Internet roadmap and tendencies in the global Internet Governance landscape – Opening 2014

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12 June 2014 | 10:00-11:00
Programme overview 2014

Session description

The Internet governance roadmap, which was adopted recently in Sao Paulo by the global multistakeholder meeting on the future of the Internet governance ecosystem (NETmundial) includes a lot of controversial issues — from net neutrality to mass surveillance — and it is unclear how this will be translated into reality. However, the Internet governance principles, also adopted by NETmundial, were less controversial, but will have probably a sustainable and deep effect for the future of the Internet.

Key questions:

  • Was NETmundial a next milestone for Internet governance?
  • IANA transition
  • What should be Europe’s particular role or responsibility in IG?
  • Any lessons learned from Snowden and conclusions drawn?
  • Net-Neutrality as corner stone or stumbling block?
  • Do we need a magna carta for the digital age as a next level of principles?

People

Format of this working group at EuroDIG

Plenary. Opening

Further reading

NETmundial Adopts Principles on INternet GOvernance

Video Record

https://youtu.be/yyOYefMNs_Q?t=832

Transcript

Provided by: Caption First, Inc., P.O. Box 3066, Monument, CO 80132, Phone: +001-719-481-9835, www.captionfirst.com


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.


>> JEANETTE HOFMANN: Good morning everyone, and welcome to our opening panel on the Roadmap for Internet Governance.

The organizing team of EuroDIG decided to focus two broad themes on this first session. The first one is the impact of Sao Paulo and NETmundial on Europe and on the respective organisations of our panelists.

And the second topic covers the multistakeholder approach, something that nowadays almost everybody seems to celebrate. Still there is some criticism and some concerns that need to be addressed.

So we will ask the Question of in what ways the multistakeholder approach needs to be improved.

We have just one hour, so without further ado, I will introduce our distinctive panelists.

First, there is the Macedonian Minister of Information Society and Administration, Ivo Ivanovski, please come up to the panel.

Second, there is Nils Muznieksj, Commissioner of Human Rights at the Council of Europe.

Then we have from the German Government, Dirk Brengelmann, German Foreign Ministry.

Then Director General of the Federal Ministry of Economic Affairs and Energy of Germany, Detlef Dauke.

And then Fadi Chehade’, President and CEO of ICANN.

You heard him, the President of the Association of the German Internet industry, Eco, Michael Rotert.

And then as a commentator, we have Kathy Brown, President and CEO of ISOC.

So what have we learned from Sao Paulo, if we have learned anything? And what is the impact of the NETmundial process and statement – I’m so sorry. There is a Chair missing for the commentator. Perhaps we could find one. Somebody should have counted chairs.

So the fact that we have a Commissioner of Human Rights on the opening panel Of The EuroDIG meeting, as much, already indicates a change that has taken place over the last years. It was always a bit of a struggle to include Human Rights as an issue into Internet governance settings and processes. So my first question to Nils would be when you look at the human rights section of the Sao Paulo statements and the six to eight principles included there, what do you think? Do you regard this as progress or is it meager, and that the title “human rights” and “shared values” actually diminishes the weight that human rights should have with regard to the Internet?

>> NILS MUZNIEKS: Does it work? Now it works. I think it’s a good start. But it’s only a start. And I’m very pleased to be invited here. I think it’s actually, to be honest, it’s – human rights people, many human rights people, especially Intergovernmental Organisations, are now learning about the Internet and trying to apply the principles of human rights to the digital world.

It’s a good start. The principle of accountability is key. And in the end, it’s primarily not only States that are accountable. We can talk about this later in the question of multistakeholder governance.

But I’m worried, because I think that we’re moving too slowly to try to understand how human rights apply to the many threats and risks that we see. The threats of arbitrary blocking and filtering of the Internet, the threats of mass surveillance, the threats of misproportionate data retention. And there is a real need to strengthen the rule of law and human rights on Internet, and to bring in the courts to oversee the Government, and have the Governments oversee more effectively what is going on within the private sector.

>> JEANETTE HOFMANN: And what would you suggest as next steps after Sao Paulo? How would you try to keep the momentum of what we started there?

>> NILS MUZNIEKS: Well, I think that a number of questions were raised there that require urgent attention. The Question of jurisdiction. In Europe alone, we have competing and conflicting approaches to a number of crucial human rights issues affecting Freedom of Expression in particular. Different approaches to libel. Different approaches to hate speech. And when one state extends its jurisdiction outside of its own borders, then we get into some very serious conflicts and trouble. So I think we need to tackle these issues of jurisdiction straight on.

And I think we need to think about, my own view, is that the whole Snowden revelations revealed the utter weakness of Democratic oversight of security services. And we need to have a very robust discussion about how to strengthen that and how to bring surveillance within the rule of law.

>> JEANETTE HOFMANN: Okay. Thank you.

Ivo, you were involved in the preparatory process of the Sao Paulo meeting. Did the outcome actually meet your expectations?

>> IVO IVANOVSKI: Yes. Thank you. First of all, thank you for the invitation. It’s very kind of you, and congratulations for collecting such a group of experts.

