Your Excellency Secretary-General Guterres, Your Excellency the High Commissioner for Human Rights, We write to…
The past 18 months have seen unprecedented public unrest over proposed new laws and policies for the Internet that would both undermine its functioning as an open, neutral communications medium, and threaten the human rights of its users. At the national level instruments such as the United States’ SOPA and PIPA, and India’s Internet Intermediary Guidelines, are seen as uninformed and/or unduly influenced by industry lobbyists protecting outdated business models. At the global level, agreements such as the secretively-negotiated ACTA, Trans-Pacific Partnership and International Telecommunications Regulations (ITRs), are rightly seen as democratically deficient and therefore illegitimate in light of norms of multi-stakeholder participation to which governments pay lip service.
At the same time, civil society has also recently been at the nexus of a flourishing of interest in a positive agenda for Internet governance, such as the development of broad statements of shared principles (including the Declaration of Internet Freedom), ad hocnetworks for engagement on current policy processes (such as the ITU’s World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT) at which the ITRs are being renegotiated), and new institutional innovations that could channel public interest inputs into policy development processes either in a reactive (eg. the Internet Defence League) or a proactive (eg. the Enhanced Cooperation Task Force) fashion.
Some of these civil society initiatives are so new that those leading them have not yet had time to adequately allow for the input of other NGOs who may have a long background working on ICT issues in their own countries, with important perspectives to contribute. In fact there is much scope for all of the NGOs working on Internet governance issues, from North and South alike, to gain valuable practical knowledge from each other. In advance of the upcoming meetings of the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) and the ITU’s WCIT, we have an important opportunity to share such knowledge, to deliberate on issues of difference, and to produce tangible outputs to further objectives that we share.
Internet governance history and review
The ITU and the International Telecommunications Regulations
Lunch and networking break
Drafting a civil society statement to WCIT
Declarations of Internet rights and Internet governance principles
Process towards enhanced cooperation on Internet public policy issues
Lunch and networking break
Drafting civil society IG principles for the IGF
Next steps
The background papers for the meeting can be viewed on a separate page. For future meetings, the list will be contained on a tab like this one.
“We call on the IGF to develop an IGF-level multistakeholder statement on Internet governance, drawing on existing statements of rights and principles developed by various stakeholders, for presentation to the 2013 meeting of the IGF in Indonesia.
In recent times civil society groups have found themselves on the defensive in internet policy debates. The WSIS plus 10 process is a chance to explore contrasting views from the global south as to what kind of web we want – not just those already online but those still to come online. This session is targeted at those who wish to understand the needs and objectives of groups in the global south and the expected outcome sis a clearer understanding of a positive policy agenda.
Names of the organizer(s) of the workshop and their affiliation to various stakeholder groups:
Andrew Puddephatt, Director, Global partners; co-convener of “Best Bits” network; affiliated to the Internet Rights and Principles coalition at the IGF, based in the UK www.global-partners.co.uk
Names and affiliations of the panelists and the remote moderator:
Panelists:
Contact person:
Name: Andrew Puddephatt
Organization: Global Partners
E-mail: [email protected]
The World Telecommunication Policy Forum (WTPF) is a high-level international meeting organized every four years by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), a specialized agency of the UN. It provides a venue for governments and Sector Members of the ITU (mostly from the telecoms and tech industries) to discuss key policy issues in today’s telecommunications and information and communication technology (ICT) environment. The theme of the 2013 WTPF, which we be held in Geneva from May 14-16, is internet-related public policy. Official website: http://www.itu.int/en/wtpf-13/
In a year when the confidence of Internet users in the Internet governance status quo was shattered by revelations of systematic and indiscriminate governance surveillance, there is a greater need than ever before for civil society organisations engaged on Internet governance and Internet rights freedom issues to come together to share and strategise. The 2013 meeting of the Best Bits network will address key issues at the intersection of Internet policy and human rights, for direct application over the next twelve months.
Through the shared outputs of this meeting and the indirect benefits of participation, we expect to empower civil society organisations and individual activists to create more informed, effective, inclusive and complementary advocacy outcomes, in which the public interest is better reflected in high-level policy discussions and in the outputs that these discussions produce. The meeting will also place Best Bits itself on a firmer institutional footing, in order to enhance its legitimacy as a broad-based civil society advocacy network and improve its long-term sustainability.
Welcome, introductions, logistics, and meeting opening
Global Internet governance principles, enhanced cooperation and the IGF
Facilitators: Parminder Jeet Singh and Joy Liddicoat, background documents
If required, divide into groups of 3 and then report back.
