[WSIS CS-Plenary] [Fwd: .....] Read the letter from Condoleeza that won the internet governance battle

[Sasha Costanza-Chock]

Read the letter that won the internet governance battle
By Kieren McCarthy
Published Friday 2nd December 2005 09:07 GMT

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/12/02/rice_eu_letter/print.html

The World Summit in Tunis last month was overshadowed by the global 
argument over internet governance.

Its biggest controversy came with the proposition put forward by the EU 
a month earlier that there be a new inter-governmental body that oversee 
ICANN. The US government - which currently enjoys unilateral control 
over the internet infrastructure - was furious and launched an enormous 
lobbying campaign, both public and private, across the board to retain 
its position.
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Most significant among all those lobbying efforts was a letter sent from 
the US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice to the UK foreign minister 
Jack Straw acting in the role of presidency of the EU.

In the letter, Rice used strong language for a diplomatic missive, to 
stress how seriously the US administration was taking the issue and how 
determined it was to retain ICANN in overall charge of the internet. 
European diplomats privately confessed that the letter had a significant 
impact on their position.

The result was that the EU never raised its inter-governmental forum 
again in World Summit meetings, and the end agreement stuck with the US 
position.

This is the first time time the full text of that letter has been published:

7 November 2005

To:

The Right Honourable Jack Straw MP, Secretary of State for Foreign and 
Commonwealth Affairs, London

Dear Foreign Secretary,

The governance structure and continued stability and sustainability of 
the Internet are of paramount importance to the United States. The 
Internet has become an essential infrastructure for global 
communications, including for global trade and commerce, and therefore 
we firmly believe that support for the present structures for Internet 
governance is vital. These structures have proven to be a reliable 
foundation for the robust growth of the Internet we have seen over the 
course of the last decade.

As we approach the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), we 
should underscore the vast potential of the Internet for global economic 
expansion, poverty alleviation, and for improving health, education and 
other public services, particularly in the developing world where 
Internet access remain unacceptably low.

The Internet will reach its full potential as a medium and facilitator 
for global economic expansion and development in an environment free 
from burdensome intergovernmental oversight and control. The success of 
the Internet lies in its inherently decentralized nature, with the most 
significant growth taking place at the outer edges of the network 
through innovative new applications and services. Burdensome, 
bureaucratic oversight is out of place in an Internet structure that has 
worked so well for many around the globe. We regret the recent positions 
on Internet governance(i.e., the “new cooperation model”) offered by the 
European Union, the Presidency of which is currently held by the United 
Kingdom, seems to propose just that - a new structure of 
intergovernmental control over the Internet.

The four principles the United States issues on June 30, 2005, reinforce 
the continuing U.S. commitment to the Internet’s security and stability, 
including through the historical U.S. role in authorizing changes or 
modifications to the authoritative root zone file. At that time, we also 
expressed our support for ICANN as the appropriate private sector 
technical coordinator of the Internet’s domain name and addressing 
system. We believe that ICANN is dedicated to achieving broad 
representation of global Internet communities and to developing policy 
through consensus-based processes. We have also expressed our interest 
in working with the international community to address legitimate public 
policy and sovereignty concerns with respect to country code top-level 
domains (ccTLD). We wish to underscore that, in our statement of June 
30, we supported ongoing dialogue on issues related to Internet 
governance across international forums.

The United States and the European Union have long worked together 
toward the goal of global access to the Internet. The WSIS offers us the 
opportunity to reaffirm our partnership to spread the benefits of the 
Internet globally. At the same time, the security and stability of the 
Internet are essential to the United States, the European Union, and to 
the world. We firmly believe that the existing Internet system balances 
the stability and security we need with the innovation and dynamism that 
private sector leadership provides.

The history of the Internet’s extraordinary growth and adaptation , 
based on private-sector innovation and investment, offers compelling 
arguments against burdening the network with a new intergovernmental 
structure for oversight. It also suggests that a new intergovernmental 
structure would most likely become an obstacle to global Internet access 
for all our citizens. It is in this spirit that we ask the European 
Union to reconsider its new position on Internet governance and work 
together with us to bring the benefits of the Information Society to all.

Sincerely,

Carlos M. Guiterrez Secretary of Commerce

Condoleezza Rice Secretary of State
Related link

US wins net governance battle 
(http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/11/16/us_wins_net_governance/)