I was part of the high level panel for Internet governance mechanisms, together with President of ICANN, Fadi Chehade’ and Kathy Brown and many other experts around the world. And during the preparatory meeting we did submit our ideas of what should be focused on the NETmundial. And I have to say that we are very pleased that the majority of our recommendations were very much accepted in NETmundial and the outcome of the NETmundial. The wording that was for the next steps were overlapping with what we did at the high level panel for Internet governance.

One of the key topics that we talked about was enablers. Enablers, meaning providing the people the information on time, providing the mechanism, so those mechanisms can help them accurately and on time to make smart decisions.

And those enablers, what we had envisioned were this kind of forum like is being done over here at EuroDIG. Forums, dialogues, continued communication among the people, among all the multistakeholders, which are eager to participate in creating an Internet which will be better for all of us, more innovation, more job creations, security, and everything else that is needed.

So I have to say that we are very pleased with the outcomes of NETmundial and we have to continue with the recommendations that came from the NETmundial and the issues that were left aside.

>> JEANETTE HOFMANN: What would you say should be the next step?

>> IVO IVANOVSKI: I would just say that we need to have more of these kinds of dialogues and forums in all levels, not just Government – NGO, private sector – and we need to keep the momentum of NETmundial in order to have a decision by the end of or middle of 2015, where the Internet, because of the deadline I believe is from the US State Department for ICANN and IANA, is the middle of 2015. So we have to focus on the United Nations, the IGFs, countries should have these kinds of meetings, and create all the necessary mechanisms in order for the multistakeholder system to function and everybody to participate at an equal level with equal vote.

>> JEANETTE HOFMANN: You said vote?

>> IVO IVANOVSKI: Equal participation. Yes.

>> JEANETTE HOFMANN: And how would you, if somebody asks you to transform, to improve the IGF process, what would be your recommendation?

>> IVO IVANOVSKI: IGF process, I think we need to find a better IGF process. I think it’s an important forum. Not enough resources are put into IGF. It’s something that many Governments should participate in more actively. It’s open process and anybody can participate. And I think we can see in September what will be the outcome of this IGF, since we have such a good guidance with NETmundial.

>> JEANETTE HOFMANN: Thank you very much.

Mr. Dirk Brengelmann, I’m not sure you noticed there is no Civil Society sitting on this panel. It’s multistakeholder but not as multi as we would wish. So I was asked to sort of speak on behalf, ask a question on behalf of Civil Society.

As you probably noticed, there were quite a few people in Sao Paulo who were unhappy with the outcome. And in the last round, lots of people did not get up, they did not applaud. They were just sitting there. And their concern was that the multistakeholder statement did not reflect to a sufficient degree the criticism that actually led to this process.

What would you say to them? Do you think they are right?

>> DIRK BRENGELMANN: Let me start with reminding all of us how that all started. It was an initiative jointly by the Brazilian President, Dilma Rousseff, and you know how she got engaged, and by Fadi Chehade’. And I’d like to thank the Brazilian Government and Fadi for launching this process because it was the political new momentum. It was clear that Sao Paulo would be a wider debate. We contributed to that debate by a set of proposed principles, which we sent to the preparatory Committee. And I think in the final analysis, we are satisfied with the outcome of the NETmundial. You can always expect one more, yes. Clearly I could like more. But on the –

>> JEANETTE HOFMANN: “We” means the Foreign Office?

>> DIRK BRENGELMANN: In this sense now, Germany. And I think we could see a lot of our proposals in the text and we could see a lot of the language from the German Brazilian resolution on text on privacy. For us, it was important that this language was consolidated. It was repeated in the NETmundial so, it was transferred from the resolution into the NETmundial document. I know that some in Civil Society wanted more. But for us to have that repeated was already a good outcome.

And now we want to move ahead after we have seen the report, which we expect from the High Commissioner for Human Rights, which should come out shortly. And then we will have another chance to see where we are and how we can continue.

Just one quick word from my side on the multistakeholder situation, which we had in Sao Paulo, which was an interesting one. And most would agree that this experiment was sometimes a bit difficult. In the end it was a worthwhile experiment and we shouldn’t lose that momentum. When I say that, I refer to recent discussions which we have seen in particular in Geneva. I think it was Neelie Kroes who made it quite clear, and we can only agree to that, that it seemed that in Sao Paulo some Governments found it a little bit more difficult than others to accept the situation where any business representative, NGO representative, et cetera, would have the same chance to queue for the mic, to sit around when the papers were written, et cetera. And you could observe that. Many different reactions to that. But some – let me put it that way, some sense of uneasiness was prevalent with some delegations. And that now we feel, when we go to Geneva and have other discussions, and I think we have to prevail in that debate and make sure that what we experienced in Sao Paulo was not a one-off situation. It may be a one-off event, but it should not be a one-off situation. And that means we should take the lessons learned into the process to prepare the IGF, et cetera.

