7 Internet Governance
| (30708)
11222/09
COM(09) 277
| Commission Communication: Internet governance: the next steps
|
| Legal base | —
|
| Department | Business, Innovation and Skills
|
| Basis of consideration | Minister's letter of 9 December 2010
|
| Previous Committee Report | See HC 428-iii (2010-11), chapter 2 (13 October 2010) and HC 5-xii (2009-10), chapter 1 (3 March 2010) and HC 19-xxv (2008-09), chapter 1 (21 July 2009)
|
| To be discussed in Council | To be determined
|
| Committee's assessment | Politically important
|
| Committee's decision | Cleared
|
Background
7.1 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."
7.2 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."[29]
The Commission Communication
7.3 The Communication provides an analysis of
progress on Internet governance in the last ten 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."
7.4 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."
7.5 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".
7.6 The Commission then reviews its involvement
since 1998 in Internet governance, including the development of
ICANN, and 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. The technical
aspects are summarised and analysed in the previous Committee's
Report of 21 July 2009.[30]
7.7 The Communication anticipated the expiry
in September 2009 of an agreement known as the Joint Project Agreement
(JPA) between ICANN and the US Department of Commerce, which had
provided the National Telecommunications and Information Administration
(NTIA) with oversight of ICANN's affairs. The expiry of the JPA
did not affect the US Government's oversight of changes to the
root zone file[31] managed
by the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority — IANA (which
is part of ICANN).
7.8 In his accompanying 9 July 2009 Explanatory
Memorandum, the then Minister
(Lord Carter of Barnes) endorsed the Commission's
attribution of the success of the Internet over the last 20 years
to "private sector leadership and unhindered innovation at
the edge, rather than through any central command structure "
He noted the consistency of this private sector-led, bottom up
model for Internet governance 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."[32]
7.9 In addition to ICANN, the then Minister also
noted the Communication's 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.
7.10 He described the "key issue at the
heart of the Communication" as "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."
7.11 While reaffirming that governments do not
need to be involved in the day-to-day management of the Internet,
the Communication argued that private sector bodies like ICANN
needed to be made accountable to the international community;
noted that there was no international consensus for creating a
new inter-governmental organisation that would undertake oversight
and external accountability; and, as part of an evolutionary approach
to ICANN, recommended:
- 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";
- a leadership role for the EU in this "evolutionary
process."
7.12 The then Minister outlined UK policy relating
to Internet governance, the means for governments to address Internet-related
public policy issues, including stability, security, competition,
diversity and multilingualism as being "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 said "reflects the European consensus
that any proposed recourse to wholly inter-governmental oversight
would be contrary to the WSIS outcomes." He regarded the
Commission's proposal for a new mechanism for external intergovernmental
oversight as "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." Instead, the then Minister said, it was 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. He saw
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 2009 in Sydney and the
presence of Russia as invited guest at that and two previous GAC
meetings, as "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", and said that the UK would
"continue to work with ICANN in extending the reach of the
GAC to those governments not yet engaged in the process."
He regarded as 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 would 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 would work with the Presidency and other Member States
to secure that any Council conclusions on the Communication reflect
this position.
The previous Committee's assessment
7.13 The previous Committee felt that the then
Minister had set out clearly — and in its view persuasively
— his preferred approach; and that, at this stage, which
approach would prevail was still in the balance. It therefore
retained the Communication under scrutiny, and asked the then
Minister to write after the next HLIG meeting with his assessment
of how matters then stood, and of the chance of the Council agreeing
to the sort of common European position that he advocated.[33]
The then Minister's letter of 28 January 2010
7.14 In his letter, the then Minister for Digital
Britain (Stephen Timms) provided an update on progress in developing
a common European position on the successor arrangement to the
US Department of Commerce's Joint Project Agreement (JPA) with
ICANN and "on other associated developments relating to this
policy area." The Minister noted that the Government had
always supported what he described as the US administration's
key requirements for a fully privatised ICANN:
- "ICANN would be sufficiently
safeguarded against capture;
- "ICANN would be sufficiently accountable
to its multi-stakeholder community and would preserve the principles
of bottom-up development of policies by those parties affected,
and would maintain the structures, practices and bylaws of the
ICANN model that had been developed by the community — including
their regular review;
- "ICANN would be internationalised to allow
it to meet the needs of the global Internet community of the future;
- "ICANN would be financially and operationally
secure.
