1 Internet Governance
| (30708)
11222/09
COM(09) 277
| Commission Communication: Internet governance: the next steps
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| Legal base | — |
| Document originated | 18 June 2009
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| Deposited in Parliament | 23 June 2009
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| Department | Business, Innovation and Skills
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| Basis of consideration | EM of 9 July 2009
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| Previous Committee Report | None; but see (27466) 8841/06 HC 41-xxi (2006-07), chapter 15 (9 May 2007)
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| To be discussed in Council | To be determined
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| Committee's assessment | Politically important
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| Committee's decision | Not cleared; further information requested
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Background
1.1 On its website, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names
and Numbers (ICANN) explains that "to reach another person
on the Internet you have to type an address into your computer
— a name or a number. That address has to be unique so computers
know where to find each other. ICANN coordinates these unique
identifiers across the world. Without that coordination we wouldn't
have one global Internet."
1.2 ICANN was formed in 1998 by the US Administration.
It is a not-for-profit public-benefit corporation with participants
from all over the world. It coordinates and oversees the day-to-day
management of the domain name system (the DNS) of unique identifiers
for communicating on the Internet. It says it is:
"dedicated to keeping the Internet secure, stable
and interoperable. It promotes competition and develops policy
on the Internet's unique identifiers. ICANN doesn't control content
on the Internet. It cannot stop spam and it doesn't deal with
access to the Internet. But through its coordination role of the
Internet's naming system, it does have an important impact on
the expansion and evolution of the Internet."[1]
The Commission Communication
1.3 The Communication provides an analysis of progress
on Internet governance in the last 10 years, the public policy
issues involved — from finding ways to ensure that citizens
can benefit fully from the Internet's potential as well as dealing
with inappropriate content, consumer protection and jurisdiction
in an increasingly global world — and the role of governments
in the process, where "users will inevitably turn to their
governments if there is any major national disruption to their
Internet service, and not to the various Internet governance bodies."
1.4 It identifies three basic factors in the success
of the Internet's rapid development:
— An
open and interoperable architecture, based on the origins
of the Internet in research and academia;
— Private sector leadership, which
facilitated the move of the Internet from academia to society
at large and which "continues to deliver important policy
objectives and needs to be maintained and supported";
— The multi-stakeholder model, which
has led to "processes to initiate and develop consensus in
Internet governance policies".
1.5 Nonetheless, the Internet's growing importance
for society as a whole "increasingly requires governments
to be more actively involved in the key decision-making that underlies
the Internet's development". But "private sector initiative
must be maintained […] Private sector leadership and effective
public policies are not mutually exclusive".
1.6 The Commission then reviews its involvement since
1998 in Internet governance, including the development of ICANN,
and most recently in the World Summit on the Information Society.
The Commission then seeks to identify a number of public policy
principles and proposes an approach for moving forward international
discussions on these matters, with calls for more transparency
and multilateral accountability in the governance of the Internet.
1.7 These technical aspects are summarised and analysed
in his 9 July 2009 Explanatory Memorandum by the
Minister for Communications,
Technology and
Broadcasting (Lord Carter) as follows:
"This Communication anticipates the expiry in
September 2009 (without renewal) of an agreement known as the
Joint Project Agreement (JPA) between ICANN and the US Department
of Commerce that has provided the National Telecommunications
and Information Administration (NTIA) with oversight of ICANN's
affairs. The expiry of the JPA does not affect the US Government's
oversight of changes to the root zone file[2]
managed by the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority — IANA
(which is part of ICANN).
"The Communication rightly attributes the success
of the Internet over the last 20 years, as a critical resource
for global communications, economic growth and social well-being,
to private sector leadership and unhindered innovation at the
edge, rather than through any central command structure. It therefore
argues that this private sector leadership should continue, but
should also be underpinned by the multi-stakeholder processes
of engagement and consultation with the technical community, business,
civil society, academia and governments across the globe which
ICANN has successfully instituted.
"This private sector-led, bottom up model for
Internet governance is consistent with Paragraph 48 of the Declaration
of Principles by the UN World Summit on the Information Society
(WSIS, 2003-2005) which states that the 'international management
of the Internet should be multilateral, transparent and democratic,
with the full involvement of governments, the private sector,
civil society and international organisations.'[3]
In addition to ICANN, the Communication also makes reference to
the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) which was created by WSIS
and announced by the UN Secretary General in 2005 as an annual
multi-stakeholder forum for addressing Internet issues which,
given the global nature of the Internet, it is not possible for
any individual country or single group of stakeholders to address.
"The key issue at the heart of the Communication
is the future role of governments in this process of ensuring
the Internet remains secure, stable and interoperable as it undergoes
some fundamental changes at a time when the final phase of the
US Government's process of privatising ICANN with the ending of
the JPA. These changes include expanding the domain names market
by allowing applications for an unlimited number of generic domain
names (gTLDs of which there are currently only 21 including the
dominant player '.com'), the introduction of domain names in non-Latin
scripts (IDNs), the switch to a new Internet protocol (IPv6) which
will radically increase the available address space, and the deployment
of new security measures (DNSSEC) in the top level (or root zone
file) of the DNS architecture in order to prevent major denial
of service attacks.
