think of, including the focus of current international debate of actual use of Internet in all its aspects.
Secondly, 2003, the main preoccupation of the international community was oversight of one government over Internet management. And that was materialized through a random understanding between the Department of Commerce and ICANN with very clear benchmarks and six months' reporting on implementation of those benchmarks. It was really tight leash and a strong oversight. ICANN version 2003, of course, this was a young organization with not well established procedures and had to have parental oversight, and that was kind of natural.
When we look 10 years down the line, this parental oversight has vanished. ICANN has reached the age of adolescent when they're almost out of the street and has this very weak agreement called affirmation of commitment. I think this evolution should be taken into account in all conversation about possible ways forward in addressing the IGF issues.
The issue which has not moved much is IANA function, an attribution of IANA function. That still is the point that needs to be addressed in one way or another. It is attributed through the public procurement procedure by Department of Commerce, and Department of Commerce is overseeing how IANA function is performed before giving authorization and changing root zone. And what is different between 2003 and 2013, is that in 2003 they ‑‑ procedure was established by Department of Commerce, how they change in root zone file had to be done.
Today, there is a ongoing or already finished policy development process re‑delegation, and the procedure now is more clear. Procedure is established through multi‑stakeholder process. And I would argue strongly that this is very serious resolution in comparison with 2003. So whether this checkup before changing the root zone is still needed, or who should perform that checkup, that, of course, is a question for discussion and some evolution may be needed there.
At the core, this debate about Internet governance is still debate whether Internet should be governed in a decentralized multi‑stakeholder way, or Internet should be governed in centralized way by one stakeholder group; meaning governments. Until now, this seems to me the prevailing opinion about this issue is multi‑stakeholder decentralized mold of government ‑‑ governance where every actor, every stakeholder does it in their own capacity and has certain responsibility. Whether that is sustainable in the longer term, I personally think, yes, because that is the nature of Internet to be decentralized system of communications which would perform in difficult circumstances, and the government's model should be corresponding to the philosophy of Internet itself.
So maybe I will stop here. Like I say in the beginning, all what I'm saying on this panel is not official opinion of UNESCO and I am speaking in my personal capacity.
>> AARON SHULL: Thank you very much, Ambassador Karklins.
If I could now turn to Dr. Xiaodong Lee for your remarks.
>> XIADONG LEE: Okay. Thank you, Mr. Shull.
Ladies and Gentlemen, good morning. I'm Xiadong Lee from China and China Internet Network Information Centre, CNNIC. So I'll set forward, it is public institution and nonprofit organization under Chinese Academy of Science is why I have background of professor. So we take the responsibility for operating and mentioning for the Chinese Public Internet, the person, housekeeper in the Chinese ‑‑ for China.
So this topic is about Chinese strategic reason for Internet governance. So if I think about this topic, you know, there is two words jumping into my mind. Why is the Internet governance, why is for state model? Internet governance is very interesting. If I try to translate this word into Chinese ‑‑ I don't know how it translates in other language, because I only know Chinese and English. But, you know, it is very interesting. There is a different understanding for Internet governance, especially for governance. There is no translation for the Internet. But governance, Chinese word we use is general ‑‑ the term for governance is a general term, which means to make sense, justifiable. I think this term actually capture perfectly why we need the Internet governance is just to make the Internet right, right for all the stakeholders.
So how to make sure that the Internet is right for all stakeholders, why always mention multi‑stakeholder model. It's very interesting, but different kind of understanding for multi‑stakeholder model, especially in China. I think it's so many people think the Internet governance model in China is not based on the multi‑stakeholder model. But from my point of view, you know, it's based on different kind of understanding.
So I think the multi‑stakeholder model is interesting philosophy for the Internet governance. But in China, we use another kind of philosophy, it correlates and make ‑‑ how many years to achieve ‑‑ condition. How many, you know, how many is a very popular word in China now. But it's based on the Chinese traditional philosophy. For the Internet governance in China we also use ‑‑ used this work to make it harmonious to achieve ‑‑ So I think it's very interesting how to make sure the Internet is harmonious.
So I think also very important is the collaboration. I think it's just an admission ‑‑ it is now for current governance model does not mean fairest. There is some kind of unfair in some area, especially for some critical infrastructures management and also some kind of separate security issues. So, and also for collaboration how to make sure that all of us together, can work together, can sit together to discuss and collaborate with each other. There's also learning other important issues. For example, the idea of Internet Governance Forum I cannot use Chinese language to communicate with everybody. So, you know, it's difficult for other developing countries to work together with other, I mean developed countries. It's not in underdeveloped countries, but it's a reality. How to make sure the collaboration spirit is acceptable to everyone, especially how to make sure that developed countries can get involved in Internet governance issues.
You know, it's very interesting. Even we go to in Asia, big region. But it will go to Latin America and also Africa. I do believe there is so many younger people who don't know what is e‑mail and what is Internet governance. So I think collaboration is very, very important. But also, the fairness is very, very important. We need to find the Internet governance and what is the model very carefully and achieve this goal is also a long way.
>> AARON SHULL: Thank you very much, Dr. Xiaodong Lee.
If I could now move to Olga Madruga‑Forti for your opening remarks.
>> OLGA MADRUGA‑FORTI: Thank you very much, Aaron. I would say we've heard some interesting remarks reflecting on events. I think when you ‑‑ or the title of our panel is about developing a strategic vision. As with any strategy, you properly begin with taking stock. What is happening or what has been happening that is causing us to have to reflect and have to generate a strategic vision?