Lunch and networking break
The ITU, the WSIS+10 process and other IG-related spaces
Facilitators: Joana Varon Ferraz and Matthew Shears, background documents
Output: Set of draft recommendations based on the following questions:
Output Setting up of task forces (as necessary) with the aim of building appropriate engagement roadmaps.
State surveillance and human rights
Facilitators: Andrew Puddephatt and Deborah Brown, background documents
Potential output from group 1: A list of important upcoming standards discussions and RFCs; sketch out a timeline of more technical meetings where these issues can/should be discussed.
Potential output from group 2: A concrete requests for the private sector- internet companies and telcos- that would outline what actions from corporations civil society would like to see in light of surveillance revelations
Potential output from group 3: Outcome might be a series of action points/ a working group/ a short statement aimed at IGF and potentially other bodies. We will have to take our cue on this one from the previous day, whether it looks like people want to focus on Brazil2014, IGF, a broader statement that can be repurposed, etc.
Lunch and networking break
Best Bits
Facilitator: Jeremy Malcolm and Anja Kovacs, background documents
Output: Agreed statement of objectives.
Output: Procedure wiki.
Joint Best Bits/Web We Want dinner at Nusa Dua Beach Grill (own cost of IDR 200.000, transport provided)
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Best Bits participants gathered in Bali agreed on these basic principles that should guide the development of a planned Rio summit on Internet governance:
Well-funded and well organized interest groups from within the technical and business communities will be advancing their agendas at the Global Multistakeholder Meeting on the Future of Internet Governance, with the intent of securing outcomes that favour their perceived interests. Civil society’s responsibility is to ensure that these outcomes do not conflict with the broader, long-term public interest. Our challenge is therefore to be equally well organised as the other stakeholder representatives, even though we do not enjoy the same funding and staffing resources that they do.
This meeting is a joint initiative of
Registration is now closed.
The “CS pre-NM” is a gathering of over 90 civil society groups from around the world involved in internet governance and broader internet-related public policy debates regionally and globally. This is an action-oriented group with the aim to facilitate the expression of civil society views and feed them into the discussions at NETmundial and beyond.
The agenda is focused on setting points of consensus, discussing strategic action and distilling key messages for members of civil society that are able to pursue common goals, based on 1) defending fundamental Human Rights; 2) ensuring the Open, Decentralized and Interoperable Architecture of the Web and 3) fostering an Open, Inclusive, Democratic and Decentralised Multistakeholder model of Internet Governance.
Based on these three pillars, in order to have a clear mapping of the state of consensus within Civil Society, we are convening 3 working groups (Principles, Roadmap and IANA transition) of resource persons that will be focused until the day of our meeting on analyzing CS contributions and comments posted at NetMundial platform to deliver: a) a set of bullet points of possible ground of consensus and b) a set of questions around key issues that will require us to have agreement on during our meeting. Our hope is to honor different CS points of view presented so far, and quickly air disagreements and the arguments for each approach.
We hope we can count on your collaboration to achieve our goals and, in the end, have a clear message from civil society that enable those who seek to refine their tactics and strategies for the Conference to do so.
Welcome coffee
NETmundial 2014 introduction and Goal of our meeting
Principles: Guaranteeing protection of Human Rights and Ensuring the Open and Interoperable Architecture of the Web
Break
Roadmap: towards a coordinated, decentralized, inclusive and open multistakeholder model of Internet Governance
Lunch
NetMundial: The rules of the game: how to maximize civil society impact in the interventions and the meetings to follow
Transfer to venue: Upstairs Lounge, 2nd floor (next to restaurants), Grand Hyatt São Paulo, Av. das Nações Unidas, 13301, São Paulo – SP (transport provided [TBC])
Open session with technical community
Meeting with invited governments (bilateral or mixed – TBC)
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[eventreports event=”94489″]
Registration
Welcome and introductions (moderation: Andrew)
Highlights and tactics for IGF (moderation: Nnenna)
Policy slam – people have 10 min to present or discuss something they find relevant
Lunch and networking break
Follow-up to WSIS+10 and tactics moving forward (moderation: Deborah + Anja)
Best Bits way forward
To add a background paper, click the Upload button above. [backgroundpapers event=”134671″]
To add a report, click the Upload button above. [eventreports event=”134671″]
We call for the establishment of the IGF as a multistakeholder forum within the framework of the United Nations with an open-ended mandate, that should be reformed and strengthened.
See also this statement which grew out of discussions at the meeting and is endorsed by a subset of participants.
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Best Bits mailing listBest Bits was a global civil society network on the topic of Internet governance, that was formed in 2012 and closed in 2019. Many of the former members of Best Bits participate in the Internet Governance Caucus.