"While reaffirming that governments do not need
to be involved in the day-to-day management of the Internet, the
Communication argues that private sector bodies like ICANN need
to be made accountable to the international community for their
actions, and outlines the following limitations with the model
in this regard
— "ICANN's
Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC) is not representative of
all governments (membership is currently over 100) and its advisory
role to a private sector organisation is an inappropriate and
ineffective mechanism for informing and influencing ICANN's policy
developments processes so that they fully reflect public policy
concerns;
— "ICANN's lack of 'external accountability'
to Internet users who do not participate in ICANN's activities
— it meets in open forum three times a year in continental
rotation — in contrast to the ongoing 'unilateral accountability'
to the US Government on the management of the root zone file (the
IANA function).
"In considering responses to these concerns,
the Communication rightly notes that there is no international
consensus for creating a new inter-governmental organisation that
would undertake oversight and external accountability. However,
as part of an evolutionary approach to ICANN, the Communication
recommends:
— "a
mechanism for 'multilateral accountability' in place of the current
US oversight of the root zone;
— "the securing of public policies
based on 'multilateral intergovernmental cooperation.'
"The Commission argues for the EU to take a
leadership role in this evolutionary process."
The Government's view
1.8 The Minister then says that UK policy relating
to Internet governance, the means for governments to address Internet-related
public policy issues, including stability, security, competition,
diversity and multilingualism, is "to support the private
sector-led, bottom-up multi-stakeholder model as uniquely providing
the means to act quickly and globally to secure public policy
goals", which he says "reflects the European consensus
that any proposed recourse to wholly inter-governmental oversight
would be contrary to the WSIS outcomes."
1.9 The Minister goes on to say that:
"While the Communication helpfully underscores
this principle, it also argues that the existing mechanism for
securing governmental inputs into ICANN's policy development processes
are insufficient and ineffective in securing its future accountability
to the global Internet community. Moreover, the Commission's proposal
for a new mechanism for external intergovernmental oversight will
likely play into the hands of some members of the International
Telecommunication Union (ITU) who are seeking to extend its inter-governmental
mandate to include Internet public policy issues .
1.10 Instead, the Minister says:
"it is preferable to build upon the ten year
experience of the Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC), and further
strengthen its membership, working methods and ways of influencing
ICANN's policy processes. The resumption of the active participation
of China, the country with the largest number of Internet users,
in the work of the GAC at its most recent meeting in June in Sydney
and the presence of Russia as invited guest at that and two previous
GAC meetings, are very positive signs of the increased acceptance
of the GAC as the governmental forum representing over 90% of
the world's Internet users, for discussing public policy issues
related to Internet Governance. The UK will continue to work with
ICANN in extending the reach of the GAC to those governments not
yet engaged in the process."
1.11 He concludes his comments thus:
"It will be important for the Council to agree
a common European position on a successor arrangement to the US
Joint Project Agreement for ensuring that ICANN fulfils its mandate
as the unique multi-stakeholder, private sector-led organisation
for coordinating the technical functions related to the management
of the Internet's domain name system, with the full support of
all stakeholders including governments, and without risk of capture
by any specific interests. This will continue to be a matter for
discussion between the Commission and the High Level Internet
Governance Group (HLIG) of senior policy experts from European
administrations (including the UK), at its next scheduled meeting
in September 2009.
"The UK will work with the Presidency and other
Member States to secure that any Council conclusions on the Communication
reflect this position."
Conclusion
1.12 The Minister sets out clearly — and
in our view persuasively — the difference between his preferred
approach and that of the Commission. At this stage, which approach
will prevail is still in the balance.
1.13 We shall therefore retain the Communication
under scrutiny, and ask the Minister to write to us after the
next HLIG meeting with his assessment of how matters then stand,
and the chance of the Council agreeing to the sort of common European
position that he advocates.
1 See http://www.icann.org/ for full information on
ICANN. Back
2
According to the Internet Society, DNS root name servers "are
a small but essential part of the Internet Domain Name System
(DNS) […]. The root zone file is at the apex of a hierarchical
distributed database called the Domain Name System (DNS). This
database is used by almost all Internet applications to translate
worldwide unique names like www.isoc.org into other identifiers;
the web, e-mail and many other services make use of the DNS. The
root zone file lists the names and numeric IP addresses of the
authoritative DNS servers for all top-level domains (TLDs) such
as ORG, COM, NL and AU". For further information see http://www.isoc.org/briefings/019/
Back
3
(27466) 8841/06: see HC 41-xxi (2006-07), chapter 15 (9 May 2007)
for the Committee's consideration of the Commission Communication:
Towards a global partnership in the information society: follow-up
to the Tunis phase of the World Summit on Information Society
(WSIS): see headnote. Back
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