SEVENTH ANNUAL INTERNET GOVERNANCE FORUM BAKU, AZERBAIJAN

SUSTAINABLE HUMAN, ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT 8 NOVEMBER 2012

11:00WORKSHOP NO. 170

DEVELOPING A NATIONAL/REGIONAL FRAMEWORK OF PRINCIPLES FOR INTERNET GOVERNANCE

* * * * *This is being provided in a rough-draft format.

Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART) is provided in Order to facilitate communication accessibility and may not be a totally verbatim record of the proceedings.

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>> Good morning. Welcome all and thank you for being in Workshop 170, which is Developing a National/Regional Framework of -- can you hear me? Okay.

Welcome to Workshop 170, which is Developing a National/Regional Framework of Principles for Internet Governance. I would like to thank you all. It is the third day already. We are filled with events on the IG. So good to see you here.

I would like to welcome also the panelist, Jane Kauffman from ISOC. We have Olga Cavalli coming soon hopefully after she finishes a parallel workshop, and Billy Drake, and hopefully Carlos Alfonso. Actually, we are planning to conduct the workshop in an open dialogue format. We are not panelists as much as participants with you. This is to share ideas, to exchange views on the importance of having regional or national frameworks of principles on Internet Governance. The purpose of the workshop is to see whether this idea is important, is it an option that we can have right now? Is it needed or it is not needed?

So, actually, the purpose of this workshop is to engage in a dialogue rather than making a presentation or speech, et cetera. We want to conduct it in an interactive format.

I will just go through a brief description of the questions that we are addressing in this workshop just to give you an idea. And then we will move on to our main panelist.

The first question really that pops up to our mind is: Is a framework of principles for Internet Governance needed on a national or regional levels? And how it can play a role in improving Internet usage to all relevant stakeholders?

Question 2: Can the framework of a principle for Internet Governance replace regulation on national or regional levels? And what areas related to IG can it be applied and what other areas of IG regulation still will be the most suitable approach?

Question 3: What type of a process can be adopted to develop the national/regional frame work of principles on Internet Governance? How can we ensure that this process will be inclusive, multistakeholder? And what steps should be included in this process?

Question 4: In what ways consent on national and regional level can be reached to adopt this framework? And in what ways or means can it be brought into effect?

The fifth question is: Are there currently examples of such a framework? Do they exist?

So from that point, I will move on to our first panelist, Ms. Jane Kauffman of ISOC and I'll pass the floor to her.

>> MS. JANE KAUFFMAN: Thank you. My comments will be a bit provocative. I'm going to lay the framework and then ask you to think about what we'll put forward. Paul may speak and the others join us. But, again, this is a collaborative dialogue, based on many other principles that may be out there whether OECD principles, your own principles in your countries, we're trying to think of what we know works in different countries, whether it's a regulatory process, a bottom-open process, civil society process. Do we really need them in a collective whole? In a region or will it be hard to maneuver or be flexible in?

I'll read you a definition of collaborative governance I found on Wikipedia. It's a process and form of governance in which participants, parties, agencies or stakeholders representing different interests are collectively empowered. That's an important word. To make a policy decision or to make recommendations to a final decisionmaker who will not substantially -- not -- substantially change recommendations from the group. It's important, why are you doing what you're doing? And why are you inputting to a process?

Some other food for thought. Collaborative action. A question: Why are you engaging? Are you engaging to understand and collaborate and build trust to create change for a collective consensus-based goal or objective, policy process, national process? Or are you trying to take control over a process or in some cases are you trying to take control over Internet infrastructure?

And the reason I bring this up is that we have seen many

collaborative, open, bottom-up processes work, governance processes, particularly with Internet exchange points and that infrastructure development, which is not run by a government. Government may be involved to help facilitate. But it's usually run by a multistakeholder community of interests, whether they're ISPs, IXPs, civil society altogether, but when government's involved, can government facilitate? In some instances absolutely, but should it control? And if it does control, is it controlling for the good or is it controlling to take over the infrastructure? This is a concern that has come up in many contexts, whether it's a treaty context, if you look at the ITRs. Are you going together in a meeting to come together for a treat that I helps facilitate high-level principles? Or is it something that's coming in to take control? We have to think very hard about what that might mean.

The collaborative action. Examples of collaborative action where government has come together with industry or private partnerships to help encourage investment and infrastructure in a country.

Civil society in some instances has come together. Woman from India this morning during the access panel spoke about the importance of empowerment, different projects to bring villages together for mobile connectivity, that's a different example. Civil society-based, working with a village or region. We have domestic and local solutions with local purposes.

ISP, we know that open, inclusive and collaborative government has worked. It is very difficult to build that trust and that is something that the Internet Society has seen on the ground. We are grateful to colleagues that we've worked with over the years to build those infrastructures of trust but it takes time and a lot of dialogue. I would say that it's not something that happens during one conversation. If you're building an IXP, we've seen it takes two years sometimes for stakeholders to talk and to collaborate.

In addition to that collaborative governance, which is open, transparent, inclusive, those are some of the best principles we've seen, is it consensus-based that allows innovation, change and facilitates growth? Why are you doing what you're doing? And is that infrastructure flexible enough to allow for these innovation, change and growth?

With respect to a process, I think we've seen them all with different activities we've been involved with. Again, is it an open consultation? Is there transparency in the proceedings? Are you including all stakeholders? Do you reconsult? Which means after you've spoken to each other one time and talked to each other, do you go back? Because you can always change a process.

