Vague principles for "forum"
Because the principles adopted this week are so broad, nearly everyone
involved in the discussions can boast a political victory.
The US stressed that the UN forum will have no regulatory power. "It will have no oversight function, (remain) non-operational and engage only in dialogue," Ambassador Gross said. We have "no concerns that it would morph into something unsavoury".
Gross also pointed to language in the agreement saying the forum should be "subject to periodic review" — meaning, he said, it will not become a permanent bureaucracy.
Also included in the broad principles: The forum shall "identify emerging issues, bring them to the attention of the relevant bodies and the general public", "facilitate discourse between bodies dealing with different crosscutting international public policies regarding the Internet" and discuss "issues relating to critical Internet resources".
UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, on the other hand, said the agreement highlights "the need for more international participation in discussions of Internet governance issues. The question is how to achieve this. Let those discussions continue."
Annan acknowledged that the US has exercised its Internet oversight "fairly and honourably" but said that change has become necessary. The United Nations has no desire to "control or police the Internet", Annan added.
That stance seemed to be an effort to placate conservative groups and businesses, especially in the US, which are alarmed at what some view as the prospect of a thoroughly corrupt and unaccountable bureaucracy seizing control of Internet management. A report released this week by the National Taxpayers Union warned that "controlling Internet content while securing another income source through the United Nations seems an attractive policy outcome for politicians looking to suppress dissent and to prop-up financially ailing bureaucracies."
The CompTIA trade association has stressed that it supports a "market-based solutions" approach rather than expanded UN control. So have a roster of tech companies including Google, IBM and Microsoft and members of the US Senate and House of Representatives. One reason why businesses are alarmed is the lengthy list of suggestions that have been advanced in the past by nations participating in the UN process. Those include new mandates for "consumer protection", the power to tax domain names to pay for "universal access" and folding ICANN into a UN agency. The United Nations has previously suggested creating an international tax bureaucracy and once floated the idea of taxing email, saying in a report that a one cent tax on 100 email messages would be "negligible".
Violence before summit
The lead-up to the WSIS has been marred by violence
against journalists and human rights activists. French journalist
Christophe Boltanski, who had arrived early to write about Tunisia
President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali's civil liberties record, was stabbed
in an assault by four men and not aided by nearby police. The Committee
to Protect Journalists said in a statement that such attacks are
characteristic of Tunisia's secret police.
In another incident, journalists and civil liberties activists planning their own summit on human rights were assaulted and detained by Tunisian police. In response, members of the International Freedom of Expression Exchange said they would pull out of the summit.
Human rights groups have warned for years that Ben Ali's autocratic regime has imprisoned and tortured political opponents and harassed full-time journalists and part-time online scribes.