The IGF sometimes has been criticized. For me, it was one of my first meetings. When I came into my office last year in August, I went to the IGF in Bali. And I must say, yes, it’s – people portray it as shop talk from time to time. But for me it was a very interesting experience in terms of informal debate. Amid all the relevant players and multistakeholders, and, yes, there were decisions, I can tell you. There were a lot of informal meetings where the Sao Paulo conference had been prepared, so it was not without impact. That’s how I would like to portray it.

>> JEANETTE HOFMANN: Could I come back to my Question regarding Civil Society and being unhappy with the substance of the statement. I don’t think they minded the process, but they thought that substance was lacking.

>>DIRK BRENGELMANN: I did address that point, because I said that I was, in the end, happy that the language from the German Brazilian resolution made it into the final document of the NETmundial. You notice that more than that, at the stage in Sao Paulo was not possible, but for me it was important that we were able to consolidate the outcome of those negotiations in the third Committee, in that wider body called NETmundial. So for me that was positive.

>> JEANETTE HOFMANN: Thank you. Fadi, the roadmap also covered the privatization of the IANA function and future of ICANN. What message did you take home from Sao Paulo? >> FADI CHEHADE’: Thank you, Jeanette. It’s good to see you again.

I took the message that the train of ICANN globalization and the end of the US Government’s unique role in ICANN has left the station. And there is no return. It has to be done. Now, the road is difficult. There will be bumps in the road, but there is no return. We have to get this job done. And we will get it done.

We published a few days ago, after receiving over a thousand comments from the community, a detailed process forward that is inclusive, open, and where ICANN actually steps back and lets the community lead. We even removed any interference by the ICANN board into how the community will lead this debate.

I want to make a point about this important independence of ICANN from the role of one Government, in this case the US Government. I described it as removing the training wheels off of a bicycle. For those of us who have children, have you removed the training wheels of your children’s bicycles at some point? And the real Question is, did you put back new training wheels? And the answer is no. That would really break the child. So the US Government put training wheels on ICANN, they were supposed to remove these 14 years ago. Let’s not debate why it didn’t happen. They finally announced they are ready to remove these wheels. It does not mean we must replace the wheels. The bicycle needs to be strong enough to finish its course. If the bicycle is not good, let’s tune it up. Let’s make ICANN better. Let’s enforce its mechanisms. Let’s make it a better place to solve problems. Let’s put recourse so people have a mechanism to go fora recourse. But the bicycle does not need a new governmental or intergovernmental oversight. It needs to be strengthened and to prove to the world that multistakeholderism can manage this particular process.

>> JEANETTE HOFMANN: What was, going back to the roadmap, what was important for you in this statement? Because the general understanding is that once you were – if you weren’t involved in the process, it’s very difficult to understand what the contested issues were and what was achieved. So perhaps you could help interpret a bit. What was important for ICANN in the roadmap section?

>> FADI CHEHADE’: What is important for ICANN is important for all of us. And that is that as the Foreign Minister very well put it, we had a process at a very high level that included all stakeholders. The process was actually the big outcome. And, in fact, when you hear our friends from Russia object vehemently at the end of that conference, it wasn’t about the substance. It was about the process. Because the process worked. Because, in fact, we were able to prove that it’s not one stakeholder over another.

I want to say something about the process, and the Foreign Minister today talked about it. We must end – and at NETmundial we did this to a degree – end this stakeholder versus multi-lateral fight. Unlike football in the real mundial, there is a final winner. Here we do not need to have a winner. Multistakeholderism includes multi-lateralism. How else can ICANN describe the GAC? It’s a body that meets and discusses things within Governments. It’s within the multi-stakeholder process. Let’s stop the fight between one or the other. They both have their uses.

The Foreign Minister today said it’s Governments that need to implement some of these policies. They have a role. We need to welcome Governments, include them and make them part of the multistakeholder process.

And then one Question that I need to answer, if I could, you asked my colleagues, what happens after NETmundial? This is a very important Question. NETmundial was a meeting, and that meeting was thought to have a one-time meeting, and it will be a one-time meeting. But what came out of NETmundial from the process and the principles, which were significant, I think needs to fuel, to fuel global alliances as the report by President Dilma Rousseff concluded a few weeks after NETmundial. We need global alliances that include Governments, private sector, all the stakeholders, Civil Society, technical organisations, that then carry the messages of NETmundial forward. This is needed. And if it does not happen, we will go back to the polarized world of NETmundial versus Geneva.

In order to forge forward, we need to take the precious middle ground that was created in Brazil, and strengthen it with real alliances, and that will happen in the weeks and months ahead.

>> JEANETTE HOFMANN: Thank you, Fadi.

You yesterday spoke about the height of NETmundial. May I assume that you are a bit more skeptical about the process and the outcome than the other panelists?

>>MICHAEL ROTERT: Well, in principle, you are right. I think it was a very good kick-off moment, with NETmundial. And it’s the first time that we have written principles where everyone can read and does not have to search for a long time to see these principles in a row.