That's one thing I've seen with regulators, they're very afraid when they put together a regulation, if you don't talk to the stakeholders and you make a recommendation, you could absolutely hurt the infrastructure and if infrastructure development and/or the stakeholder processes that are going on.

Allow the change and don't try to control the entire process. Sometimes it's a very difficult process. People can get very angry with each other in first instances. You almost have to let it continue and that energy to build toward that trust factor.

That's where I'm going to leave off and turn to Paul, who has more specific example. But I've given you some broad ideas.

We know for a fact, I want to go back to IXPs for a minute. We do know for a fact that there are trust models that work, open, transparent, consultative and flexible. Again, we've seen it in around the world so it's not just in one part of the globe.

>> PAUL RENDEK: Thanks, Jane. Thank you very much. Good morning. I'm Paul Rendek from the IVCC. I'm going to try to first take us up a little bit and out into this big bubble that we're working in right now and then I would like to get down into the specifics of what Jane has said and give you an example of what I think works or one model that we can consider.

I think when you look at the questions that Qusai has asked us. How can is it to improve for relevant stakeholders if all relevant stakeholders do not have a place? That's a first question I think is a fundamental question. That is something everybody in the room can discuss about that. I don't think we need to debate. I think if you look at where we are now, all the different stakeholders, taking a look at Internet Governance and Internet administration, it's been a very long road the last couple years of what I would call a popularity contest. And that is every single stakeholder group running around to all of these large meetings such as the Internet governance Forum trying to find out what their role and what their place is in Internet Governance and Internet administration. It's been a very almost chaotic set of years that are behind us.

I've been lucky enough to follow this process from the beginning from the WSIS times, but we've managed to come together. I think everybody has tried to put their place in what they feel is their role in Internet Governance and we finally are able to sit down and have some positive dialogue. Wow. We have very different sectors that come together here. We have the government sector which operates in one way. We have for instance the technical community or civil society operates in another way. And I think that at the beginning we were really banging heads trying to see where we came together. It was almost a little bit of anger, I think, at the beginning.

I think where you come now. Here we are at the seventh IGF. There isn't so much anger around. People are understanding what is the process of the different groups we have? You understand how you would approach these groups. You've even actually managed to make contacts so that you can have public and private sector workings or private and public sector dialogues that seem to be progressive and positive. Wow. That's taken us, if you take a look at the time frame this has been, in my opinion, it's been a relatively short time frame.

So you can see, again, that there are movements like this happening. I can say that for the technical community, this was a very difficult for us to jump into. And I think I can explain why.

If you look at what Jane was outlining, collaborative efforts, I'd like to point out a group or a way of Internet Governance functioning that has actually taken place over the last 20 years. Catch that. 20 years. And that is actually the policy development inside the technical right community, inside the community that is responsible for allocating Internet number resources inside a very large group. In fact, the RIR, some of you are familiar with the regional Internet registries. They are the organizations that allocate the autonomous system numbers and the IP addresses, both IP version 4 where we still have the free pool left, and IP version 6 of course globally.

Now, the RIPE NCC, one of the first Internet registries around, actually is something that's relatively new compared to ripe. The ripe and the collaborative process of people coming together and discussing issues and looking at what were the issues regarding Internet networking back in the day, I'm talking 20 years ago, was an open and an inclusive and a collaborative process. So this model exists for quite sometime. I think that that's probably why you would see, for those of you that have had any deliberations with the technical community, that it may look a little stubborn or it may look and say we don't understand why these processes are so complicated because this is something we've been doing for years and years.

Now, I'm not saying that this is the perfect model or this is the only model that's there, but I think that if you look at what's been achieved over the time span and the fact that this kind of collaborative work has been able to embrace any kind of changes or any kind of new players that have come into the Internet ecosystem, I think it's worth taking a stronger look at.

So one of the things I wanted to say is that I think, again, you have differing opinions here. And we have those that are supporting this model and we even have certain governments that are adopting these kinds of open and collaborative models inside. And we're seeing great progress happening. But again we're also

seeing some governments or even some other parties that are actually pushing this kind of a model away and don't want to see this happening.

I think at some stage, in order for the Internet to develop the way we would all like to see it happening, we're going to have to come together. There's no way that any one party can do this over any other.

So I'm happy to see that in a process like the IGF, that this model has pretty much been adopted the way we can see it happening in all of these different areas. And I think that any of you that have followed this process can probably see some of the positive things that have come out of this.

Now, we're looking at this whole system here from a global perspective. And we're all trying to exchange the information and see what we can gather here. That's great. But if we look at what one of the questions that Qusai pointed out, he said are there national or regional frameworks that can be developed that are there that would help us with finding our way forward with Internet Governance? Of course. I think it's actually impossible to try to come together in just a global Forum and say "oh yes, we've come together, we've discussed, we've solved". No way. The world just does not work that way.

And if I could go back to the model and go down a little bit, as you can see there are these regional Internet registries. They operate very differently under the same model of this collaborative work, but the consensus that's reached in the different regions is very different. And when you come to the outcomes of how the administration of the Internet works inside of these different areas, why? Because the world is a different place. I think that has to be celebrated, right? So I think that we need to look at these regional and national areas and understand that these models can be brought here. And then this work can be brought to the global level and exchanged. Only then can you have good development coming from what you see from different regions and people sharing this.

And I'm seeing this happening out of the IGF. In fact, I am involved with my own organisation in making sure that we are where we have to be inside of all of this big region of 76 countries that we have to operate in and making sure that we can have collaborative efforts based on wherever anyone is in their model.

So I do believe that this works, this collaborative process works. So this was one of the things that I did want to point out.