In our limited time, I would submit to you to just reflect about events of the past year. Just thinking about what has happened in the time frame of one year allows you to see a pattern, a natural progression. And I think it's a fairly ready way to kind of read the tea leaves and see where things are going. So let's just recap our own lives, those of us that live and breathe Internet issues day to day. Go back to November of 2012. It's just before the World Conference on International Communications, which took place in Dubai of 2012. And there, that was an ITU conference and it was supposed to be about refreshing international telecomm's regulations which had not been revamped in 10 years. A fairly ready task, one would think, except the preponderance of the conference ended up being about very strong debate about whether there should be regulation of the Internet in a broader way and how that should occur.
And the, what is now termed the WCIT, for all of us, turned out to be a bellwether wake‑up call for many to think about what was happening in the space of Internet governance and whether it should go in a new direction. Clearly, of the 144 governments that were there, 89 ended up signing a new version of the regulations that steers things somewhat in the direction of a broader participation of government in the space of Internet governance.
And there, just very quickly reading the tea leaves, the rest of the year we move to April of 2013, ICANN was in Beijing in the spring, and we have a communique to the board of ICANN from the Government Advisory Committee considering the introduction of new Top Level Domains into the Internet. And by that vehicle, the Government Advisory Committee, again, recommends a broader, a new attention and broader recognition of the importance of governmental public policy issues that need to be taken into account in Internet governance.
Then right in the middle of the year we have a very significant, almost cataclysmic event of the revelation by a gentleman that we all know by the name of Snowden regarding security and interception issues having to do with the Internet, which ends up affecting very critical countries in a serious way; Brazil, not only by the US, but also by Canada. France announced as of yesterday also experiencing a interception, and Mexico. So the debate of how is the Internet and security issues being managed significantly augments by midyear of 2013 and many events happening simultaneously.
Again, the Internet community convened in Durban in July, in the middle of the year to continue to consider, in a sense, governance issues by way of the introduction of the Top Level Domain. And again, the Government Advisory Committee submits to the board of ICANN that issues very specific to public policy, such as the protection of the names of intergovernmental organizations is an important thing to be taken into account in terms of governance issues. They highlight the need for who is directory service; that is, who is behind a given site, that that kind of information should be more readily available, transparent and accurate. So again, that underscoring of public policy issues that need to be taken into account in the governance fora.
Much of this debate continues to percolate up. And to the very prevalent speech of President Rousseff of Brazil to the U.N. General Assembly, which is now we're at September of 2013, and she delivers what the press, not only myself, but the press categorized as a scathing assessment of Internet governance generally and primarily reacting to interception issues.
That is followed very quickly with support by UNASUR, which is essentially the NATO of the southern countries of the American hemisphere, completely backing, that is seven defense ministers immediately backing President Rousseff's assessment of the need for some immediate and serious action on the topic of Internet governance. To just last week, at a meeting of CITEL, which is the Inter‑American Telecommunications Commission of the Organization of American States, for the first time issued a resolution sending recommendations to the ICANN board regarding the protection of geographic names as a matter of policy ‑‑ public policy.
So I've concentrated on governmental interest actions, but all the while in that span of the year, many of those pronouncements have been ‑‑ have had parallel strong campaigns regarding the multi‑stakeholder process and the participation of civil society. So I submit to you that as we read the tea leaves of the past year of action, what we're really seeing is more than a transformation of what might happen with Internet governance, but a transformation in governance generally, principles of governance generally, globally, moving towards a vision of more public citizen participation, balanced with the appropriate governmental participation, as well, in matters very specific to public policy and that space.
So what we are exploring then in terms of strategy is how best to balance those two interests, and really how to weave them together into what we would like to be some kind of third structure, which is not a structure of pure governmental participation, but is also new in the sense of realizing a new way for governments and other stakeholders, users and civil society to interact in the formation of policy. That is the juncture at which we find ourselves. Thank you.
>> AARON SHULL: Thank you very much for those insightful comments.
If I can now turn to Dr. Laura DeNardis for her introductory comments, please.
>> LAURA DENARDIS: Thank you very much, Aaron, and good morning, everyone. I'm delighted to be a part of this panel. And I wish to thank the Center for Internet Governance Innovation for organizing it.
As a scholar, I view Internet governance as the design in administration of the technologies that are necessary to keep the Internet operational, as well as the enactment of substantive policy around those technologies. Critical Internet resources are only one part of the technologies that are necessary to keep the Internet operational. There's also a standard setting, there's cyber security governance, the private policies of companies that have contracts with their users, architecture‑based intellectual property rights, and certainly interconnection and routing.
I start off with that because most of this has nothing to do with governance. And many of the discussions at the IGF revolve around narrow areas of Internet governance or around symbolic power struggles. But the first point I'd like to make is that considerable work is done by new institutions like the IETF and by private industry to keep the Internet running.
My latest book, which is called The Global War for Internet Governance breaks down the layers of Internet governance that are giving us the digital public sphere, as well as some of the debates that are around this infrastructure.
Now, as this crowd well knows at the IGF there truly are Internet control points. There are layers upon layers of functions that are necessary to keep things up and running, but these are not necessarily neutral. In fact, the main theme of my book is that Internet governance conflicts create some of the new spaces where power is unfolding around the world. So it's a highly technical area, but it's politically potent because it involves the technical mediation of the public sphere, as well as overwhelmingly the privatization of conditions civil liberties and human rights. So one theme I'd like to suggest today, I debated about this, but I'm going to pick the theme of challenging the multi‑stakeholder model.