- "ICANN would maintain its focus on organisational
and operational excellence in performing its technical mission
of ensuring safe and stable operations relating to the unique
identifiers of the Internet, and of the IANA functions."
7.15 He then explained that the successor agreement
to the JPA, known as the "Affirmation of Commitments"
(AoC), was duly launched by the National Telecommunications and
Information Administration (NTIA — part of the US Department
of Commerce) and ICANN on 1 October 2009, and continued as follows:
"The AoC effectively draws a line under the
period of experiment and maturity of the previous 10 years during
which ICANN had generally fulfilled its technical mission of ensuring
that the system of unique identifiers on which all Internet communication
relies was robust and properly managed.
"Significantly, unlike in its previous agreements
with ICANN, the US Government has also made explicit in the AoC
the importance of ICANN acting in the public interest. ICANN
will be required accordingly to assess how its decisions are 'embarked,
supported and accepted by the public'.
"Accordingly, the AoC requires ICANN to undertake
annual reporting, reviews, analyses, fact-based policy development
and fully responsive consultation.
"Moreover the AoC signifies a major shift in
ICANN's relations with governments. It has replaced an essentially
bilateral relationship of accountability with the US government
with an enhanced role for the Governmental Advisory Committee
(the GAC) in reviewing ICANN's performance. This therefore would
potentially involve all governments. There are currently 94 country
members including China which rejoined the GAC in June 2009 after
several years' absence and Russia which will attend its first
meeting in Nairobi in March. The European Commission is also represented
on the GAC.
"The AoC identifies four issues for which separate
review teams will be established. The Chair of the GAC (currently
the Latvian representative Ambassador Janis Karklins) will be
involved both in selecting representatives from stakeholder communities
and independent experts to take part in the reviews and as an
active participant. The four reviews will cover:
"1. Ensuring accountability, transparency and
the interest of global Internet users;
"2. Preserving security, stability and resiliency;
"3. Promoting competition, consumer trust and
consumer choice;
"4. Securing Law enforcement access to accurate
and complete registrant data (known as 'WHOIS')."[34]
7.16 The then Minister then noted that, following
consultation with Member States, the European Presidency had issued
a statement:
"welcoming the reaffirmation by the U.S. Administration
of its confidence in the private sector-led, bottom-up multi-stakeholder
model for the technical coordination and day-to-day management
of the DNS, ICANN's global public interest mission and the increased
role for all governments and the GAC in enabling public policy
issues to be addressed within ICANN even more effectively."
7.17 He then explained that:
"While the AoC agreement clearly demonstrated
the intention of the US administration to provide greater international
oversight of ICANN primarily through the GAC, neither the US administration
nor ICANN had detailed proposals at the time of the AoC's launch
as to how to achieve this, other than to require that the first
review on transparency and accountability should be completed
by December this year (the other three have either later or contingent
timelines). The High Level Internet Governance Group (HLIG) of
EU policymakers therefore proposed to develop a European position
on implementation generally and how the four ICANN reviews should
be conducted."