I think that this is -- that the contribution that I'd like to make from that point. Thank you.

>> Thank you. This is really delighting. I'll shift to the

perception from our side, really. What it regard, the idea of this workshop. If we went through the events that we went through the Arab world, the Arab Spring and related to the Internet, we will find that we have two, let's say, sites. The people and the state. The state is aside and the people at the front side. While the Internet has been used effectively by people to suppress and organise themselves. The state shifted toward manipulating Internet access, manipulating the openness of the Internet based on the state interest. It may look illegitimate at one point or legitimate at one point but it manipulated openness and access in what it perceived was the state interest. Sometimes the state interest is for the good of the people; estimates it may not necessarily be for the good of the people. And also we have realise that the Internet itself became the target. It's not the social or economical conditions that regard an event or it's not the circumstances that trigger the event, but, rather, the state looked at the Internet as the target for -- or the source of the problem. It's a kind of misconception. It has been looked at in different levels. Not all the states were very harsh on the Internet. But the Internet was a target. While for the people the Internet was to address these social and economical conditions. So at one point the social economical -- and someone attempt to move away from the social economical condition and made the Internet as the target from the other side the people side, no, this was the tool for me to address if social or economical conditions. So this will regard the idea of how to balance the interest of people and the interest of the state.

A framework of principles may help us to build Internet issues among all stakeholders. We can agree that these are the issues that we want to address. These are the issues of a priority or a national level or a regional level, a framework or principle on a high level can be a guideline for us. A.

A framework of a principle can allow us to overcome the specific stakeholder group, not necessarily governments, not necessarily the private sector, not necessarily the CS. We all have, at a point, incapabilities to overcome in dealing with issues related to Internet. So overcoming our ability, let's say, because we are acting collectively.

It can also put element on regulation. Not necessary regulation should touch every aspect of the Internet. There are some aspects where the regulation is the proper mean and some aspects there are other means that we can address specific issues.

A framework of a principle can allow us to outreach bigger groups, it can allow us to build consensus or have a mechanism to build consensus, it can improve participation, it allow us to

listen to others. And we need to listen to others because what we have experienced from the year and a half in the past is that there are some groups that we omitted. We just did not outreach them. We just did not open a dialogue with them. Just has been omitted or taken out of the scene, let's say.

And moreover, we can understand what the common, the people need. Individuals and people may not necessarily belong to a specific stakeholder group. They are just common Internet users. But they have concerns. They have things in mind. In allows us to address them and understand.

Moving from that, and I just pointed to a point which is limit on regulation, why we have or why I'm talking about limit on regulation? First, let's be realistic. Internet. The Internet is to be regulated. As a user I would say it is too big to be regulated. It is also user-centric. The user secret, receive, impart and create content. This is why the Internet became so big, because we contribute as well as we take.

Internet is going through a constant change. This week is not like the next week. This month is not like the month after. In 2003, nobody knew about social networks in our part of the world. In 2005, we have millions of users on Facebook. In 2007, we have millions of users -- and something is coming down the road, definitely. So it's a changing environment. And we all know that regulation cannot keep the pace with the changes that's going with technology, with internet, and with its type of use. But does that mean we need to say that regulation doesn't have a place? No. Absolutely not. Regulation is still a proper tool for many things. Infrastructure.

When we talk about rights such as consumer rights, defining what is a Cybercrime, a privacy, these are the places where regulation should take place because it's building a trust. So whenever we need to build a trust on the Internet, maybe the best way so far we have is building -- is regulating things. So if we oriented the regulation toward building a trust in electronic transactions and the way we use the Internet, that's, of course, will be -- we will see that always regulation will play positive role toward the Internet.

On the contrary, we need to balance that with the user rights. So if I oriented the regulation toward, let's say, accountability, toward issues like legitimizing electronic transactions, e-commerce, e-signatures, addressing issues related to privacy, identity management to an extent, this is the places where regulation cannot be -- it would be the best approach.

While on the contrary, if I shifted regulation toward the openness of the Internet, toward somehow restricting access to the Internet, affecting the way I suppress myself or, let's say, put limits on innovation and so on, then the regulation will go

toward the other direction. It is taking the trust factor away.So when we say a limit on regulation, we are not saying take

it out. We are saying regulation should be always directed toward building the trust. And if we get it into that criteria, it will always play a positive and let's say an encouraging role.

Moving from that, what other options that we can have? We're talking about limited regulation, so what we can have on the other side?

Governments. Governments as an option. And many issues or areas that we have when we apply regulation to. So why governance would be an option? First, the word governance or the concept of governance, whether it was an Internet, and corporations and so on, wait always inclusive, transparent, multistakeholder, it engages in a dialogue. And this allows us to bring all relative parties together to reach a consent and what we want on a national level or a regional level from the Internet. And this can be institutionalized somehow. Maybe someone will be against the institutionalization, but it can be institutionalized or it can come institutionalization, a common better practice that is always used.

Governance is always based on frameworks. It is always based on principles. If we looked at the Geneva declaration for a principle, it always gave us a framework today. When we say how we learned ICT to development, we always lead to the Geneva declaration and say this is the framework that ICT can play a role in development. Somehow it worked. And it is proven that it is working although it is seven years old right now and it's talking about technology that's shifting and changing.

So governance is always depending on something that is flexible, like frameworks, principles, code of conducts, best practices. And these are all high-level this give us a kind of flexibility to deal with. It can give us a space to interpret it to our benefit, not to orient it toward let's say the interest of a specific stakeholder group, but it can always create the balance that can be acceptable to all rather than using regulation which works by laws or bylaws or rules of procedure and to create for us a bureaucracy.

