Statement of the civil society Internet Governance Caucus to the Internet Governance Forum

Draft for discussion only 

The Internet Governance Caucus comprises a diverse range of individual and organizational civil society actors who are committed to the promotion of global public interest objectives in Internet governance decision-making.  The caucus was created in early 2003 and played a leading role on Internet governance issues for the broad civil society coalition that participated in World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) process. Some of its members were early proponents of an Internet Governance Forum (IGF) and active participants in the Working Group on Internet Governance (WGIG), which formally proposed the IGF’s creation in the summer of 2005.  The caucus strongly supported the WGIG’s proposal, as well as the consequent mandate given to the IGF by the November 2005 Tunis Agenda on the Information Society.

The Caucus remains firmly committed to the IGF and very much wants it to realize its full potential.  However, we are concerned by the seemingly growing possibility that the IGF will fall well short of fulfilling the mandate established in the Tunis Agenda.  We recognize that the IGF is still in its infancy, but do not believe it is premature to raise this concern now.  To the contrary, we hope that by doing so we can help to stimulate a much-needed open, inclusive, and constructive dialogue about the IGF’s mission and modalities.

There are many issues concerning the IGF that merit urgent attention, but we wish to highlight our views on three in particular:

1. The IGF must have the will and capacity to fulfill its agreed mandate.

The Tunis Agenda specifies that the IGF should, inter alia, facilitate discourse between bodies dealing with different cross-cutting international public policies and issues that do not fall within the scope of any existing body; interface with appropriate inter-governmental organizations and other institutions on matters under their purview; facilitate the exchange of information and best practices, and in this regard make full use of the expertise of the academic, scientific and technical communities; strengthen and enhance the engagement of stakeholders in existing and/or future Internet governance mechanisms, particularly those from developing countries; identify emerging issues, bring them to the attention of the relevant bodies and the general public, and, where appropriate, make recommendations; contribute to capacity building for Internet governance in developing countries; and promote and assess, on an ongoing basis, the embodiment of WSIS principles [e.g. transparency, multistakeholder participation, and a development orientation] in Internet governance processes. [emphasis added]   Here we would draw particular attention to the potential utility of formulating non-binding recommendations, and of assessing and promoting the implementation of “good governance” principles and best practices by the diverse public and private sector institutions and collaborations involved in Internet governance.

These are all critically important, value-adding functions that cannot be performed by any other Internet governance mechanism.  But while governments and other stakeholders agreed on them in Tunis, we have not seen any indication since then that the IGF actually will have the capacity to undertake them.  Clearly, an annual conference alone simply cannot do the job.  We therefore would welcome an opportunity to discuss with other participants how they believe the IGF could develop the capacity to fulfill these and other elements of its mandate.  If instead that mandate is no longer considered to be operative, we would like to understand how and why this has been decided.

2. The annual IGF conferences should be programmed and conducted in an open manner.

Members of the IGF’s Advisory Group (AG) should be appointed for one year and then replaced by new members who will program the following year’s conference.  The AG’s composition should reflect a fair balance between the major stakeholder groupings, which should be able to select their own representatives.  Participation by diverse constituencies from the developing counties should be made a priority, and resources should be allocated to support this objective.  The AG’s decision-making procedures should be transparent, accountable, and timely.  As for the conference itself, it should be a place where, as the WGIG recommended, “any stakeholder could bring up any Internet governance issue” and have an opportunity to initiate partnerships on related initiatives with other interested parties. While we recognize the constraints of a large group setting, the IGF should strive to maximize opportunities for fully participatory, bottom-up, peer-level multistakeholder dialogue.

3. The IGF should facilitate the formation of issue-oriented groupings alongside the annual conferences.

Here we endorse the views expressed by the Multistakeholder Modalities Working Group in its February 2006 statement to the IGF secretariat.  The IGF should establish transparent procedures for the formation and recognition of any dynamic coalitions or  informal working groups stakeholders may wish to organize on relevant topics.   All stakeholders should be able to create such groups on a bottom-up basis.  Any such groups should be open to all stakeholders that may wish to participate, transparent, and based primarily on virtual collaboration.  They could engage in a range of activities, e.g. inclusive dialogue, monitoring and analysis of trends, conducting studies, and developing recommendations for action.  The IGF also should define transparent procedures under which such groups could present any results of their activities for consideration in the annual meetings.  These steps would strengthen the engagement of stakeholders from around the world in the work of the IGF, and could significantly increase the IGF’s capacity to fulfil the mandate it was given.

Once again we express our strong support for the IGF and for the mandate it was given by governments and other stakeholders, and we stand ready to work with colleagues from all sectors to make the Tunis Agenda’s vision a reality.