The ITU-organized World Summit on the Information Society will run from December 10 to 12 in Geneva. 50 or more heads of state are expected in attendance, along with ranking diplomats from dozens of other nations.
At the summit, international governments will adopt a Declaration of Principals, which outlines consensus on global access to information technology, and a Plan of Action, which makes more specific recommendations on how to go about it.
One issue that has caused a great deal of controversy over the last few months is the matter of internet governance – more specifically, the matter of who should be in charge of the internet’s IP address space and domain name system.
Certain nations, led by China, fought for the inclusion of text in the Plan that would call for the ITU to take over this role, which is currently carried out by the Internet Corp for Assigned Names and Numbers under contract with the US government.
A competing proposal, backed by the US, would have the Plan explicitly endorse private-sector management of the DNS and IP address space, with limited government input on matters directly related to public policy.
But these anti-ICANN and pro-ICANN proposals are likely to both be eschewed by a third proposal containing more general language that, in essence, calls for the ITU to define the problem before developing the solution.
A proposed amendment to the Plan published Monday, would establish a WSIS working group that would develop a working definition of Internet governance and identify the public policy issues that are relevant to Internet governance.
The middle-ground proposal also calls for participants to develop a common understanding for respective spheres of responsibility among governments, existing intergovernmental and international organizations and other forums.
The new proposal, which is the most likely to be adopted given the deadlock on the other two proposals, will be discussed at a final Preparatory Committee meeting this weekend. The final text will be presented at the WSIS meeting next week.
If adopted, the proposal would require the WSIS working group to report back its findings by 2005, when the WSIS will meet again in Tunis for its second round of talks.
Between now and then, the group will have to figure out if internet addressing equates to internet governance, and some think the Plan of Action that will likely be adopted merely delays the inevitable clash between ICANN and the ITU.
Terms left in the Plan will be symbols of the continuing encroachment of the ITU into the domain name system, said Elana Broitman, director of policy at Register.com Inc, who has been tracking the WSIS negotiations.
ICANN, which did not return a request for comment yesterday, is often mistakenly referred to as the Internet’s governing body, largely because it has certain de facto policymaking and commercial regulatory powers due to the nature of its agreements with the US Department of Commerce and commercial contracts.
This article was originally based on material published by ComputerWire.