Other than that, governance allows us to create a policy. For seven years on the global IGF, we are talking it's a platform for policy dialogue. It doesn't have an outcome. That's true. But it affected all the players that is around the Internet. If we saw the organizations that is involved with Internet or Internet Governance seven years ago and how they are today, they are more open. They are more inclusive. They are more transparent. Maybe not to the expectation of someone, that's true. But they are more open, more transparent, more inclusive. And you will find that it is mostly because these organizations,

they have a platform the for policy dialogue. They met with other stakeholders. They listened and they tried to accommodate to change as much as they could. And it's still going. So governments can work in that creating concepts.

Now, if we gave the chance to move toward governance rather than regulation, what opportunities we can have? It can do the following: First, we always look at governance as this stakeholder that always stopping the Internet development, the Internet expansion and governments are doing so-and-so. But actually with the government approach, will be much appreciated, they will have an opportunity to have a more representative -- that reflects the interest of all stakeholder groups. And this is what we want. Governments are the legitimate representative of people. They are the representatives of all stakeholder group interests. And they need to reflect that. And with governance, there will be more appreciated, more closer and they will bring more people.

We will be able more to realise national priorities or interests related to Internet and related to Internet Governance. Governance will allow us to listen to others and see what is most -- and see what is the most important issues that comes to their mind, whether civil society or the private sector or the other government entities and, let's say, individuals because governance always starts from a dialogue. And this will let us more close to -- it will make us closer to these stakeholder groups who would spell out their concerns and what they want to see.

It allows us to create a participatory process that is transparent and will transfer the Internet or the Internet Governance in a real public consultation tool.

One of the problems that there is a gap between the government and the common and trigger the events in some location of the Arab world is that there was a gap between the bureaucratic governmental thinking and between the people or the other groups. And nobody made the extra mile or the extra step to break this gap and listen to the other. For the government, this will allow them to transfer this Internet, this IG process into a public consultation tool that will always listen to what other stakeholders want or worried about or looks as a shortcoming from the government or as a positive aspect from the government.

And, of course, like in the last five, six years, we rarely saw a public consultation that goes for the Internet in our part of the world, at least. That will lead us to an improved relation among all stakeholders that can make the government a better -- for all stakeholders eventually on a national level it will create a framework for enhanced cooperation. And that's the

role of governance. If we look at paragraph 69 of the Tunis Agenda, we will look that asking government to conduct policy development with all stakeholders.

So with a governance process, based on a transparent, inclusive, multistakeholder approach, we on a national level can say what enhanced cooperation means to us nationally, locally rather than jumping immediately to, let's say, the international scene or the global scene.

My last part is do we have examples? Of course. We're not reinventing the wheel. Brazil is a leading example. They long time have a framework of a principle and they structured their Internet around that framework of principles from the regulatory side, from the operational side, from the social and economical side. They have a full structure that is based on an Internet Governance approach. Starts from nic.br. That's a national example. Do we have an example on civil society? Of course. The Internet rights and principle coalition, maybe many of you didn't hear about, they created at a point what is called the principles of Internet Governance. And it is there on the net, actually. Just go and access it.

Original example what the Council of Europe has developed, I guess, in December 2011. They launch what is called the Internet Governance framework of principles that is adopted, actually, by the member states of the Council of Europe. It is intergovernmentally true but it was based on a multistakeholder inclusive model.

Another example is the OICD, although civil society has reservations on that model, and they did have, but at least the OECD did develop a framework.

These are all examples that we can look at and learn from and may be reflected on a national or a regional level.

And I will end it with: We would not know -- we would not be able to know what we want from Internet Governance on a global level if we don't know what we want from Internet Governance from a regional level. And we would not know what we want from Internet Governance from a regional level if we do not have our national priorities set. So really the start is always from our national on the Internet Governance and then we move it to regional and then international. Otherwise we will always have a gap. I will finish and I will pass to another panelist. Dr. Olga.

>> OLGA CAVALLI: Thank you. I was late because I was panelist in the other workshop. I told both that I would be rude in another one and late in this one.

So thinking about your work and thinking about what has happened with regulation, I think I spent fairly important time of my professional life in trying to coordinate things among

people and trying to pull people together. I have been an adviser to the government of my country for 10 years so far. It's funny because I started with for two months small activity. And since then, being a person from the academic side and from the private sector, the government gave me a fantastic experience of new knowledge and new levels of complexity.

And what I realise is that things are organized sometimes in a very silo-style working methodology. And it is not easy to move from there because there are several things already established in the international.

For example, international meetings. Why some countries are not so much interested in being in ICANN. And I have talked to my government several times. You should go there. You are the ones that understand those acronyms. They are very difficult. Why should we go? Well there is an advisory committee where the governments are there and they have a say to the board of ICANN. Well, but you're the only one who understands that, so you should go. I say, fine, but I mean there are other people in the government that should be involved.

So it's difficult to move away from a specific way of thinking once that is established in the governmental agenda.

Other thing that I have tried to coordinate with some success is with other ministries. I am advisor of the minister of foreign affairs. And at the -- administrator of the foreign affairs. And at the same time other people from infrastructure do go to -- so we do coordinate on ITU meetings although we don't go to the same meetings. So sometimes during this year we sit down and exchange information. So now in the meeting in Dubai, I am not part of the official delegation, but we have some time for coordination.