In fact, I just wrote a paper about this with Dr. Mark Raymond, so it's very fresh in my mind. Most efforts to study the Internet, to study the Internet governance or also to practice Internet governance start from this idea or this premise that the Internet is currently governed by a multi‑stakeholder model. And preserving this goal is something that we hear all the time at the IGF, as well as elsewhere in the Internet community. And what I'd like to do is just raise five critiques of this multi‑stakeholder mantra.
First, I see that this is increasingly elevated as a value in and of itself, rather than a possible approach to meeting a tangible objective such as a human rights objective, or innovation, or operational stability and security. So it's elevated as a value in and of itself, and I don't think that that's necessarily productive.
The second critique is that the multi‑stakeholder governance model may not be appropriate in every area of Internet governance. There are certain functions that are appropriately relegated to the private sector, narrow technical functions. There are other areas that are the traditional purview of states, and there are other things in between; critical Internet resources is probably one of those areas. But there's not one ‑‑ there's not a one‑size‑fits‑all model.
A third critique is that the concept of multistakeholderism seems to be used as a proxy for broader political struggles that sometimes have nothing to do with Internet governance.
A fourth critique is that multistakeholderism, and I'll target my scholarly colleagues now, and I'm guilty of this myself, that it's sometimes described as a way to understand discussions of Internet governance rather than actually the practice of Internet governance. So there's a focus on multi-stakeholder dialogue rather than multi-stakeholder practice.
And then finally, I believe that the concern about multistakeholder Internet governance focuses specifically, too often specifically, on the coordinating functions performed by ICANN. I think part of the reason for that is because of the visibility of what ICANN does. You also see discussions about multistakeholderism applied to institutions like the IETF. Part of the reason this happens is because there's transparency in the IETF and we see what they're talking about and we can read the standards. In other kinds of fora there is not that kind of transparency. But I feel that this phrase is too often employed uniformly and sometimes uncritically and that creates its own risks.
So part of this, this will be my final point, it stems from this idea of Internet governance as single thing. And I, as many of you do, I speak about Internet governance all over the world and I often get a question such as the following: Well, who should control the Internet? Who should govern the Internet? Should it be the US government? Should it be ICANN? Should it be Google? Should it be the ITU?
Well, this question makes no sense whatsoever, as I'm sure you all understand, it views Internet governance as a single system. So the two points that I've made here to kick off some discussion, and I really look forward to the audience comments, is that Internet governance is not a single system; and that multistakeholderism should not be viewed as a value in and of itself that's applied homogenously to all Internet governance functions. So instead, the question I look at is what is the appropriate approach to efficacious Internet governance in any particular area that achieves certain results such as human rights objectives, interoperability, innovation, or operational stability, varies based on context, both functional and political?
Thank you very much.
>> AARON SHULL: Thank you very much, Dr. Laura DeNardis.
If I could now turn to Mark Raymond for his opening remarks.
>> MARK RAYMOND: Thank you. Thank you to everyone for coming. It's good to see so many here at 9:00 a.m. on the first day of the official event.
I'd like to speak to a couple of areas where I think social science and political science, which is my training, contribute to Internet governance. I say that with humility because I don't have a technical background. And until relatively recently I wasn't an expert in Internet governance. I still would be very hesitant about making claims about such expertise.
So the first thing I think that political science can contribute to the study of Internet governance is to note that, as Laura did, just like Internet governance is not a monolithic thing, the multi‑stakeholder model is also not a monolithic thing. I think there's a real benefit in studying that in a more disaggregated or decomposed manner. The way we can do that is by looking at variation in the classes or types of actors who are participating in a given mechanism, and by also looking at second dimension at the nature of authority relations among those actors. So if you look, for example, at the contrast between ICANN and IETF, both are multistakeholder organizations, or at least commonly regarded as such. They work very differently. If you look at the procedures and the rules of those two organizations, they look almost nothing alike.
When we talk about the multi‑stakeholder model, it does release some conceptual violence to what's actually going on and it can hide more than it reveals. That's the first point I would like to make here today.
The second point which stems from that, there's also a great opportunity to study multi‑stakeholder governance, rather than multi‑stakeholder Internet governance because multistakeholderism now exists outside of the Internet issue area. And I'd like to briefly flag two areas where I think there's some great opportunities for broader comparative study. This is the kind of thing that political scientists like to think we do reasonably well. The first is financial governance. Just as an example, I will propose the International Organization Security Commission Organization, IOSCO. It is the global organization that looks at stock trading and securities trading. It includes both government securities regulators and industry self‑regulating groups. So that's an example of multistakeholderism, but it's not related to the Internet.
The second is the global compact at the United Nations, which is an exercise in trying to develop corporate social responsibility. And their materials explicitly adopt the discourse and the terminology of multistakeholderism. So, again, that's an opportunity for comparative study. And there's also, I think, a terrific opportunity to think more carefully about corporate social responsibility in the Internet space as well. That's sort of a separate point, but one that touches the same material.
So in addition to those two points, I'd like to close with kind of a brief evaluation of where I think we are in the current political situation, this picks up and relates to comments of many of the other panelists. What I'd say is that we're seeing right now an exercise in rule making. My own work looks at politics of rulemaking in the international system. It's clearly what we're seeing here. The problem with rulemaking in a context where people disagree on how to do rule making, is that it tends to founder on procedural issues. It’s part of what we saw at WCIT and it's part of what we can expect to see in the future. We can expect to see a great deal of difficulty in this space over procedural issues, until and unless we sit down and realize and discuss these procedural differences.
