Today WikiLeaks released the penultimate draft agreement ("Outcome Document") going into NETmundial 2014 - the Global Multistakeholder Meeting on the Future of Internet Governance. NETmundial is an international conference of twelve nations and other internet stakeholders, to be hosted in São Paulo, Brazil, April 23-24, convened to lay down a roadmap for internet governance. It is co-hosted by the twelve goverments of Argentina, Brazil, France, Ghana, Germany, India, Indonesia, South Africa, South Korea, Tunisia, Turkey and the United States of America. The document was prepared by the NETmundial Executive Multistakeholder Committee (EMC) from the 180 NETmundial submissions and has been submitted to the High Level Multistakeholder Committee (HLMC) for final comment. The HLMC comprises ministerial level representation from the twelve co-hosting nations and is due to give its feedback tomorrow, on April 9.
Download the NETmundial Executive Stakeholder Committee (EMC) Outcome Document PDF here.
This document has been created by the Executive Multistakeholder Committee (EMC) and is submitted to the High-Level Multistakeholder Committee (HLMC).
Last Updated: April 3rd, 2014
The Global Multistakeholder Meeting on the Future of Internet Governance, also known as NETmundial, is convened to discuss two important issues relevant for the future evolution of the Internet, in an open and Multistakeholder fashion:
The recommendations in this document have been prepared with the view to guiding NETmundial to consensus. This has been a collaborative effort among representatives of all stakeholder groups.
More than 180 contributions have been received from all stakeholders around the globe. Those contributions have been taken as the basis for the elaboration of the recommendations here submitted to the participants of NETmundial towards the development of broad consensus.
The recommendations of NETmundial are intended to constitute valuable contribution to be used in other Internet Governance related fora and entities.
Principles related to Human Rights.
Human rights are central values that should underpin Internet governance principles. Rights that people have offline must also be protected online, in accordance with international human rights law, including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenants on Civil and Political Rights and Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. Those rights include, but are not limited to:
Principles related to the Internet infrastructure.
To preserve an unfragmented, interconnected, interoperable, secure, stable, resilient, sustainable, and trustworthy Internet.
SECURITY, STABILITY AND RESILIENCY
Internet as an universal global resource, should remain a secure, stable, resilient and trustworthy network. Effectiveness in handling security depends on strong and constant cooperation among different stakeholders.
SINGLE AND UNFRAGMENTED SPACE
The Internet should continue to be a globally coherent interconnected, unfragmented, scalable and accessible network which allows the free flow of data packets throughout the community, with:
OPEN AND DISTRIBUTED ARCHITECTURE
The Internet should be preserved as a fertile and innovative environment and an open system architecture, with voluntary collaboration, collective stewardship and participation, recognizing technical management principles for efficient and improved network operation and preserving:
ENABLING ENVIRONMENT FOR INNOVATION
The ability to innovate has been at the heart of the remarkable growth of the Internet and it brought great value to the global society. For the preservation of its dynamism, Internet must continue to allow permission-less innovation through an enabling environment.
OPEN ACCESS/PLATFORM
The Internet should be an open and accessible platform, promoting fair access to any content, applications and services at the user's choice. Internet should be a tool for equal opportunity and development, based on:
Principles related to Internet governance decision-making processes and arrangements.
Internet governance should be open, participatory, Multistakeholder, technology-neutral, sensitive to human rights and based on principles of transparency, accountability and inclusiveness, among others:
Principles related to the technical standardization of the Internet
OPEN STANDARDS
The Internet should be unique, interoperable, resilient, decentralized, secure, interconnected, and based on open public standards, embracing:
The objective of this roadmap is to recommend the steps forward in the process of continuously improving the existing Internet governance framework ensuring full involvement of all stakeholders. Internet governance framework is a distributed and coordinated ecosystem involving various organizations and fora. It must be inclusive, transparent and accountable, and its structures and operations must follow a model that enable the participation of all stakeholders in order to address the interests of all those who benefit from the Internet. The implementation of the Tunis Agenda has demonstrated the value of the Multistakeholder model in Internet governance. The valuable contribution of all stakeholders to Internet governance should be recognized. Due to the successful experiences this model should be further strengthened, improved and evolved. Internet governance should serve as a catalyst for development and for promotion of human rights. Participation should reflect geographic balance and include stakeholders from developing and least developed countries.
Issues that deserve attention of the community in the Internet governance future evolution.
A strengthened IGF could better serve as a platform for discussing those orphans and emerging issues already mentioned in the previous point with a view to contributing to the identification of possible ways to address them.
1. Security and Stability
2. Internet Surveillance - Mass and arbitrary surveillance undermines trust in the Internet and trust in the Internet Governance ecosystem. Mass surveillance and contradicts some of the principles proposed in this document. Surveillance should be conducted in accordance with the 'Necessary and Proportionate' principles. More dialogue is needed on this topic at the international level using forums like IGF and the Human Rights Council aiming to develop a common understanding on all the related aspects.
3. Capacity building - One of the key requirements for realization of Internet governance principles is ensuring that diverse stakeholders have not merely the opportunity for nominal participation, but in fact the formation and the resources for effective participation. Capacity building is important to support the emergence of true Multistakeholder communities, especially in those regions where the participation of some stakeholders group needs to be further strengthened.
Several contributions to NETmundial identified points that need further discussion and better understanding regarding the following:
The Internet governance ecosystem needs to continuously evolve as described above, strengthening the Multistakeholder model across the entire ecosystem.
Capacity building is a crucial aspect to enhance the participation of all stakeholders in a meaningful way.
The IGF should be strengthened.
There are issues that are not being treated properly by existing Internet governance mechanisms. IGF is one of the venues for discussing ways to deal with those issues.
It is expected that ICANN continues working in evolving the organization toward a more global organization with a balanced participation of all stakeholders.
The US Government's special role with regard to the IANA functions should end in a short term and the transition should be conducted in an open, participatory and responsible manner.
All the organizations with responsibilities in Internet governance ecosystem have to develop principles for transparency, accountability and inclusiveness and implement them. All the organizations should prepare periodical reports on their progresses and status about these issues. Those reports should be made publicly available.
Further discussion is required to reach consensus on the roles and responsibilities of stakeholders in Internet governance.
All the organizations, forums and processes of the Internet Governance ecosystem are expected to commit to implementing, as well as explicitly adhere, to all the principles agreed in NETmundial.
It is expected that the NETmundial findings and outcomes feed other processes and forums, such as WSIS+10, IGF and all Internet governance discussions held in different organizations and bodies at all levels.
The follow up and future discussions of topics listed in this document should prompt the creation of expert groups, task forces or groups of facilitators convened by existing entities or bodies. They should present reports of their works in major Internet governance meetings.
Download the NETmundial Executive Stakeholder Committee (EMC) Outcome Document PDF here.