7.18 Finally, the then Minister briefly outlined
other issues that were taking place relating to Internet governance
as follows:
- the then Government's position
on whether the mandate for the Internet Governance Forum (IGF)
was that "this important multi-stakeholder forum should be
renewed for a further 5 year period" and would be lobbying
within the UN to achieve this;
- regarding the Plenipotentiary Conference of the
International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Mexico in October,
he would be examining the future role of the ITU and whether it
should undertake a greater role in the Internet space, including
activities such as Internet naming and addressing which were currently
the sole purview of ICANN. The UK, the European Union and the
US remained fundamentally opposed to an inter-governmental agency
such as the ITU, as opposed to the multi-stakeholder ICANN, taking
on such a role. However, its ability to convince others —
including China and a number of developing countries in the Group
of 77 — would depend to a certain extent on the progress
made in implementing the AOC.[35]
The previous Committee's further assessment
7.19 The previous Committee judged that the outcome
thus far appeared to be satisfactory. But, as the Minister had
made clear, the battle was far from over; moreover, recent developments
in China and closer to home concerning access to the Internet
and internet security suggested that the battle lines were becoming
more, rather than less, defined. That being so — unless
each one was the subject of a new and preliminary Commission Communication
— it asked for a further update from the Minister ahead
of the two meetings to which he referred above.
7.20 In the meantime, the document was retained
under scrutiny.
The Minister's letter of 12 August 2010
7.21 In his letter of 12 August 2010, the Minister
for Culture, Communications and Creative Industries (Ed Vaizey)
said that he was now able to provide some further information
and to explain the Government's proposed approach at these two
key meetings, as follows:
"With respect to the forthcoming ITU Plenipotentiary
in Mexico (Guadalajara) in October it is now clear that Internet
Governance, both in terms of critical Internet resources and public
policy issues (such as cybersecurity) will be on the agenda. The
ITU (and several of its members including China and Russia) have
made no secret of their wish to become responsible (in the medium
to long term) for some of the key architecture process on the
Internet; such as the Domain Name System (DNS), currently the
responsibility of ICANN; something which, as you know, we are
opposed to. There may also be proposals tabled to widen the remit
of the ITU so it has specific responsibility for cybersecurity;
this again being a move we (and no doubt many others including
the EU and the US) will oppose.
"The UK has been active within the European
Union and in the CEPT (the wider European region of 48 countries)
to secure common proposals that will limit the activities of the
ITU in both of these areas. We are also discussing a common approach
with the US and hope to secure support of the Commonwealth at
their preparatory meeting in September.
"Our objective in the UN in December remains
for the mandate of the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) to be renewed
with all its fundamental characteristics unchanged, i.e. its continuation
as a non-decision making forum for dialogue, showcasing best practice
and information exchange with a bottom up multi-stakeholder process
for setting the IGF programme which will be managed by a light-weight,
independently staffed Secretariat funded by private and public
sector stakeholder donations.
"This position was presented by the Belgian
Presidency with the support of the UK at a meeting of the UN Economic
and Social Council (ECOSOC) in New York on 16 and 19 July, a key
preparatory stage in the preparation for the UNGA decision. China
and the "Group of 77", a grouping of 130 developing
countries in the UN) stated that they will agree to renewal of
the IGF in the UNGA only if it is reformed and brought directly
under the control of the UN system. While we and other EU Member
States have accepted that there is scope for improving the IGF,
we oppose such a transfer of accountability and the imposition
of UN oversight and budgetary control because we believe it would
undermine the fundamental bottom up concept of the IGF as agreed
at the UN World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) in Tunis
in 2005. It would also open the door to inter-governmental oversight,
perhaps by the ITU in line with their ambitions for the Plenipotentiary
Conference.
"ECOSOC had been asked to adopt a resolution
drafted by the Commission on Science and Technology for Development
(CSTD, another UN entity) mandating the CSTD to convene a working
group to consider how the structure and preparatory processes
of the IGF could be improved, in particular with regard to increasing
the level of engagement of stakeholders from developing countries
and disseminating the results of its dialogue more effectively.
My officials will participate in the CSTD working group to ensure
it reaches agreement on changes to the IGF which we can support,
such as a more streamlined event structure with more clearly articulated
objectives and results, better linkage between the workshops and
main thematic sessions and more effective remote participation.
