Internet Governance ‘Beyond the Scope or Mandate’ of ITU, U.S. Says in WCIT Filing

The U.S. formally opposed attempts to wrest control of the Internet away from its current governing organizations in favor of the United Nations’ ITU, the U.S. delegation to the World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT) said in documents filed Friday. The Dec. 3-4 meeting in Dubai will focus on revising the ITU’s treaty-level International Telecommunication Regulations (ITRs), last revised in 1988. The U.S. State Department released the documents to the public after the filing (http://xrl.us/bnjbef).

The ITR revisions should advance “the worldwide goal of greater competitive and affordable access to telecommunications networks,” the U.S. said, noting that its delegation wants to work with the other participating delegations to reach a successful outcome. The U.S. said it believes the Internet has evolved in the years since the adoption of the ITRs in a separate environment that is “beyond the scope or mandate of the ITRs or the International Telecommunication Union.” The U.S. said a group of multi-stakeholder organizations fostered that separate governing environment -- the Internet Society, Internet Engineering Task Force, World Wide Web Consortium, Regional Internet Registries and Internet Corp. for Assigned Names and Numbers. “The United States believes these existing institutions are most capable of addressing issues with the speed and flexibility required in this rapidly changing Internet environment,” the U.S. said. “As a decentralized network of networks, the Internet has achieved global interconnection without the development of any international regulatory regime. The development of such a formal regulatory regime could risk undermining its growth."

The U.S. proposed five revisions (http://xrl.us/bnja75), including slight changes to the ITRs’ preamble, an alignment of the definitions in the ITRs with the ones in the ITU Constitution and Convention and a proposal that compliance with ITU standards recommendations remain voluntary. A U.S. proposal would ensure ITRs continue to only apply to recognized operating agencies, meaning operating agencies not authorized to provide international telecom services would not be covered. The U.S. wants to revise ITR Article 6 to “affirm the role played by market competition and commercially negotiated agreements for exchanging international telecommunication traffic."

Concerns about a potential power shift began earlier this year, with U.S. officials expressing concerns that China, the European Telecommunication Network Operators’ Association, Russia and other nations would submit proposals that would give Internet governing power to the ITU and would allow for the levying of taxes on Web data traffic. “The United States will oppose efforts to broaden the scope of the ITRs to empower any censorship of content or impede the free flow of information and ideas,” the U.S. said Friday. “It believes that the existing multi-stakeholder institutions, incorporating industry and civil society, have functioned effectively and will continue to ensure the continued vibrancy of the Internet and its positive impact on individuals and society.” The U.S. said ITU members agreed in a 2010 resolution that “legal or policy principles related to national defense, national security, content and cybercrime ... are within [nations'] sovereign rights,” and said the delegation would oppose any proposal that would violate that agreement.

FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski is pleased with the U.S. position on WCIT, he told reporters Friday. “Our submission will take a strong position on Internet freedom,” he said. “This is something, as you know, that I've been advocating for three years and I'm very pleased that the U.S. submissions take the position that proposals to restrict Internet freedom would threaten one of the most powerful engines for global economic growth and the spread of democracy in the 21st century,” he said.

Commissioner Robert McDowell wants “international leaders” to “understand that not only is it the united, bipartisan position of the U.S. to resist any expansion of the ITU’s powers into the Internet’s sphere, but that any such expansion would actually harm the developing world the most,” that FCC member told us. “At the end of the day, most of the industrial nations would not choose to live under such an intergovernmental regulatory regime. It’s the developing nations that would be bypassed as the Internet continues to proliferate and change lives.” The U.S. filings aligned with statements Terry Kramer, the delegation’s head, made Wednesday (CD Aug 2 p1). The delegation hopes to block the controversial proposals through bilateral talks with key nations, including China and Russia. Those talks would be in keeping with ITU Secretary-General Hamadoun Toure’s wish that WCIT participants adopt revisions by consensus, Kramer said.

The Information Technology and Innovation Foundation supports the U.S. position on Internet governance, fellow Richard Bennett said in a written statement. “The Internet’s decentralized and inclusive governance model promotes the development of productive standards through the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) process,” he said. “These standards allow the Internet to grow and improve, and any fundamental change to this process undermines the ability of the Internet to meet the needs of citizens in the future. The current governance model gives government, industry, and civil society seats at the table and has shown itself to be constructive and responsive.” The ITIF is encouraged by the U.S. position that Internet governance must be flexible to allow for rapid changes, Bennett said. “The current system is working well, so there is no need to undertake fundamental change."

After Thursday’s House vote without opposition to support H.Con. Res. 127, stating Congress’s support of U.S. attempts to preserve an open Internet as the world prepares for December’s WCIT, government and industry leaders voiced approval. Rep. Mary Bono Mack, R-Calif., who authored the resolution, called the vote “a first-of-its-kind referendum on the future of the Internet.” For “nearly a decade, the United Nations has been angling quietly to become the epicenter of Internet governance,” she said late Thursday (http://xrl.us/bnjbda), saying some countries will present Internet governance proposals at WCIT. “These proposed treaty changes, some of which have been going on in secret, could have a devastating impact worldwide on both freedom and economic prosperity,” she said. “Today’s unanimous vote sends a clear and unmistakable message: the American people want to keep the Internet free from government control and prevent Russia, China and other nations from succeeding in giving the U.N. unprecedented power over Web content and infrastructure."

A Senate version of the resolution hasn’t been passed out of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., lead sponsor of the Senate bill, unsuccessfully attempted to attach it to the currently stalled Cybersecurity Act (CD Aug 3 p10). USTelecom President Walter McCormick urged Senate Foreign Relations to pass the bill Thursday, in a letter to Chairman John Kerry, D-Mass., and Ranking Member Richard Lugar, R-Ind. “Like you, we believe it would be a mistake of historic proportions if government or multi-government institutions were permitted to obviate or duplicate the multi-stakeholder process in place today,” McCormick said.

FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai too was pleased with what he called a “resolution calling for the preservation of the multi-stakeholder, non-governmental model of Internet governance that has served us so well.” It’s “the latest evidence that all American policymakers stand together on a bipartisan basis to oppose international regulation of the Internet,” he said (http://xrl.us/bnjbfi). The NCTA called it “an important resolution that sends a strong and clear message that the United Nations and International Telecommunications Union should cease its efforts to assert and impose unprecedented governmental regulation over the Internet” (http://xrl.us/bnjbdn).

"The US Government has recognized the Internet’s critical role in growing the global economy, its unique status as a platform for innovation, and the success of multistakeholder model that lies at the heart of its governance,” Google Chief Internet Evangelist Vint Cerf wrote on the company’s blog (http://xrl.us/bnjbfv). At WCIT, he wrote, “certain member states” looking to expand the ITU’s regulatory authority to the Internet “could change the Internet governance process as we know it, increasing state control over networks and substantially limiting the role of users and other vital, nongovernmental actors in important Internet policy debates.”