And also, and I have been saying this in several workshops. I think that we have to develop -- we have to learn more than before. When I went to the university, I studied -- I'm an engineer. And I wanted to be an engineer just because I like mathematics. And then when I finished my career, I realized it was not about mathematics, it was about other things. It was about projects and doing things and dealing with teams of working and politicians and rules and regulations. So mathematics was far beyond in my desires, gone forever, perhaps. And that is something that we have to learn that when we do this multistakeholderism and we do this banding or we try to do this banding and relationship to build the regulations, we have to think multistakeholder, as well. We have to learn other things. I had to learn regulations and I didn't like it at the beginning because I'm an engineer. I'm not a lawyer, why should I do this? But I have to. And it's very important. So perhaps -- and I am also university teacher. An and I find this also universities.

Universities still think in subjects.I teach networking. And many of my colleagues that do teach

networking with me don't know about ICANN. They know that they are in the regions LACNIC, but they don't know -- why should I know about? Well, they provide the IP addresses. And they are changing from IP to IPCC? And they do meetings? Oh really? And they are very good. You can participate in that. You are university teacher and your students should know about it and they don't even know about it.

So I see the university, also, a place to work with. Although there are a lot of people that are very good academics in their own specialties, they need to learn about other things and to try to blend these things into the university knowledge. And also it's a very important challenge for the government. I think it's very difficult challenge for the government.

But I'm an optimistic person since I was born. So I have very optimist. This is why I'm a teacher. I like young people and I like their energy. So I think that younger people will do the change, slowly but surely, but us we are the ones, young in spirit, not so young in age, we also need to change this thinking and be more accountable for what we do and think and look at our colleagues and learn from them.

I don't know if I was -- I'm open to questions and comments. Thank you very much.

>> QUSAI ALSHATTI: I think, Paul, I would pass it to Paul. Thank you.

>> PAUL RENDEK: Thank you. So after all this discussion, tell me: Is regulation is bad word of the day? This is kind of what I'm seeing put on the table not only here but everywhere I'm kind of floating around.

My personal opinion: I don't think regulation is really the bad word. I think we have to find the right kind of mix between maybe what Qusai was bringing forward, Internet Governance and regulation. I think if you're going to be talking about regulation, I think the most important part to look at it is: How do we arrive at it? It's not that you actually build the regulation, but how are you arriving at that regulation? And if I can take us a step backwards, I actually want to maybe point out why we're having or seeing the word regulation coming into play and maybe why we're seeing Internet Governance or the ideas of what Internet Governance means floating at the other side.

Firstly, I think everyone needs to understand what the definitions are of the things we're talking about. Because the word Internet Governance, the word enhanced cooperation, the word regulation means very different things to very different, different people.

So I think before you can even start to have any kind of

progressive dialogue, you need to be able to point out what everybody's understanding of the definitions are. Otherwise, we're going to be talking around in circles, right?

And I think in many of the deliberations that I've had throughout IGFs, I haven't quite seen that everybody is on the same playing field and understanding what the different parties believe are the definitions. Okay?

And like I said, I wanted to back up a little bit. You know, this Internet beast that we have in front of us has grown and has snowballed. And I think one of the reasons why we see the word "regulation" coming in or the word "regulation" being such a bad word is because if you look at this, the Internet is something that was given to the governments. This is a very, very scary thought for them. Because things like public infrastructures that you see are always projects that are led by government or government bodies: Roads, telephone wires, all of these sort of things, electricity. These are all government-run big projects for their citizens.

The Internet, wow, this was not a government project. This thing has snowballed into such a large thing that is so important to the economy of really every country these days, this is, I think, one. Reasons why we see that governments have the compulsion to regulate, because they just don't have a grasp of this thing. And if I look at where the different parts of regulation are, if I follow the way that the Europeans are doing it or the way that the Arabs are doing this, everybody's in a different cycle of their development. It's not necessarily that regulation's right or wrong. I think that the different areas of where everyone is in their development is where they would pounce on this and try to put the regulation there and maybe understand what this means for their economy, for their citizens, for their culture, even, for instance.

So I think that if you want to reach the word regulation or understand what that is, I think you have to look at how you're arriving at it.

So whether it's the Internet Governance idea that Qusai has pointed out or even the regulation idea, why can't both have the same components? I think if you look at ways that things are reached these days, having smaller taskforces or having smaller working groups with different multistakeholders involved to give governments what they need to make the correct public policy and regulation, in my opinion, from what I've seen, certainly in the European countries where I've been involved with this, it's been actually quite positive. And then I think people accept regulation because it's something that they understand how you arrived at that point and you understand that it's good for the development of the country in making sure that your country is

developing its Internet.One of the big questions that I ask when I go to TRAs or

when I visit ministries of various countries from the technical community perspective is that I ask them: These policies and the regulation that you're putting into place here, what kind of an Internet are you going to leave for your children and the next generation if they cannot compete and cooperate on the world scene? And they're already doing this behind your back. So if you're not leading this for them -- leaving this for them, what kind a legacy are you leaving as a leader? This is what we have to ask with where we're going with Internet Governance. Thank you.

>> QUSAI ALSHATTI: Thank you, Paul, for your [Inaudible] descriptive governmental role. We need to engage in a dialogue. And this is the time of engagement, really, with the participant attendees. So I would really like to pass the floor to you for comments, questions or perceptions. So Dr. Hussein? Sir?

>> Hussein Badran from San Francisco. Thank you very much for the very, very enlightening presented by the experienced speakers. I just wanted to point out to comment I heard from Jane that matches my experience working the Middle East for many years. Governments in some instances open the door for consultation, getting feedback from the constituents and the stakeholders, private sector and in some cases all civil society, but we see that this process is mostly one-way in terms of the arguments and the points of views are being received, but the outcome of this consultation is not really reflected in the final regulation text, framework. And this lack much transparency and lack of effectiveness is turning people off in terms of engagement in the process.

