[WSIS CS-Plenary] [governance] Forum/oversight: Middle Ground proposal

[William Drake]

Parminder,

> -----Original Message-----
> From: plenary-admin at wsis-cs.org [mailto:plenary-admin at wsis-cs.org]On
> Behalf Of Parminder

> thanks Bill, this is good. this business of 'addressing issues
> not addressed
> by others' is a dangerous business. i agree that WIPO, WTO should have
> credible counter-points in the info society. thats where the potential of
> growth and progress lies.....

We had a clear example of this sort of agenda restricting and forum shopping
this morning.  In SubCom A's discussion of the interconnection cost section,
Bangladesh proposed language saying that the Tier 1 providers should
negotiate special and differential lowered rates for the least developed
countries "in accordance with multilateral trade rules.”  Venezuela,
Colombia, India, Iran, South Africa, Indonesia, Pakistan, Haiti, Uruguay,
Saudi Arabia, China, and Cuba lept to support the proposal.   But the US
replied no, interconnection falls outside the WTO arrangements (this is
based purely on catering to US corporate interests in evading any legally
binding obligation to provide "cost-oriented rates at any technically
feasible point in the network" to developing countries, rather than any
logical reading of the WTO rules---I had a protracted battle with ICC and
the EC on this in WGIG), and the EU of course said they weren't sure and
would have to consult.   ]

In other words, the US is saying that the issue of interconnection should
only be dealt with in ITU, where PTOs have proposed an archaic accounting
and settlement approach which they find easy to reject, and not in the WTO,
where they could well lose a dispute resolution case on the matter.  And
similarly, as I noted, they have told me privately they do NOT want
interconnection discussed in the forum.  So the deal is, keep sensitive
issues like interconnection locked within the boxes of existing,
non-multistakeholder bodies where they can be controlled, and then pick the
box that is most suitable to precluding serious challenges.  The same game
can be played with WIPO, COE, OECD, UNICTRAL, Hague Convention, ICANN, you
name it.  By the time we get done taking issues off the table because
someone somewhere else is also talking about them in some manner, it's
difficult to see what would be left for the forum to do, other than capacity
building, per Canada.

The WGIG report recommended that the forum be a place that is "open to all
stakeholders from all countries; any stakeholder could bring up any Internet
governance issue."  The IG Caucus reply to the report didn't embrace any
deviation from this approach, and I hope that CS will remain clear on the
point.

Best,

Bill

Best,

Bill