WCIT and Onwards

WCIT and Beyond: Global Internet Governance Unpicked

Facilitators: Sylvia Cadena, Keith Davidson.
Tags: Governance, Internet & the Law.
Collaborative Notes: WCIT and Onwards

Over recent years, increasing international focus on issues relating to the governance of the Internet. The culmination of interest in this topic occured in December last year with the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) covened the “World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT), a two week meeting in Dubai. The convergence between the newer Internet technologies and older traditional copper based telecommunications technologies is a major contributor as a battle is being fought over who controls the Internet. Politics also raises itself in this battle, in a traditional East vs West policy debate, with some Governments calling for multilateral control (through the ITU) of the Internet, and other Governments advocating support for the current multistakeholder model for Internet governance. The WCIT event ended with some countries ratifying the treaty text, and also a number of countries (including New Zealand) refusing to sign the 2012 resolutions. A further event, the World Telecommunications Policy Forum (WTPF) was held in May this year. This event was conducted in a more positive way, and while there were no binding outcomes sought, it focuses the increased tensions from recent years, firmly on the next ITU Plenipotentiary Meeting (held every 4 years) which is scheduled for 2014. The Internet Corporation of Asigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) is the body that currently manages the Internets unique identifiers and does so using multistakeholder processes.

So what is Internet Governance?
Who *is* in charge of the Internet?
What are the possible outcomes?
What is best for the Internet?

This session brings together a range of special contributors who are working in Internet Governance processes, both for NZ and internationally. We will look to explore what is happening in global Internet Governance and where it is going.

Nicola Treloar from MBIE, was the Deputy Head of the NZ Delegation to WCIT and was the Head of Delegation for the WTPF meeting this year. She will join the session as as special contributor to discuss these ITU meetings, and then take questions and discussion.

Save Vocea, Vice-President of Australasia/Pacific Islands with ICANN, will speak about ICANN, it’s role in the Internet, and talk about the most recent developments around domain names.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr works in a range of Internet Governance related spaces and organisations and can speak on her experiences in these forums.

Keith Davidson, one of the faciltators of the session, also works across Internet Governance and will talk a bit about the global Internet Governance Forum, which links to NZ’s own NetHui.