There are a range of procedural views among states. These are common stumbling blocks in international relations. But this space is distinguished by two other procedural wrinkles. So, first of all here we have a technical community which has very horizontal, very distributed, very pure produced egalitarian models of procedure that play very poorly with conventional state models. We also have a corporate model of decision making based on shareholder and board responsibility and based on management of private contracts. Again, so we have a real diversity in decision making and rule making procedures.
>> AARON SHULL: Great. Thank you very much to the panelists for those insightful introductory remarks. They have set the table for what I think promises to be a very fruitful discussion. So what I'd like to do now, I'd propose to turn it over to the audience for questions. In order to keep it fair for our remote participants, I propose we take one from the floor and then I'll turn to the remote participants for one question for people participating remotely and then back to the floor, provided there's no strenuous objection, and we can have an interesting dialogue. I see one question from the floor.
Manu, please go ahead.
>> MANU BARDLODGE: Thank you very much for an excellent presentation and opening statement. Manu Bardlodge from the US State Department. The US government is very excited that at this IGF we are in a position to say that we made our first donation to the IGF trust fund, a contribution of $350,000 which demonstrates our commitment to the multi‑stakeholder model.
For this panel which is fittingly titled Developing a Strategic Vision for Internet Governance, I wonder if we could also develop a strategic vision for the Internet governance forum. The forum ‑‑ in particular the question is, I'm very curious to hear each panelist's perspective on how the Internet governance forum is doing. Do you feel that enhancements could be made to address concerns of the developing world to deal with the issues broadly of the desire of some governments to have more of a role in Internet policy making? Do you feel that it's fittingly a multi‑stakeholder organization that's effectively addressing Internet questions? What is the value of the IGF? And as we look to the future of the IGF, are there enhancements you'd like to see made?
Thank you.
>> AARON SHULL: Thank you, Pindar, for running the microphone back. That's very kind of you. And thank you, Manu, for the question.
In terms of IGF, I guess what I would say, in the GigaNet yesterday someone had commented and I hope the information is accurate, but it was very interesting. They commented civil society is actually the largest single group here by how people have self‑identified. So what that tells us is that there is at least a reasonably vibrant civil society perspective. And I don't have a breakdown, but from the people I've met here it seems to be very global. There seems to be a diverse representation of perspectives. It's my first IGF, so it's highly anecdotal. So it appears to be doing vibrantly, I would say. I know there were some difficulties planning the meeting, but it has been carried off in a really wonderful manner. I'd like to take the opportunity to thank the host committee for that. It's been a great meeting so far.
One thing I'd say with respect to enhancements, I wonder about the extent to which we should treat the IGF as a governance institution. I think Laura's point about distinguishing between dialogue and practice of governance is an important one. So the risk if we focus on IGF for enhancing developing role participation is that we get a situation where there's participation in dialogue, but not participation in practice, and that could lead to real concerns about legitimacy.
>> JANIS KARKLINS: If I may, I feel guilty or responsible for IGF. Going back to 2005, it was the second page of the WSIS Tunis Summit which made the decision to create IGF. And IGF was created as a discussion forum because it is obvious, at least at that time, that there was not sufficient understanding of complexities surrounding Internet governance and, therefore, the annual gathering of ‑‑ or representatives of different stakeholder groups was useful to clarify the issues. IGF has never been ‑‑ was never meant to be a decision‑making body, because that would change completely the manner of the meeting and would require immediately putting in place certain procedures, starting with implementation and representation. But that is ‑‑ that would certainly stifle the spirit of discussions which are free floating and without maybe pointing to a rigid views of certain institutions. Whether there is room for improvement, certainly there is. The environment is changing.
Maybe we need to think about where the different process in the society which ‑‑ because idea when IGF was created, the people come, they talk, they try to understand problems. They're trying to understand concerns of others. And then they go back and make necessary decisions where these decisions should be made; either that is intergovernmental circles or that is boards of organizations and so on. But most probably, many things are discussed and decisions taken as a result of engagement in IGF. Simply we don't know, though.
For instance, let me give you an example from my own organization. Together with EURid, we are now third year in a row analyzing the uptake of IVN CCT IDs. And we see that as a result of this analysis what are the gaps and short falls. Director General of UNESCO this spring made the public statement calling on technical community to continue efforts in resolving remaining technical issues related to IVNs, and that was clearly result of this work and engagement with stakeholders here at IGF. So that is just example that there is an action which comes after that the date we have right here. And I believe there are many other examples, simply that we do not know about.
>> OLGA MADRUGA‑FORTI: I'll be very brief. I know we have so many different areas to touch upon today. But regarding the IGF and its strategic vision for the future, I would submit it’s extraordinarily successful. It's a remarkable space for dialogue and it has reached a level of maturity where it needs to think about the next growth platform. And one area to concentrate on is how to bring into the IGF, or how to make the IGF known to many other actors that are not here in Bali with us today. So somehow the outreach platform of the IGF needs to expand the role of IGF in just a forum of dialogue and dialogue only is ready and mature for a further inclination as to becoming a sort of a coalescing point for other organizations to contact colleague organizations around the world. I think a lot of work needs to be done in augmenting the role of the IGF beyond a platform of dialogue.
Thanks.
>> XIAODONG LEE: I just wanted to make a very brief comment. You know, also, everyone know that yesterday's meeting have ‑‑ just before. Also from interesting contribution, why we want ‑‑ because they feel they can get the benefit from this forum. Because now there's a hot topic, we need the platform to discuss that.
Talking about Internet Governance Forum, the most important area is the information exchange. Depending on what kind of valuable information is exchanged and what kind of valuable information we can get. So now if we discuss the strategy, it depends ‑‑ at least you have a lot of topic to discuss. If we have some valuable information to exchange. They have to open plan to discuss the dialogue. It's very, very important. If somebody, even somebody from IGF, if they come here, they cannot get any kind of valuable information. So I think it's a ‑‑ a good board, my understanding.