But now it’s up to all the other stakeholders to work on these issues. And this is why I’m saying, and Fadi described it quite well, it started a process. Yes, it’s only the way which was described and not the result.

And if I look at the paper, and Dirk Brengelmann said that the German part came in, I’m happy about this. Because the basic, as Brazil runs its own multistakeholder model within the country, which were the basis to the paper, I guess, that was something I would like to see in Europe.

And finally it was modified and it was a rough consensus. That’s why I’m a little bit satisfied, but I’m not... overwhelming about the result. It depends. If it has really impact on the next IGF or even to EuroDIG here, I might think differently.

>> JEANETTE HOFMANN: What would impact then be in order to qualify as real impact?

>> MICHAEL ROTERT: The impact would be that all stakeholders here from Europe at the EuroDIG look at the principles and look at the paper, especially on the roadmap for the future. I mean, what happened in the past happened in the past.

Look at the roadmap in the future and see if they can agree or how do we have to transform it to fit into the European environment. This would be something where I could rethink that it was worthwhile off the NETmundial.

>> JEANETTE HOFMANN: I ask, when you get involved with the processes you might be satisfied with papers impacting other papers. And at some point we have to ask ourselves how we translate paper into actions, decisions, and structure, right?

>> MICHAEL ROTERT: Absolutely. But here at EuroDIG, we have the fantastic situation that we can talk about it and learn what people who were following NETmundial from the distance, and have heard of it, have read it, and how they think about it. And how they think it would fit into a European environment. We are EuroDIG. NETmundial was something larger. And this is why Fadi said it’s the process. It’s a way.

And now we can see does this process fit into EuroDIG or where do we have to adopt this process so it fits into Europe?

>> JEANETTE HOFMANN: Thank you.

Mr. Dauke, we heard from the Foreign Minister what he told his ministry when he came back. So what was the message that you brought back from Sao Paulo?

>> DETLEF DAUKE: Yes. The first moment I want to say that I, as a member of the German Ministry of Economic Affairs, I underline every word Mr. Brengelmann said this morning and align all the words here. So I’m in the situation to say that everything was said not by everyone. So I want to make two small or three small remarks.

I believe that the process in Sao Paulo was not historical, but it was a big success. Because for the first time we have a process with a result at the end, with principles.

Looking at other processes in the same way, in the morning we heard about climate. I believe that we have a good basic now coming from Sao Paulo. So we can work on this, on this further on.

I believe that one of the most important things is that the discussion of these principles should continue only in an environment that can guarantee a multistakeholder process, approach in the decision-making process, that we must work on.

I don’t believe that Inter Governmental Organisations are able to bring this process in a good situation. And the outcome and the experience we made in Brazil was not always – it was a little bit hard and it was – did make some critical points in this process. But the experience is that this is a process we can put on other processes in Internet governance like the Summit on Information Society. Let’s take this idea from Brazil, putting in this.

The short point for me, I have no proposal. I have no solution for going on in this process. We must talk together how we can do this.

>> JEANETTE HOFMANN: Thank you. Now, Kathy, would you like to comment on this first round of statements?

>> KATHY BROWN: Thank you. And thank you for having me here. I’m very – I love to listen to this conversation as we have it around the world. And it strikes me that something Mrs. Kroes said is so very important. The nature of the Internet is that it’s globally allowing us all to reach each other, while very, very able to adapt to regional concerns and interests.

And I think this conversation about Brazil, as it affects EuroDIG, as it affects Geneva, is enormously important. What happened in Brazil was an amazing energy came together. It was a very well organised forum in which the energy was allowed to happen. It reflected the very nature of the Internet. That is, people came together and stood on the same ground, on level ground on the floor together in front of mics together, speaking to each other about issues of mutual concern.

Each of the parties who were there, each of the interest groups, did not achieve all they wanted to achieve. Thus, the human rights advocates were disappointed in some ways, because they couldn’t get all they sought. Believe me, the commercial sector was nervous. It thought it was going to be run over by some of the interests who were there. And the Governments were very wide eyed about the notion that they would be standing before a mic and speaking for only two minutes. And yet over the two days what happened was this notion of a shared humanity, a connectivity, and a notion that they were addressing something very important. So there was a piece of paper that came out that was incomplete, that was a start, it’s been described, but was an important iteration of a global concern expressed regionally.

So we got to Geneva and those who did not really want all of this energy actually to come to force said well, let’s just stop this right here. And what was interesting, Fadi, is they used multi-lateral kind of processes to say we don’t want to hear about this now. So let’s put it aside. Unfortunate. I had a very poignant meeting with the Brazilian minister, he said what could happen? And I said why should you care? You had this regional meeting that was full of energy. You’re going to have a regional meeting here today that is going to be full of energy. The Internet is of its users. We are its users. We can have the energy needed to both use its potential for human rights, for organisation, for organizing ourselves.

We were at a number of involved in a very important report that spoke about this decentralized governance of the Internet. That spoke about the fact that we’re diverse but connected. And we have some distributed notion of how we can govern ourselves.