We hope that after the Arab Spring and after the change of the political scene that the role of the public is so much higher now than it used to be a few years ago that this would change. We have an opportunity in some countries in the Middle East to effect change because many of the laws that have been drafted years ago are under re-evaluation and have been rewritten. In some countries in Egypt actually rewriting the Constitution as a whole.

So hopefully governments will take the public interest and the public arguments into consideration when drafting these laws. We are reviewing the telecom law in Egypt at the moment. And we had regular switch allowance in that law and also the open blanket for security agencies to get into tapping people and getting their information.

We had sessions of consultation or draft version of the law, but unfortunately we have not seen yet a second draft that takes our comments into consideration. And this is very important.

Governments need to understand that, yes, opening a door to feedback is not the end of the process; it's the beginning of the process. Also Paul has mentioned this very frequently. It is the beginning of the process. And people need to see that their concerns are reflected in the final outcome.

Process, still a one way communication have I have heard from one of the regulators of the Middle East, a leading operator, you have been invited to give your comment. The operator said yes. Did you give your comment? He said yes. That's it. That's the end. Now it's our job to come up with what we see with it. Thank you.

>> QUSAI ALSHATTI: Thank you, Dr. Hussein.>> Thank you. My name is Yave. I want my voice to make a

comment to say it as impulse last remark says something very, very important.

And the definition. Because something is happening in that we start talking sometime, talking about an issue and we don't have the same definition. We spend many days, many weeks, many years talking because everybody has a different view on the subject. So I think that is something very important we have to emphasize on in idea issues. We can say -- people will say we're going to organise idea every year because people are talking about IGF, what are people talking about IGF? We are going to organise IGF every six months. So I think the definition as you said is very, very important point and we need to understand first what we want to talk about before starting the discussion. Thank you very much.

>> QUSAI ALSHATTI: Thank you. You would like to reply?>> I would like to thank the last speaker and make an

observation. I used to work in mull dove an which is a country over near Ukraine. And I was working with a regulator. And I brought up the word stakeholder. Now, I was living in the part of the world which was next door to Romania which is famous for Dracula. There is one thing called a stake, they put in his heart. It is a wooden piece that is very hard and sharp. So I said well, we have to bring the stakeholders together. And they looked at me and they said: Is this meat that you're talking about? Or are you holding a steak like tuna or beef? Are you talking about stakes that you put into somebody, if it's a vampire if they exist? Is it a thing that makes the tomatoes stand up in your garden?

So what is a stakeholder? And I will tell you, I went on Wikipedia before coming here, multistakeholder, look at it on your computers right now, you won't find it. It's not on Wikipedia. And I thought, gosh, does everybody have the same definition? To your point this is very important. There are definitions online. I got my collective governance definition

there. But we do have to understand every country is so different. We come from different religion us and social and governance cultures. As someone who used to regulate and I think about the Internet and I think about Vint Cerf, who says it's permissionless innovation that the government allows. As Qusai says you cannot government the entire Internet. It has different networks and instantiations when you see it. So what is it you're talking about? It's a very important point you raise. We could misunderstand each other particularly with our own languages, as well. So thank you. Maybe that's something we think about moving forward. What are we talking about when we say we're coming together to talk about X or Y or Z. Thank you.

>> QUSAI ALSHATTI: Ivan, my dear colleague and then -->> Hosei -- from the United Nations -- I am responsible for

policies [Inaudible] North Africa. And I'm one of the cofounders of the Arab IGF. I have had the chance during the Arab IGF that took place last month to be on similar panel discussing the regulation aspect. And I recall my views during that time. I have some new ideas based on inspirations from the panelists. I think that -- and I use the word of Paul. It is not about word. Regulating is not a bad word. In fact, what we are trying to do is regulating the concept of regulation. We are trying to regulate the cognitive concept, the very concept of it.

I think very simple view regulation is avoiding collision. I mean if there is -- look at it like traffic signs. If there is not collision, if things are flowing normally, then, there is no need. I think it can be looked at in a positive sense where it is just a service that can or may be offered by a government just to stand up to the duties. So if there is a need, then it should be there. Otherwise absence of regulation a greater problem.

So maybe some of the people who have been involved in regulating the telecom dimensions, they have certain understanding; others, they don't have it. But generally look at it from a telecom perspective, it is very useful. I mean even if you look at the IR has been doing regulation. So regulation is not predominantly government as a side of the coin for the government. If regulation is a service that is needed when we want to distribute resources or avoid collisions or things like that.

And I like the word of vicinities surf when he said impermissible or innovations without permission. Yes, this is true. We don't need it as a priori phenomenon. We don't need permission. But innovation is there. And it creates collision. And a network professor, collision detection thing. So if there is a collision, maybe this innovation that would come at a certain point in time might need some regulation. So we don't have to be it from end of the word.

And I would like to move to the other point I want to bring to the audience is that according to the title of the panel today which is national regional frameworks for principles. We have an experience, according to our specificity in the Arab region, we have come up with a certain framework and we call it a road map for Internet Governance in the Arab region. And in the road map, we have put goals and certain measures for the attainment of the goals. And before that, in the preamble, in the very first chapter we put principles. And we inherited the principle that Quasai has been referring to from the Brazilian experience which is some democratic and -- is a principle. Innovation say principle. Unaccountability of the network and universality. So some very high principles. And we use this as a preamble to the framework. So I think this was really well accepted by the region. And it boils down end of the day to something like a Constitution or a constitutional declaration from which we can produce laws or bylaws or whatever.

