First step towards the Internet Governance Forum
Geneva. Today the Consultations on the Convening of the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) started, which is going to take place in Greece, the 24th to the 26th October 2006. This meeting is result of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), where Internet Governance was identified as one of THE important issues of information society.
The World Summit on the Information Society was the first summit in the framework of the United Nations, which practised a multistakeholder approach. This was not an easy way and today it seems that all governments agree on the multistakeholder approach for the IGF.
Renate Bloem of the Confederation of Nongovernmental Organisations (CONGO), called this is “A Signal for Future Diplomacy!”
Of course, we have to take into account, what power governments want to give to the IGF. And here we can find clear differences. Whereas the Brazilians want to use it as a Forum to develop Public Policies and to prepare an International Convention on Internet Governance, the American Government just wants to have the IGF as a place of debate. But still, the agreement on a “multistakeholder approach on an equal footing” is a step forward.
This first meeting today is mainly about finding procedures for the IGF. Most important for civil society members (many members of the Internet Governance Caucus and the At-Large Advisory Committee to ICANN) is, that the IGF would not be misused to only discuss “soft and smooth” issues like capacity building and others, which of course are important too.
Instead Civil Society stressed the need for building up on the WSIS and find ways to implement the principles already agreed on, but which are not free of conflict: For example, to find a way to translate the Human rights principles - like freedom of expression, privacy, access for all to infrastructure and content of the internet - and implement these Human rights principles in Internet Governance mechanisms.