This is what the multistakeholder process is about. It is about being here at EuroDIG. It is about having this be of ourselves here, but be connected to there.

And so I think that as we go forward and we take the lessons of Brazil, we also have to take the lessons of Berlin, the lessons of Dubai, the lessons of Hong Kong. And together we create this global Internet of Internets, this global Internet work that allows us to speak together.

So it seems to me that the concerns raised here by all of the various interests are important ones. And it’s the dialogue that takes place. Not only in multistakeholder meetings, but online. And I think we keep moving away from the notion that the cyber community is itself a dynamic community in which it is making a lot of its own decisions, and it’s self regulating in so many ways. Looking to Governments, after all, elected Governments, to think about some of the large social issues, but for the most part saying we’ve got this.

>> JEANETTE HOFMANN: Thank you for this passionate statement.

So Dirk Brengelmann wants to comment on this again. After that, I will open the discussion to the floor for questions to the panel.

>> DIRK BRENGELMANN: Two comments to the point and what next. But before doing that, just a quick reaction to what Fadi said on the issue of multistakeholder versus multi-lateralism. I think he was hitting a very important point. Because you can see that being a toxic element of the debate all the time and you now see it again. And you know what I’m referring to by the debates we see in Geneva of how much of the multistakeholder do we really want. This is this element of multistakeholder versus multi-lateralism. I think there is less, but it’s still there.

For me, the points to do now, make sure that the dimension that we had for the multistakeholderism that we had in Sao Paulo is not lost.

And, second, can the multistakeholders continue to refine their roles? Because there is more work to be done.

Number three, the States should work on their responsibilities, which include, for example, the work in New York by the group of governmental experts, the rules of behavior. ICANN and others are doing their job there, which is the globalisation and I think very importantly also the issue of accountability. And for us, as you can imagine, we want to continue our work here on privacy. There is still more work to be done after the reprogress, which I said.

And, last, as we are speaking about the European situation, the European digital agenda, you heard Neelie Kroes, I think there is still a lot of work to be done in Brussels, where we all, Europeans, can come together. But we need to support it and we need to make sure it is going to happen once the Commission is back in place, if I can put it that way.

Thank you.

>> JEANETTE HOFMANN: Thank you. So are there questions on the first topic regarding NETmundial to the panelists?

Yes, please.

If there are more people to ask questions, here are microphones, you can just line up there. Please go ahead.

>> AUDIENCE: Hello. My name is Michal Wozniak from the Free and Open Software Association from Poland, and I was also to NETmundial.

Yes.

So we have heard a lot about multistakeholderism. We heard a lot about lessons from NETmundial, and we heard a lot about how Internet is for and of the users. And yet I don’t see a single representative of the Civil Society or the users in this panel.

So my Question is: What exactly are the lessons that we have supposedly learned from NETmundial?

Thank you.

(Applause)

>> JEANETTE HOFMANN: Good Question. Is it a rhetoric one or do you want to address --

(Laughter)

Perhaps we should ask the organizers of this panel. I’m just the moderator, so completely innocent.

Are there any other questions, perhaps even more specific ones? Yes?

>> AUDIENCE: Hello. My name is Steven Lockhart. I work for the Council of Europe’s No Hate Speech Campaign. I want you to know that on the Twitter wall there are a lot of comments about the fact that the panelists are all male. I find it really depressing that over 50 percent of the world’s population is not represented. And I would invite you to look at page 8 of this brochure, which seriously shocked me this morning. There are no women on the picture of what is supposedly a multistakeholder challenge.

Thank you very much.

(Applause)

>> JEANETTE HOFMANN: I’m not commenting on that. I support the statement. So --

(Laughter and applause)

>> JEANETTE HOFMANN: Wolf is one of the organizers. He will explain now everything to us.

>>WOLF LUDWIG: Well, I will try my best. Let me say that we are 100 percent there about what was criticized before. We were aware that we had a male dominated opening plenary. We tried our best to avoid it for any subsequent session. But it was always a difficult case for any EuroDIG so far, that the opening plenaries are always loaded with representatives from the host country. And there are some necessities for diplomatic whatsoever reasons we have to respect. So we brought in Kathy as a commentator. We brought in Jeanette as the moderator.

>> JEANETTE HOFMANN: The token women.

>>WOLD LUDWIG: And it was also our idea to have Jeanette as a strong representative of Civil Society.

She is highly experienced, she is brilliant, and she could ask the questions –

>> JEANETTE HOFMANN: Don’t make it worse. I think --

(Laughter)

>>WOLF LUDWIG: Okay. We are aware about the problem and we will try to improve.

(Applause)

>> JEANETTE HOFMANN: If there are no further questions – yes, please. But could that be a question on the topic and not so much on the composition of the panel? I would appreciate that.

>> AUDIENCE: Trying hard.

My name is Jorg Schweiger and I’m on the registry for Germany DENIC eG. We are talking about values and principles, and I think there is a reason for that. The reason is that we just can’t come up with a solution that is supported by everybody. So we start talking about values, just as a reference point. And on those values, we try to build up a forthcoming governance model. But the problem would be to agree on a detailed description of those values.