I think the frightening thing for regulation is speed. Some people think it is going to handle. So the regulation itself is dynamic enough. It has a process that it is dynamic and it is following up all the changes. I think it would turn into a positive word and the gap in the international level and governance layer would really shrink. So the very idea of Qusai, the notion of principles, I support it so much, very simple principle, few bullet points that represent those common denominators for everyone is enough for every principle to produce its own frameworks. Thank you.

>> PAUL RENDEK: Thank you very much. I wanted to respond to that. You just made a fantastic point. One part in a region in a different time, in a different space of development, has taken a look at something that was done somewhere else, looked at it and then thought how does this fit and not fit us and what would we do for our region? Fantastic. That's exactly what we're talking about here. Again, I'm happy that you made the point about regulation not being a bad word. Although for someone like me, I should be sitting up here saying regulation, oh my God, get it away from me. But that's not how I'm thinking. I'm actually thinking how do we arrive at it? Which is what you're pointing out. I think if you come to the regulation at a point where it's done, wherever one can understand it and hopefully it's transparent enough, people will accept it. I mean it's something that's brought forward there.

And again I think that for the development and the stages of development and what you're leaving behind as an Internet for your next generation is very important here. Thank you. Thanks for making those points.

>> QUSAI ALSHATTI: Just as a extra point. The road map

that my dear colleague referred to was done by the regional commission of the UN for western Asia. And it was the base of the programme that we developed for the Arab IGF. I'll go to my colleague.

>> Yes, my name is Macanfi. I am from the European Commission from Africa, ECA, sister of -- in the African continent. Also the convene or of the African union of the African idea and we have developed what we call the terms of reference, just like the road map referring to, was based on the Paragraph 22 of the Tunis Agenda. That is what we based on. And then we came up with fundamental principles: Openness that was the first one. All organizations and institutions shall be free to join the Forum. That's what we did. Multistakeholdership. We encourage all stakeholders, governments, users in academia, private sector, international organisation also to join. And language diversity because we are in a continent where we have several languages where we wanted everybody to participate according to its own language.

Transparencies also we said that stakeholders shall strive to be open in decisions and in implementation. So that was part -- remote participation was also there for people who are not there to be able to take part.

During our meeting we held Cairo to 2-4 October. We had original idea where we had five African subregions, north, south, east central, west, southern or so who have participated. And some of the issues which were raised from the national idea for that, I think it is very important to state prior consultation is need today identify the national actor whose attributes, experience and expertise makes it the most suitable to play the role of the convene or. Because we need to have a convene or at the national level. In some countries you find the government just going alone or one private sector or one going it alone.

But this multistakeholder partnership should be the norm at the national level as it was at the African regional level. And we had agreed also the basis for discussion at the national fora should be topics of national importance for the country, should be the starting point before they go out looking for the IGF teams or of the African idea of team.

And also agreed they should have online discussions before coming to the first meetings to make necessary preparations and so on.

And also we agreed that capacity building should be continuous throughout the process during the national IGF and the regional IGF. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

>> QUSAI ALSHATTI: Thank you.>> My name's Edmonlia Kami. I came from south Sudan. And

I'm an activist. Among the activists who recently start looking

into issue of Internet Governance and I'm a student of law. Basically I agree with you. The word regulation is not a bad word.

The problem is how to arrive to it. And use of Internet Governance if we're going to arrive to regulations now as a key, let me say legal concepts to look into, criminology, how do you defined something as criminal in Internet? If we look at blockage, how do you define it in Internet world? If you talk of like legal permits in the use of Internet, how do you define it? And like at the level at my country, south Sudan, where we are really building up new Constitution, new policies, but the lawmakers, their age is not age of Internet, if you fell them there's Internet rights and freedom, they are asking you what are you talking about?

So I'm just supporting something what my colleagues are saying behind me is the idea. Yeah, it's the same thing. It's an issue of definitions. We need to really, really define it. Within one page if we talk about multistakeholders we need to be on one page because sometimes definitions make us get confused. Sometimes definitions start building a spirit of resistance. We start resisting. What do you mean exactly? For me it is nonsense. For me this sounds differently. So I am just adding my voice for us to have a clear definition. Multistakeholders is it Internet? Me what does it mean? My colleagues what does it mean? So thank you very much.

>> QUSAI ALSHATTI: Thank you. We go to Salam.>> JANE KAUFFMAN: One quick point. I would say regulators

have to have the confidence also not to regulate, right? Because if something's working, don't -- if something's not broken, don't -- so sorry, yeah, if it's not broken don't try to break it more, right?

One thing I would speak to the colleague from UNECA, some regions have had or I will point to the African union, colleague is in the back, August, have had the strength to take a look and work with the Internet community to try and create a Pan-African idea of how Internet exchange points should be put together. And it's not just one way as Paul is saying. There are lots of ways. But they've had the strength to make a decision to work with different interest groups to try and help create that infrastructure. And they're not trying to drive it in a certain direction but just let it grow. But working with governments and stakeholders across Africa. So they deserve some great credit for the hard work that they're doing. And we're very proud to be working with them on that.