Our aim, shared by many other stakeholders, is to achieve an improved
IGF event structure that is easier to navigate for stakeholders,
with clearly identified aims, a greater focus on opportunities
and challenges, and increased visibility of results derived from
such multi-stakeholder discussions, be they at the global, regional
and national levels where we have seen a rapid expansion in the
last 12 months in the number of national IGFs.
"The next key meeting in the UN process leading
up to the General Assembly decision will be the meeting in the
autumn of the GA 2nd Committee (Economic and Financial) when the
resolution on the IGF will be negotiated. Ahead of this, BIS and
our mission in New York will work with EU colleagues and other
like-minded states to ensure that the scope of the resolution
is limited to the issue of renewal for a further period (5 years)
and that it should not extend to issues relating to reform of
how the IGF is managed, conducted and funded."
7.22 The Minister concluded by undertaking to
provide a further report back on the outcome of the Plenipotentiary
discussions, which were to conclude towards the end of October
and on the outcome of the General Assembly 2nd Committee prior
to the General Assembly vote in December.
The Committee's assessment
7.23 We thanked the Minister for this comprehensive
report, which we reported to the House because of the continuing
importance of the issues in question.
7.24 We also looked forward to hearing further
from the Minister on the outcome of the ITU meeting, particularly
with regard to whether China, Russia and the others referred to
by his predecessor earlier this year were now more reconciled
to the ICANN/AoC approach or whether, within the ITU and at the
UNGA, they were likely to continue to press for a more top-down,
governmentally-controlled approach; and if so, how the Government
and the EU proposed to tackle this.
7.25 In the meantime we continued to retain the
Communication under scrutiny.[36]
The Minister's letter of 9 December 2010
7.26 The Minister begins his letter by explaining
that he has delayed responding until there was a definitive outcome
on the renewal of the IGF mandate to write about. He continues
as follows
"INTERNATIONAL TELECOMMUNICATION UNION PLENIPOTENTIARY
CONFERENCE
"As noted in my previous letter we were concerned,
prior to the ITU Plenipotentiary Conference, that proposals being
submitted on Internet related issues and on cybersecurity could
result in the ITU assuming an enhanced role in issues where we
considered other bodies had competence. Such increased competence
could, I argued, affect the economic and social benefits of the
Internet.
"I am therefore pleased to report that while
there were proposals tabled of this nature (notably by Russia
and some of the Arab States) the opposition — notably led
by the US; UK and other EU partners — prevailed with the
result that new and amended Resolutions adopted actually do a
lot to define the future ITU role in a way that is consistent
with the UK views on what the ITU should do.
"On Internet public policy issues the revised
Resolution 102 is important in that it commits the ITU to recognise—for
the first time—the different organisations (such as ICANN)
that have a role in Internet issues and to work with them. On
Cybersecurity the revised Resolution 130 is also important in
that it delineates the types of activity in this policy area that
the ITU should be involved in (for example standard setting and
capacity building in developing countries) and those it should
not be; such as cybercrime, national security issues and cyber-warfare.
"I hope you will agree with me that this outcome
was very positive; reflecting the hard work and good preparation
put in by officials; business and OFCOM."
"INTERNET GOVERNANCE FORUM (IGF)
"The G77 (a grouping of 130 developing countries
in the UN) traditionally lead in the Second Committee (Economic
and Social Affairs) on the drafting of the annual ICT and Development
resolution for the General Assembly which this year includes the
future of the IGF following the ending of its current 5 year mandate.
China had indicated it would work with the G77 to secure major
changes to the IGF that would bring its management, funding and
preparatory processes under the direct control of the UN through
the creation of a new UN bureau to replace the existing independent
Secretariat based in Geneva.
"With the aim of countering China's strong influence
on the G77, a BIS/UKMIS[37]
team undertook a programme of briefing meetings with key G77 representatives
in New York, including the drafters of the Resolution (Malaysia
and Egypt), to ensure that they fully understood the IGF multi-stakeholder
model and were up to date following the successful IGF in Vilnius
regarding the IGF's agenda of main themes (now including development),
the wide range of workshop activities (over 100 in Vilnius), its
preparatory processes, and evolving self-improvement such as its
improved outreach to developing countries, notably through enhanced
remote participation which increased the number of participating
stakeholders to over 2,000.