And I just want to remind you, for example, about the statement that NETmundial came up with describing what privacy meant. So my Question to the panelists would be: Are we prepared to accept rough consensus on an Internet governance model or are we really seeking for a global comprehensive governance model for the future? Because that might take a couple of times.

Thank you.

>> KATHY BROWN: Could I say something with respect to that issue –

>> JEANETTE HOFMANN: Could we just have the second Question and then –

>> KATHY BROWN: Yes. Go ahead.

>> AUDIENCE: Thank you. My name is Osman Coskunoglu from Turkey.

And I have two specific questions. One to the President of ICANN. Mr. Fadi Chehade’ – excuse me if I mispronounce it. I suggest that you can’t pronounce my last name, so we’re even.

There is an office intended that in order to globalize ICANN’s functions, there are two offices, one in Istanbul and the other in Singapore. I don’t know what the situation is.

Number two, Turkey’s Government has a terrible record regarding Internet. Therefore, I wonder how would that help the Government to make the situation even worse or convince the Government to be more respectable to the freedoms in Internet? You know, the YouTube is banned, Twitter is banned – well, was until recently in Turkey.

The second Question is, whoever would like to answer, we talk a lot about multistakeholders, and that’s the buzz word nowadays. I think the weakest link in that stakeholders group is Civil Society. And Ms. Hofmann insisted, a very good Question, asking Civil Society was not very happy with the outcome of NETmundial. But because I think the mechanisms are not there to support Civil Society for a fair play field with the huge power of corporations and huge power of Governments, so just having them there is not sufficient, I believe.

I wonder what are the specifics to empower Civil Societies?

Thank you.

>> JEANETTE HOFMANN: Thank you. Can I make a procedure proposal? I would ask Fadi to address the first Question. And then I would sort of switch to the second part of the panel and we can address the questions regarding the multistakeholder approach. Because we will cover that anyway. I hope this is okay. And then Kathy can perhaps start.

So... please, Fadi, go ahead.

>>FADI CHEHADE’:Yes. Thank you. And maybe you and I can go by first name, Osman, it’s easier. You can call me Fadi.

To your Question about the globalisation of ICANN, we indeed – we have multiple tracks to globalize. One of them is what everyone talks about, the separation from the US Government’s unique role in IANA, but there is the operational aspect. When I arrived we had 120 people, most in the US and Europe. Now we have over 300. We are in LA, Singapore and Istanbul. And these hubs have been built. When I started, ICANN had one person in Asia and now we have 22. And the hub in Singapore is growing in importance. Istanbul, the hub is open. We have up to 7 or 8 people, and we are growing very fast there. So the focus will continue.

In terms of the relationship with Turkey as a country and given the policies you have, clearly – you were very clear about how you view their policies. My view, personally, and the view of ICANN, is to engage. There were questions about the IGF in Istanbul. Do we take our ball and go away or do we take our ball and go play there? I think we take our ball and play there. It’s good to engage. We were all playing there and making sure that the right things happened.

In fairness to the Government of Turkey, I think the Government is struggling with how to play this. Monthly, there are hundreds of court orders in Turkey to shut websites. They go with these court orders to the Communication Telecommunications Ministry and say shut the websites. Most of these websites are not in Turkey.

It’s complicated. And it needs work. And I think what we need to do is engage with the Government, work with them, and explain what works and what doesn’t work, in a world where the transnational Internet is challenging the 19th and 20th century governance models. When it challenges it, we have two reactions. One is to shut things, as we have seen. One is to try and understand how to make it work. It is our job to help Governments, private sector, to do this.

And just my final comment on this, because you’re spot on, what will help all these come together? In my opinion, the glue that will make it all happen? It’s Civil Society. And by the way, NETmundial’s highest representation was from Civil Society. Government was there, and they need to be there. We do not want Government to be out of there. But Civil Society –

>> JEANETTE HOFMANN: Okay. So perhaps we can – thank you, Fadi. Perhaps we can all start with the second part of our panel. We have just a bit over 15 minutes left, so we need to hurry up a bit.

What is the issue here? As you can see, all the panelists love the multistakeholder approach and almost nowadays celebrates it. But there are shortcomings and there is room for improvement. One of the issues frequently addressed is the Question whether the multistakeholder approach actually privileges those with the most resources, meaning big business who can have, just because they are many and they have a lot of money, more impact on policy processes within a multistakeholder setting.

So is the multistakeholder approach prone to abuse and being captured by specific particular interests? That is one of the questions, how can we improve it?

At first, I would like to ask Nils, the multistakeholder approach, do you think this is the right framework for improving human rights in the Internet governance? Because you just said we need the order of law and accountability to the citizens’ Governments and not multistakeholder actors.

>> NILS MUZNIEKS: Let me be clear. I’m all in favor of the multistakeholder approach. I think that without Civil Society, without academia, without business at the table, you cannot have – you cannot move forward on the discussion, particularly on the Internet. But in the end, human rights obligations and duties lie first and foremost with States, not with corporations, not with NGOs. It’s States that are the duty bearers. And the States have to enforce the rule of law.