>> AARON SHULL: Thank you very much.
We don't have any remote questions, so we can turn to the floor for another question. Go ahead.
>> JOHN TURIN: Good morning. John Turin, ARIN, American Registry for Internet Numbers. I guess my question would be to Dr. Raymond. Several of the speakers in the background paper for the workshop raised the question of the actual definition and validity of the term multistakeholder. In your remarks, you noted two examples outside of Internet governance of multi‑stakeholder processes. And I guess from your remarks, I could only determine one was characterized that way because it had both private industry and government working together. Is there certain principles that ‑‑ beyond government and other participants, are there certain principles that you use in deciding whether something is multistakeholder? Does the multi‑stakeholder model, is it just whose participating or does it mean things like due process and transparency, et cetera?
Thank you.
>> MARK RAYMOND: So I sense that was to me. I'll obviously do my best to reply. The materials ‑‑ the background paper, I confess to having written. It has my name on it, so I take responsibility. It wasn't meant to question the multi‑stakeholder model at an ethical level. It was meant to try and look more analytically at it. And in order to look at actual practices of multistakeholderism to see what's going on and to see how much diversity there is in the practice of the forum. And we do find some diversity. As scholars, we want to look analytically at what exists and then ask the evaluative questions afterward.
I would say we're still at a point where we should be looking analytically. There are clearly better and worse ways to view multistakeholderism, and that's something we need to be able to understand. I would ‑‑
(Audio difficulty.)
>> MARK RAYMOND: ‑‑ preference is to look with a very spare definition, very simple definition to say, okay, multistakeholderism means any instance where there are two actor classes, and this is the approach that Laura and I take in our paper, we have four actor classes in general; states, international organizations, firms, and then what we call the NGO class, which is admittedly very broad and includes individual Civil Society movements, formal NGOs, et cetera. But as social scientists, we try and simplify and work from there. So that's our analytical approach. That's not to say that the ethical questions aren't critically important. They are.
>> LAURA DENARDIS: I'll just add one thing to that. I think it's an excellent question. In my opening remarks, I suggested that not everything needs to be multistakeholder. But where it is, and where it is needed to be multistakeholder, I usually think about the principles in three different ways: One is participatory openness where people have the opportunity to have their voices heard, to be in the every room. At the IGF are we all allowed in every room? That's about the discourse. But in some institutions is everyone allowed in the room and being heard? I think the participatory openness is important.
I also thing that informational openness is critical; having proceedings, minute meetings, discussion groups, and all of the kind of records of the deliberations be openly available and having that kind of transparency.
Finally, I think the implementational openness is critical, and that has to do with the outcomes. Let me give you an example of that. I mentioned the IETF before, so I'll stick with that example. The IETF has openness in all three areas for the following reasons: One is because anyone is allowed to participate. Two, because they make the standards themselves available so that there can be public accountability, so that there's the opportunity for people to look at it, assess the public policy implementations and implications and to actually see what's going on. There's transparency.
Finally, there's implementational openness in the sense that having these standards openly available results in, in this case, multiple competing products that are based on that standard. So it has the openness in all three areas. So that's one model, one way to look at it.
>> OLGA MADRUGA‑FORTI: I think those are excellent principles. And in the principle of participatory openness, another aspect to take into account is cultural and linguistic differences. For example, if I were to do this and say, (Speaking non‑English language) most of the room is gone, except for my colleagues from Argentina over here. So in terms of the future of our platforms of dialogue, much work needs to be done in that area of inclusion and openness.
>> AARON SHULL: Okay. We're able to take another question from the floor. I see one here. The gentleman in the front row, please.
>> IAN PETER: Yes. Thank you. My name is Ian Peter. I'm interested in looking at a distinction within our discussion on this overanalyzed word "multistakeholderism". And the reason I do so is that what I see within our group is all sorts of different structures. And whether we be governments or civil societies, or technical groups, I see meritocracies and I see democracies, and I see anarchies, dictatorships. I see no clear boundaries between groups. Many of us cross over trends, boundary sort of characters. We fit very much into all these different characters. This to me creates a need for a clear distinction because I'm a firm believer in multi‑process dialogue ‑‑ I'm sorry multi‑stakeholder dialogue. I'm a firm believer in multi‑stakeholder process. But when the word "multistakeholder governance" is used, I find this is something that we are nowhere near sort of mature enough to use in any sense of the way. I believe that would just be an excuse for some structure where the powerful would rise to the top and many voices would not be heard.
So I'm interested in people's analysis on the panel on the usefulness of multi‑stakeholder governance as a term. Multi‑stakeholder process, multi‑stakeholder dialogue I'm quite happy with, but multi‑stakeholder governance to me is extremely problematic as a concept at this point in time.
>> AARON SHULL: Great. Thank you very much for your question.
Who on the panel would like to begin?
>> LAURA DENARDIS: I think that you raise an important question, an important point. Part of it is that multistakeholderism can be used as a concept to elevate whatever power structure is currently in place, or to take power. So you see that, and I'm not just criticizing governments, but we could look at all kinds of courses.
In particular areas you can see how maybe private industry would try to get more power by having some people become more multistakeholder in order to have certain market advantages, or incumbent advantages. In other cases you can see governments using multistakeholder, and we do see this, to get power. It's understandable that they would want more power in certain areas of Internet governance. But multistakeholder can be used as a proxy, as a way to have more government control. So I share your caveats about it and I think that's part of the reason why it should be homogenously applied to every particular area.
