[EURO-Discuss] Todays's EC Hearing on Internet Governance

[Wolf Ludwig]

The European Commission is hosting a hearing on 6 May / today on future Internet Governance arrangements – see:
http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/policy/internet_gov/index_en.htm

Prior to this, EC Commissioner Viviane Reding published a message transcript, available at http://ec.europa.eu/commission_barroso/reding/video/text/message_20090504.pdf

On Monday, there was an article in the Computerworld “EU urges U.S. to share control of ICANN with other countries” saying that the European commissioner called today for a new multilateral approach to Internet governance once the current system expires at the end of September. In a video blog posted on her website Viviane Reding, according to Computerworld, also suggested setting up an independent judicial body as well as an intergovernmental body, possibly based on the G12 forum of governments from around the world, to oversee ICANN in future. For more details: http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9132516&intsrc=news_ts_head

I can follow Mrs. Reding in some assessments like the “...global nature of the Internet to pave the way in September for a new, more accountable, more transparent, more democratic and more multilateral form of Internet governance". But I don’t agree with her suggestions and outlined solutions of “a successor body of the same name that is fully privatized” and at the same time “an intergovernmental body, possibly based on the G12 forum of governments from around the world, to oversee ICANN in future”. To me, it’s again the old power and control perspective and I don’t see how Mrs. Reding’s construct would be “more accountable, more transparent, more democratic” than the present US-based system, except perhaps “more multilateral”. If governments and heads of states take over (G12 forum), it will be the end of open multi-stakeholder foras like IGF, EuroDIG and any participation from civil society actors. Mrs. Reding’s “informal group of government representatives” is purely governmental like the old telecom regime. I can imagine, the ITU will be pleased about her idea.

These are just some of my thoughts.

Best,
Wolf




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