And with regard to a consensus, in Europe we have a minimum consensus on many issues. And this is reflected in the fact that we have two transnational courts in which you have a case law – on the right to privacy, on surveillance, on Freedom of Expression – and this is the minimum standard that applies to everybody in the European jurisdiction. We have the case law of the European Court of Rights and the case law of the European Law of Jurisdiction. And in that way we differ from other regions and can offer a rule of law model.

When I hear about the role of Civil Society, we have to look at our countries, even in Europe. Is Civil Society an equal player in your countries with big business? Is big business up to taking on the Government when the Government makes illegal demands? Are they strong enough? So on the one hand if we want a completely equal player field Internationally, first we have to achieve that domestically, and I don’t see that happen happening in the near future.

>> JEANETTE HOFMANN: This has to start at the national level, why do you say that. Sort of that our national Governments learn from transnational procedures?

>> NILS MUZNIEKS: I think it can have an impact on domestic policy, otherwise I would throw in the hat and not do my job, which is going around and trying to convince Governments to do more for human rights. And occasionally we do have an impact. If we had no impact I would say forget it, I’ll leave and try to go earn some money somewhere. But our impact is limited. Our impact, in the end, it’s at the national level where things happen. From the outside, we push and provide ammunition, we can raise awareness, but at the end it’s in the national level where the struggles play out.

>> JEANETTE HOFMANN: Do you agree with this view?

>> IVO IVANOVSKI: Well, I do support the multistakeholder. I think we all hear that –

>> JEANETTE HOFMANN: Yes, you all do.

>> IVO IVANOVSKI: My feeling is that in our report for the high level panel for Internet Governance, I encourage anybody to download and reread it. It very well documented how things need to start locally, nationally, globally, and multi-nationally.

But it depends on what the issue is. For technical issues, there are a lot of groups which right now they function and there is a procedure from issue mapping to the solution of the issue, it’s in process. But for nontechnical issues, there is a lot more that needs to be done. And I think that multistakeholderism needs to start on some issues locally and on some issues they can start globally. But the important thing is that every player should have an equal say. This is what we are discussing with multistakeholderism, if everybody can get involved, everybody should be on an equal footing.

>> JEANETTE HOFMANN: So the Government is just one player. Yesterday I heard Governments referring to themselves as stakeholders. I never heard that before. I’m personally skeptical about that approach. You would say the Government is just one player among others?

>> IVO IVANOVSKI: I agree. When we come to this, we all have to be on the equal footing. When we want to make the right decisions for our citizens, then we have to be open-minded and listen to everybody and what they have to say.

>> JEANETTE HOFMANN: I wanted to ask Mr. Brengelmann something else, but first I wanted to ask you whether you agree, that Governments should be just one player among others.

>> DIRK BRENGELMANN: As I said a moment before, we need to further refine the respective roles of the different stakeholders, and I think the roles are different. So we are just one of many stakeholders. But within those stakeholder groups, I think not everybody has the equal role or the same role, I should rather say.

So I think for Governments, for example, when we have this discussion of rules of behavior,that we – between States, when they act in the cyberspace, that is something where governments need to come together. And then you have a particular role of governments, but – not of Governments, but States. It involves Parliaments. Because at that level, the Parliaments are setting up the laws, and that is important.

So while we are all stakeholders on an equal footing, we are not completely the same.

>> JEANETTE HOFMANN: Thank you. Many people hope that the multistakeholder approach is the way to democratize the International or transnational sphere.

Kathy, would you agree that this is the way to go, that multistakeholder processes might sort of create new legitimacy for decision-making on the International level?

And that also brings me to the Question of Mr. Schweiger, who asked about rough consensus, is this good enough? Would it create the same kind of legitimacy that national decisions made by Parliaments have?

>> KATHY BROWN: First of all, what decisions are we talking about? So when we get into these conversations, we tend to generalize to the point of thinking this is not providing a lot of light, right? So on the technical level, let’s just think about this as the Internet.

There is very little that the Governments need to do. The Internet is running itself by the technology that is interconnecting around the world. It has been amazing over the last 30 years that this worldwide global technology is reaching the ends of the earth. That is without little Government help. It was sometimes with Government interference.

Let me go. Then there is a social layer that when we communicate and when we join together, there are social issues, which Governments – duly-elected Governments who have the permission of their people to be involved, have the permission of their people to be involved. There are other Governments that don’t have that permission.

The point of the Internet is that it is transnational. It is of a different nature. It allows a conversation at a very different level that, in my mind, informs back to the national state. Many times, now, we see that it is the International conversation that is actually shifting the power in the state. I think this is a very complex issue that we need to really think about in our workshops.

Now, let me just say something about rough consensus. When you have such a phenomenon, if you get rough consensus, that’s a good thing. That means you are working together to iterate, to keep trying to understand, and to get to the next place.