For example, what would be one area of Internet governance that is highly privatized right now? One example is interconnection where there are private arrangements between network operators to connect. And we've seen in the last year proposals on the table to introduce greater regulation into those areas for multi‑stakeholder reasons. So that's an example of that. And that may be an area that is more appropriately remaining with the private sector because of the importance of rolling out interconnection in a way that is fast and efficient and involves private contracts. Having government intervention, some people have raised the issue of, well, could this be just another surveillance point where the interconnection is, having governance there? Is it just another way to enact censorship? So the caveats are well founded and thank you very much for raising that point.
>> JANIS KARKLINS: I think we should look to not overcomplicate things. Initially the multi‑stakeholder governance model was proposed to say that each stakeholder group should have its own role and responsibility. And when we look to the Internet really as a global system, then each stakeholder group has its own responsibility in terms also in governance. But then when they look to the Internet in entirety, say all the big system should be governed in multi‑stakeholder way understanding that in each individual piece should be done by the government or technical community or businesses and then so on. So in that sense there ‑‑ and maybe there's no contradiction of governance model if we take as a system in its entirety.
>> MARK RAYMOND: So, first of all, I'd just associate with the comments made by both of the other panelists, which I think are excellent. The thing I would add, the opportunity caveats, could this just be a way for the power holder to gain more control? Absolutely. But the same can be said of any other form of governance. I mean, political science is a discipline that studies the exercise of power. We find that everywhere. We find that in governance, we find it in hybrids like the multi‑stakeholder model. We also find it in private industry. So, yeah, I'm not sure it's a problem we can avoid. It's a problem we can do better to resolve and try to commit ourselves to procedural fairness and to substantive fairness. But at the end of the day, it's a ubiquitous problem.
(Off microphone.)
>> RINALIA ABDUL RAHIM: Thank you. My name is Rinalia Abdul Rahim. I'm on the advisory committee representing Internet users in ICANN. I have some reactions the comments that have been made by several panelists and I'd like to state my comments ‑‑ reaction and invite further comments from the panel.
Ambassador Karklins raised the issue of sustainability of multistakeholderism in Internet governance. I think there is in terms of the dialogue, but in terms of effective multi‑stakeholder governance, the practice of rulemaking, I think it's not going very well. And the dialogue happens in the Internet governance forums, but it doesn't happen in the decision making or rule making entities because of the silence structure. It happens to a certain extent, but there are limitations to that, that's just my belief.
Mark had said that rule making stumbles over procedure due to differences in norms, and norms take a really long time to evolve. In forums like the IGF, people get to understand about the differences in the norms and when they go back to their own decision making fora, some of it doesn't come across and it is a stumbling block. But apart from the issue of language and culture, there is the problem of capacity to engage. And that's not adequately addressed, although ICANN, for example, has lots of capacity‑building initiatives in place but getting there is a problem for various stakeholder groups. For the Governmental Advisory Committee, I would say it's an issue for the Internet end‑user community that's also at issue.
But beyond that, the capacity, there is also the process of engagement in terms of structure; how stakeholders are structured and how they're engaging. And the GAC, as far as I see, does not participate in policy development, and that is a problem and they have their own reasons for doing that.
I want to come back to Laura, where she says that multi‑stakeholder model may not be appropriate in every area of Internet governance, and I agree, but how would these technical decisions factor the public interest when decisions are just made by an narrow band of stakeholders?
>> LAURA DENARDIS: Yeah, that's the critical point that you make. I just wanted to add to what you said, and then I'll try to answer it. There are ‑‑ even in a completely multi‑stakeholder environment, there are barriers to participation. So even if something is completely open to participation, some of these fora in some of the decision‑making areas require a great degree of technical making expertise.
And I'm someone with two engineering degrees and I can't even pretend to understand every area of Internet architecture, while I do understand a lot of it. But I know for others it doesn't make any sense. There's the barrier of expertise, there's the barrier of money to be able to be funded to go to the events, and a lot of things provide remote participation, but a lot of decisions are made in the hallways in various fora and so the barrier of money is a really big one as well.
Then I would also add to what my colleague Olga had said, what you said about cultural barriers, it's not just about regional culture, but also comfort with culture in an actual institution. So if there is an organization that has a norm of wearing shorts and sandals, that's not comfortable for everyone around the world. I don't know why I used that example, but there are all kinds of barriers.
Now, in order to provide ‑‑ to address the public policy area, the question that you asked about how do you account for public policy? The starting point for that is that I believe that all arrangements of technical architecture are also arrangements of power, no matter what it is. Even the most technical, that was the subject of my book Protocol Politics, about the politics within the technical standard. So even in that kind of environment you're setting public policy. So sometimes nuts and bolts are just nuts and bolts. But in many areas of technical architecture around the Internet where our culture, our discourse, our innovation, our systems of finance are dependant on the infrastructure, it does set public policy.
And that's where I come back to this area of transparency. So if you have an organization in which all those barriers exist, but you allow for the specifications for the proceedings, for the minutes to be aired, then that to me is the only thing that provides the necessary accountability for policy makers to see what's happening, for Civil Society to happen. And indeed we have seen examples of Civil Society becoming involved in some of the standard setting organizations, for example, keeping those barriers in mind. That's the crux of the question is how do you account for the public policy considerations when you have an area that is highly technical, and even if it's open?