"It was also underlined in the briefings that
a process for negotiating further improvements to the IGF has
already been established by a resolution of the Economic and Social
Council (ECOSOC) in July which had asked for the UN Commission
on Science and Technology for Development (CSTD) to establish
a working group for this process. It should not be a case therefore
of renewal of the IGF mandate by the UNGA being contingent on
the kind of improvements or radical change that China had proposed.
"I am pleased to report that the ensuing negotiations
with the G77 during 28 October-23 November (when the UK worked
as supporting burden-sharer for the EU Presidency) succeeded in
removing all the mainly Chinese-inspired language from the draft
UNGA Resolution which had advocated radical change to the IGF.
The resulting text of the UNGA resolution is therefore a very
satisfactory result because:
- it renews the mandate of the
IGF for a further 5 years without any radical change and is not
contingent on the CSTD recommendations on improving the IGF;
- it recognises the 'importance
of the IGF and its mandate as a multi-stakeholder dialogue.....in
order to foster the sustainability, robustness, security, stability
and development of the Internet'; and
- stresses the need for national public policy
process to include multi-stakeholder approaches and generally
promotes national, regional and international multi-stakeholder
partnerships which help institutionalise the IGF model at all
layers.
"In particular the Resolution:
- does not create a traditional
UN bureau to manage the IGF and its preparatory agenda-setting
processes, and it maintains the voluntary funding principle for
the IGF Secretariat (the UK government has been a leading donor);
- "advocates support for developing country
'enhanced participation', thereby advocating the relevance of
the IGF and its preparatory meetings to the interests of developing
countries and helps underline the message that 'the IGF is for all
stakeholders in all countries: so make use of it';[38]
- "underscores the ECOSOC decision to set
up a CSTD working group on improvements which involves all stakeholders
and will report by mid-2011. We will contribute actively to this
work to ensure that the IGF continues to evolve and improve consistent
with the aims of the WSIS.
"Furthermore, we succeeded in rejecting the
attempt by certain G77 members throughout the negotiations to
create in the Resolution a new annual reporting track for the
Secretary General on progress in the improvement of the IGF. We
therefore avoided the risk that this ICT for Development Resolution
would effectively become an annual IGF review by the UN.
"I believe therefore that the UK's primary objectives
in the negotiations on the future of the IGF were therefore achieved
and overall this is a very satisfactory result for the global
community of Internet stakeholders. It safeguards the continuing
decentralised, bottom up evolution of the Internet, fostered by
effective global cooperation involving all stakeholders."
7.27 The Minister concludes his letter with the
hope that it has been useful in setting out what the Government
has achieved in relation to the ITU and the IGF and an offer to
provide any further details the Committee might wish.
Conclusion
7.28 We are grateful to the Minister for his
very forthcoming letter, from which it is reasonable to deduce
that the preferred UK approach has indeed been successful.
7.29 We are grateful to the Minister for his
offer of further information, but are content for others to follow
up further developments should they so wish.
7.30 For our part, the scrutiny process is
now concluded, and we now clear the Communication.
29 See http://www.icann.org/ for full information on
ICANN. Back
30
See headnote: HC 19-xxv (2008-09), chapter 1 (21 July 2009). Back
31
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
32
See (27466) 8841/06 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).
Back
33
See headnote: HC 19-xxv (2008-09), chapter 1 (21 July 2009). Back
34
For further information on the AoC, see http://www.icann.org/en/announcements/announcement-30sep09-en.htm.
Back
35
See headnote: HC 5-xii (2009-10), chapter 1 (3 March 2010). Back
36
See headnote: HC 428-iii (2010-11), chapter 2 (13 October 2010). Back
37
The UK Permanent Mission to the UN, in New York. Back
38
The Minister's emphasis. Back
| 