So in the technology area we say, right, rough consensus running code, what does it mean? We’re going to keep going. We’re going to now invent the next thing. We’re going to innovate on top of what we just did. That is the nature of the Internet. And it is now the nature of the Internet governance debate. I think it’s worth watching. And it’s worth experimenting with.

>> JEANETTE HOFMANN: Thank you.

Fadi, the obvious Question to you concerns accountability. How do you make sure that the multistakeholder approach doesn’t privilege one actor and one group of interests over others?

>> FADI CHEHADE’: First of all, by remaining very vigilant. And we see that today. You know, one decision by the organizer to pick these panelists was vigilant. That’s good. That’s how it should be. I think we should remain very vigilant to keep everyone accountable. There is no Question.

I want to go back, because the debate on Government’s role is becoming very important. And I think Dirk said it very well. We all have different roles. We have equal participation, but we have different roles. And we have different roles in different parts of the process. So by just lumping this, and becoming generalists, we all have the same roles – there are different roles. When we come down to establishing a Public Policy on child bullying in Germany, this will require a specific role by the Government. We have to accept that in different parts of the process, different players will play different roles. So I second you in highlighting the importance of the blueprint for collaborative contributed Internet governments that the panel issued recently.

I urge you to look at that, at InternetGovernancepanel.org. It gives for the first time a view, even if it’s high level, but it starts the dialogue on how all players – Civil Society, Government, all of us – can participate in a process of distributed governance. The key words are “distributive” and “collaborative.” That will work. Centralized Internet governance will not work, because the Internet is not built this way. It’s just not built this way. And it has to be collaborative. That is the key word.

So let’s shift, if we could, from multistakeholder and multi-lateral and the wars, let’s keep the wars for the football mundial. Let’s be collaborative and work together.

>> JEANETTE HOFMANN: But you don’t pay for the over-distribution power of those who are supposed to collaborate, aren’t you?

>> FADI CHEHADE’: Each of us, including myself, I’ll start with myself, need to take the responsibility of shifting from being interest focused to being Internet focused. And many of us focus on our interests. But I need to worry will Civil Society, even if I’m not a member – well, we are all part of Civil Society, but I’m not a member of a Civil Society group. I should worry about them. How many of us do that? How many of us come out of our little box and say what about that other group? Are they really represented? There should have been more men tweeting that there aren’t enough women. Most of the tweeters are women, except for one saying where are the women? That’s an attitude that we should change, and Governments should be working with Civil Society and working with them.

ICANN the same. We haven’t done enough. We need to do more of that.

>> JEANETTE HOFMANN: I have another Question prepared for Dirk Brengelmann which I would really like to ask, and that has to do with the scope of multistakeholderism. You just said various topics need various approaches, and so on.

So, about the substantial scope, you are actually a security expert. Could you imagine a multistakeholder approach to be applied to a field that is much dearer and closer to state authority than Internet governance, and that there are security issues?

>> DIRK BRENGELMANN: Which when it comes to debate on NATO defense, this is an issue where Government representatives are sitting together these days in, in the NATO council. And when it comes to Internet governance, we have seen the multistakeholder in the widest sense. We have seen different ways of multistakeholders. For example, it was in the system of ICANN, you have the GAC, which Fadi referred to when you look at the proceedings in Geneva, you have in the first phase people coming together from all stakeholders, but then put their report to the UN system. So you have all kinds of stakeholder models. There is not a single one.

And I give – I think you put your finger right there when you say on security questions, right now it’s still more with the States.

Yes. That’s true.

>> JEANETTE HOFMANN: But do you see sort of – would you envision the process that such policy fears could also open up to different approaches, become more transparent and inclusive?

>> DIRK BRENGELMANN: I can envisage that, but I don’t think that will be a quick and easy process. And I think it would probably start first in organisations like the OECE and all the European Union before it would come to defense organisations like NATO.

>> JEANETTE HOFMANN: Thank you very much.

Are there still questions from the audience? We are running out of time. But... no? So then if there are – nothing anymore. You want to comment on each other. Kathy, do you want to do a last comment, perhaps?

You have a question? Yes, please. Go to the microphone.

>> AUDIENCE: Hello. Panos Kakaviatos. I’m a press person for the Council of Europe.

I have a question that comes to mind, because a friend says she doesn’t use Google and she is using other ones like hidemyass.Com. Can anyone answer that? Is that a concern about collecting information? Doing algorithms, invading privacies? Do you feel that there is a need for new search engines that is used for collecting information?

>> JEANETTE HOFMANN: That is out of the scope of this panel.

>> KATHY BROWN: Thank you, Professor Hofmann, for your very, very, very good moderation. So thank you. And for being a woman, apparently.

(Applause)

>>WOLF LUDWIG: Just a small moment. First of all, thanks to Jeanette for this moderation of the opening plenary and the participants.

We will now have a coffee break. Outside here. Please try to be back in time for our next plenary 1, which is dedicated to the overarching theme of EuroDIG.

So please come back to the plenary. And parallel to the plenaries, there will be the first flashes 1 and 2 in one of the side rooms.

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