Internet Groups Must Encourage More ‘Developing World’ Participation in WCIT’s Wake, Verveer Says

The results of the World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT) show the West must find ways to enable developing-world participation in the current multistakeholder Internet governance model, said Philip Verveer, U.S. coordinator for international communications and information policy and a member of the U.S. WCIT delegation, at an Internet Governance Forum event Friday.

A narrative had developed prior to WCIT in many of the countries that ultimately signed onto a revised version of the International Telecommunication Regulations (ITRs) that said “’the Western world, especially the United States, came to Dubai intent on maintaining its absolute control over the Internet and its mechanisms,'” Verveer said. Those nations consequently believed the U.S. and its allies were entering the conference with the intent to negotiate in bad faith, “and this is the thing that eventually led to the conference having the dramatic scope that it did,” he said. The revised ITRs that emerged at the end of WCIT earlier this month included several provisions that led the U.S., Canada and others to not sign onto the treaty. Eighty-nine ITU member states have signed the ITRs, while 55 will either not sign or remain undecided (CD Dec 17 p1). Thirty-nine European nations within the European Conference of Postal and Telecommunications Administrations (CEPT) will not sign the treaty, CEPT said Friday. (See separate report in this issue.)

The multistakeholder participants that make up the Internet governance system are welcoming groups, but “there are obviously income constraints, there are cultural complexities, there are a whole range of things that make these specialized institutions less congenial for people from the developing world than they are for people from the developed world,” Verveer said. “I think that, as much as anything else from the consequences of Dubai, is that we have to find improved ways to make these organizations in practice more inclusive."

Funding will need to be available in order to increase participation in meetings like WCIT, said Harold Feld, senior vice president at Public Knowledge and a member of the U.S. WCIT delegation. The costs associated with attending WCIT were high even for members of civil society in Western nations, he said. “This was an enormous investment for [Public Knowledge] in terms of our overall resources,” Feld said. “While we remain committed, it’s very clear that for us there are a lot of issues of how we can participate going forward simply because we, like every other [non-governmental organization] in the world, has funding issues and concerns."

Many of the nations that signed the revised ITRs have developed “hard feelings” as a result of WCIT negotiations, said Chip Sharp, director-technology policy and Internet governance at Cisco Systems and a member of the U.S. delegation. “They didn’t feel very good toward the non-signatories at the end of this conference,” he said. “Some countries felt that the U.S. went in with no intention of signing the treaty no matter what happened. I can say personally that I spent a lot of time trying to get something in shape that everyone could agree to. And I thought we were really close at the end, but not quite close enough."

The debate over Internet-related issues also pushed other issues at WCIT to the sidelines, making the conference a missed opportunity to increase “investment in broadband to connect more people around the world to the digital future,” said White House Cybersecurity Coordinator Michael Daniel in a Friday blog post. The U.S. delegation’s final set of proposals to WCIT included a provision encouraging governments to enact regulatory reforms that would encourage investment in broadband and other telecom infrastructure (CD Nov 1 p4). “We reaffirm that our Administration is committed to connecting more across the globe to modern technology -- and will do so both directly, and in forums positioned to address real needs in a constructive way,” Daniel said Friday. “The [U.S.] believes that expanded global access to telecommunications services and broadband Internet -- combined with an inclusive Internet governance model -- remains the best path towards economic growth that benefits everyone” (http://xrl.us/bn7hgb).