>> OLGA MADRUGA‑FORTI: Okay. Rinalia, you raised an excellent point, so I will cut right to the seminal word in your statement, which is the silos. If you think about the multi‑stakeholder way of decision making on a global basis, as a human experiment it really is in its infancy. There is no other model like it that you can hark to in history that has worked at this kind of scale. So considering that it's in its infancy, what? On the outside 15 years, there is a lot of room for improvement. There's a lot of room for learning regarding what's not going well and trying to make adjustments.
Silos cannot stand. Sometimes they are inevitable due to technical expertise. Do not let me in a room full of IETF scientists that need to get a job done, as a lawyer that is not helpful. So but what we need to do is look at unhealthy and unhelpful reasons for silos and break them down wherever we can as we continue to improve the process.
>> JANIS KARKLINS: I'm not sure that I understood the comment that there is no decision making elsewhere. I can speak about intergovernmental organizations. So ITU has at least two council resolutions, or ‑‑ resolutions on Internet governance. UNESCO has a number of general conference decisions related to Internet governance. So in that sense this is with international organizations are doing. At the governmental level, Internet policies most probably exist in every country. There is a certain degree of decision making where it should be decided. But maybe I misunderstood your point.
>> XIAODONG LEE: I think you mentioned you're on behalf of the Internet Committee. So I want to give a comment that now there's a ‑‑ maybe limit current implementation for the multi‑stakeholder model and how to engage the different kind of stakeholders, including Internet users. I didn't always overemphasizing on the every stakeholder's right to, to participate in Internet governance, but instead of balancing its focus on the actual ‑‑ and effectiveness. So I didn't know the Internet network, all the numbers still happening ‑‑ by this model, but it's not enough. But most of them haven't got the ability to put forward the ‑‑ policy making system; how to make sure that every participant have been getting involved with the policy making system. And next step would be how to extend the scope for that.
>> AARON SHULL: Thank you very much.
I saw that we have two questions over here. Now, as the moderator, I have to be mindful of time. We have about 15 minutes left. What I propose to do is collect the two questions simultaneously ‑‑ I see we have another question in the back. So we'll collect those three, four questions, and we'll turn them over to the panel and let them choose how to respond, and then ultimately we have to be mindful that we only have about 15 minutes left.
So to the gentleman in the red shirt here, please.
>> PETER WONG: Peter Wong, Hong Kong. I just want to direct the question catapulting John's metric issue. Do you view multistakeholderism as a euphemism for avoidance of capture?
>> AARON SHULL: Okay. We have one question over here.
>> ELLEN STRICKLAND: Thank you. Ellen Strickland from Internet New Zealand. I wanted to ask around the idea of a strategy for Internet governance moving forward and the idea that we're at a point where we're looking at next steps and appraising the structures we have and what's needed going forward, and to really reflect on the discussion about multistakeholderism and the processes and how that applies to the formation of that strategy going forward? So where and how do we create that strategy for Internet governance going forward? You know, is it ‑‑ should it be a multistakeholder process, and if so, where and how?
>> MIKE GURSTEIN: Mike Gurstein. I guess the question that might be asked here is we've talked about multi‑stakeholder processes, we've mentioned multi‑stakeholder governance, an intermediary is multi‑stakeholder decision making. I guess the question is is multistakeholderism in this way a substitute for democracy? Are we presenting or are those who are presenting the multi‑stakeholder model presenting it as an alternative to the Democratic process and to answering the extremely difficult problems, some which are technical, some which are procedural, but arise in an Internet enabled world, but one where the principles of democracy presumably should still prevail?
>> AUDIENCE: Thank you very much. I would like to make a question about the first point of view that we heard here. And I have doubts about your perspective of the IANA functions under contract. I think in 2015 the contract expires. So in order to achieve the strategies, I would like to know if you equally should expect some changes about this contract and if we can expect a new model, taking into account the declaration of multistakeholder and all the concerns about that the subject.
Thank you very much.
>> AARON SHULL: And thank you very much.
And if I could ask the panelists in their remarks to these wonderful questions, I think the underlying feature that unites all the questions that we've heard, or at least the dialogue, is the challenges and opportunities for Internet governance in the near term. We've heard about the principles that underlie governance. We've heard about the more specific terms of governance. So, in your view, while you're answering the questions if you could turn your mind to the challenges and opportunities for Internet governance in the next five years.
I'll ask Ambassador Karklins if you wouldn't mind starting us off.
>> JANIS KARKLINS: Thank you. I'll speak about two things: The attribution of the contract, most probably the best would be asked to the US government officials, Department of Commerce, because that is a legal issue. But when I was speaking about IANA function, I was referring rather to the authorization which is done by Department of Commerce of any change in the original file. So that was another concern and that is still a matter of concern of many.
I think that there might be some evolution, or should be some evolution in order to alleviate or address those concerns. The Department of Commerce is checking the process and without give a go ahead from Department of Commerce, no change, even the changes justified can be made in the rules on file. So that is not really acceptable by many.
Speaking about the strategic vision and where we're going, I think we need to follow the due process in that reflection. First, we need to take stock where we are. We need to identify what issues we want to address, then we need to project what would be the best solution, and then take necessary actions. I don't think that we should act on the emotions. So now we have learned something very shocking. And based on that, without really vision, we would move to make some decisions. I think that's not right. I'm not saying that we should not go ahead and make necessary adjustments in Internet governance system, but we really need to know what is the issue that we are trying to address, how this issue should be addressed, and what steps should be taken. So that would be the right approach in my view.
>> OLGA MADRUGA‑FORTI: See if I can weave your questions together, because they really come together. When you think about principles of democracy in multi‑stakeholder process, I would consider that the term "democracy" might more typically be associated with national individual state processes, whereas the experiment, that is our multi‑stakeholder model, is a way of making decisions in an international context. Not only international in terms of space, but international in the sense of state Civil Society technical experts, et cetera. So we've got in mind how to move forward with this experiment and part of that participatory process involves listening and short‑term and long‑term goals. We listen to what people have to say on a global basis.
There is clamor regarding the level of maturity of the IANA contract and process. And I believe that that has served a very important and significant purpose over these past years, but it is ready for next incarnation, as well as the fact of ICANN, as a California non‑profit organization. So there is a lot of interesting discussion about how we continue to transform those two elements of the Internet currently within the context of a multi‑stakeholder and truly a global process. And I would expect to see both of those elements change in a shorter‑term process, shorter, I mean years, versus the long‑term evolution of multistakeholderism.
>> LAURA DeNARDIS: I think it's important to view the Internet as we view other enormous collective‑action problems that are on a global scale; such as environmental issues, such as global security, such as human rights, where no one culture, no one nation acting alone can have governance or affect the entire structure, but that the local actions of cultures, entities and governments can affect the hole. So it's a collective‑action problem.
Now, the final point I'd like to make is that ‑‑ is one about interoperability, openness and universality of the Internet. It's very easy to take infrastructure for granted. But I remember when I first started in the computer networking business a long time ago how one person couldn't send e‑mail to another person very easily. Corporations used different protocols, like systems network architecture and deck net, and you couldn't communicate across institutions the way we communicate today. It's an amazing thing that's happened to have interoperability and open standards available and universal network. This is not something we should take for granted.
I think there are two trends that are problematic in this the regard. One is the turn to infrastructure for content control. We see this time and time again whether graduated response and three strikes kinds of laws that enforce intellectual property rights that can interfere with infrastructure, or see the turn to domain name system for content enforcement in a variety of ways. I believe that these trends, particularly the use of the domain name system for content enforcement, can take us away from the universality and the interoperability and can eventually end up fragmenting the Internet.
I also believe that there's a turn away from interoperable standards. We see a resurgence of propriety norms in cloud computing, in e‑health systems and in other areas. It's important to continue with openness and the kinds of approaches that enable a universal Internet. So I think a big win in the future would be having the kind of reliable infrastructure that we have now that creates a universal Internet and not fragmenting that into non‑interoperable segments.
>> MARK RAYMOND: So I'll try and address a couple of the questions and then I'll try to add my own thoughts and challenges and opportunity. So with respect to whether multistakeholderism is euphemism for capture or a proxy for democracy, I guess I would say that with respect to being a proxy for democracy I think some of the underlying concerns that representation and participation are there, that we shouldn't conceptually confuse multistakeholderism with democracy.
With respect to the question on captures, I guess my question is capture by whom? Right? Right now I think a lot of the worries are captured by government. If we look comparatively at other areas where we see things that look like multistakeholderism, or where we see things that look like privatization of government, the very important theme that Laura has identified in this area, in that case the danger is regulatory capture by industry. We saw some really dangerous things that lead up to the financial crisis five years ago. We can go too far the other direction. So it's a matter of capture by whom? I guess would be my answer.
With regard to where we should be developing this strategy, I say everywhere. I think civil society needs to think about this in every country around the globe and also internationally, in the international civil society. I think government should be thinking about this and should be talking to each other about this, and talking to their citizens about this. I think academics and scholars have a role to play, but then again I would think that.
And then in terms of challenges and opportunities, I'll flag two challenges and one opportunity. The first challenge is procedural legitimacy as to the point I made about different views about how to do rule making. I really think we need to address that. The second challenge picks up on something Laura said. We need to avoid solving what are essentially human behavior problems with technology. We need to be very, very careful about that, not only in content control and idea enforcement, but other areas. Technological solutions to human behavior problems tend to look very badly because humans find different ways to keep doing the same things they're doing. We need to solve the human behavior problem, if it is a problem.
Finally, I would say that the opportunity here is to leverage what is now much greater public awareness and interest in these issues in order to have a balanced discussion about what it means to have a responsibly governed Internet.
>> XIAODONG LEE: One quick comment. I think democracy is a good solution for the social governance. Now we have try to find a good solution for the human governance, maybe multistakeholder ‑‑ but not a solution. We need to continue to improve that and to find the perfect solution. But obviously there's enough ‑‑ we don't have a perfect solution, but we need to ‑‑ one country governance is not reasonable. So considering that there's a perfect question for any function. So it's very, very important to, to choose current consideration to make sure that our policy making system can be effective for everyone. We do need to engage with one ‑‑
>> AARON SHULL: Thank you very much. Thank you for insightful discussion today. Unfortunately, we're coming to the end of our time together. I'd simply like to remind everyone to fill out the workshop evaluation forms available on the IGF website. I'd also like to call your attention, I know this is such an engaging topic that an hour and a half cannot do justice to the level of complexity that we're touching on. It strikes me, the one observation is we are doing the work of Internet governance in this room. The representation we've had from industry, from civil society, from government, from all the key players, this is the discussion we're having now and this discussion couldn't come at more important time. This is truly a watershed moment in the Internet governance.
So I'd like to thank all of you for being here today. I would like to take a moment to thank all of our panelists; Ambassador Janis Karklins, Dr. Xiaodong Lee, Olga Madruga‑Forti, Dr. Laura DeNardis, Dr. Mark Raymond, Cambria Olding, our remote moderator. My name is Aaron Shull, I'm legal counsel at the Center of International Governance Innovation. And again, I thank everyone for being here. This has been a truly excellent experience. Thank you all and thank you to our panelists.
(Session ended 10:30 a.m.)
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