>> SALAM: Yes, good morning. My name is Salam, I am from Lebanon. I have double head. I work with the government but also I represent the ISOC chapter in Lebanon. My question was

partly answered by my friend, Iman, about the overlaying principles. So really talking about three things. We were talking about the mechanism by which we do the open consultation and what it means. We're talking about the regulations. But we also are talking about the principles overlaying the regulations. And in my government limbo language, this means policies, right? And this is something I'm really interested in. Maybe well I'm interested in how do you, then, we know how to regulate the laws or regulations, but how do you in state levels so they are national, regional coherent? What is the mechanism by which we take such a road map prepared, maybe customize it a little bit more for Lebanon and make it law or make it binding?

>> QUSAI ALSHATTI: So if you can -- so, Salam, if I can understand your intervention, you said -- you're talking about how to conduct open consultations doing regulation and what the principles that we should follow and dog regulation which means eventually policy development. And this policy development, how can we make it binding? How we can customize it?

>> SALAM: I know guess it was the last question because the other questions were already answered. We went through. Basically it is how to go through it. And here is the question: How to make a policy binding what you call the framework? And is it necessary or not at the end of the day in the context of what we are talking about today?

>> QUSAI ALSHATTI: I will go to Iman and I will pass the floor to Olga and Jane.

>> IMAN: Thank you, Salam. I'm very happy to bring this point because it is like the kernel of the story. How to make principles in motion. How to put these principles into reality from the debate. I think these new principles are Constitution-style material. It is something like a charter. We have done that on a regional level, we can do it also upon a national level. Create a certain national dialogue on the very three, four, five main principles that this nation thinks should be governed under. For example, the network neutrality, innovation openness and things like that. And then certain declarations by stakeholders, because I like what you have done in the manifesto. And you do this national Lebanese charter for Internet, principles.

So by this, it takes certain power of Constitution. From that, policies would be driven upward. So this was the experience on the regional level. And I think it can be a very simple model to be done on national level. And if we have these charters here and there, you create these laws common wherever we go. I think what would make sense at the end of the day would make sense to every nation believing in the model.

We have done it on the regional level and our plan is to do

it on national. We can help Lebanon and we can make it from regional to national on principle framework.

>> QUSAI ALSHATTI: I'll give the floor to Olga, then to -- oh Olga, if you can start?

>> OLGA CAVALLI: Thank you. Thank you very much. About this principle issue. It's very interesting what you say. We need them, we don't need them. I come from a country, there are many people protesting in North Africa, we have seen this in the Arab Spring. I come from a country that had happen before in 2002, had a big crisis and the government went down because we were hitting our part in the streets, what we call caseralaso. So I know what I'm talking about.

So Internet Governance. And with this I was part of the national delegation and we are dear to the Tunis documents. We never sit together in Argentina to write these principles. But what happened since WSIS is that many things are concrete now.

We have a project, a national project of seven -- I'm bad with numbers in English. 7,000 kilometers of fiberoptic installed in the whole country with very high capillarity. That was not written in a certain principle. But we followed somehow the WSIS momentum. We also have a national digital TV project, which is free for everyone, of high quality digital TV. And it's free for everyone. Cable TV is very expensive. But this is full content of many -- for all interests.

So my comment is that there may be principles or there may not be not. The interesting thing is that if things are moving on do not create a regulation that may ban it or stop it. And sometimes you don't need to sit together and establish the principle. And sometimes it happens. Sometimes you need to do it because sometimes you need to, for example, in Internet exchange points in Argentina, we have many. And that is something that has been blessed by the government, but the government never intervened. But they like it. And it's something that came from the private sector. And so principles were not nationally established, but they happen. Thank you.

>> PAUL RENDEK: I wanted to make a very quick intervention to this. I know we have to wrap up and we are late for lunch. I'm sure you want to wrap this up. To what I have experienced in the last year and a bit that I've been in the Arab world. What I see when you're trying to reach your policies there, I think what happens a lot is that you're seeing this kind of open consultation with groups -- open consultation thing to do these days because it's popular. I see it happening in the Arab world. But what I see different than what I've experienced in some European countries I've been involved is that they already have cooked everything that they have to cook and then they bring everybody together, show it and then they walk off and that's

what's proposed or that's what ends up being put into the policies of the regulation.

I'm not really quite sure if that will win you anything. You might as well not go through the process because I think you're making people angry, really. But I think if you can -- if you can have the process -- I mean, look, for instance, I spend so much time when I go to these certain government meetings where they're talking about regulation and policies. They're as like technical community. Here you are. I'm sure you're going slam us with something that will derail this because you're from that technical community. I always see this kind of idea. That's at least how we had it at first in Europe. My explanation back is always: I am not interested in making public policy. Are you kidding? The technical community? We are way too busy running the Internet to be involved in making public policy. That's your job. But I'm hoping what I can do here with you is help you make better public policy, right? And I think that's what I'm saying even in my deliberations when I'm going around speaking with governments in the Arab world. I think that you can't just make -- and I think that's the point Hussein was making. These open consultation processes, but everything is already cooked. I think that creates more anger than anything progressive. Thank you.

>> QUSAI ALSHATTI: Last comment from sir.>> Hello? Is it okay? It's a pleasure to be a last

speaker. My name is Petku Concha from Bulgaria. I'm advising our own administration. Recently I'm chairing a very interesting group, independent group on the Internet issues. And I'm grasping more and more how sophisticated the Internet is and its governance, as well. And I fully agree with Jane that multistakeholder, or stakeholder, there is no word like this in any English dictionary neither in the Wikipedia. I have looked at it. But in my own report to the Secretary-General [Inaudible] so now there are many terms which mean very different things to different people. And what first thing I would like to suggest to you is by the IGF Forum is perhaps to set up a group of terminology and to agree on this and then to start using it rightly and to start building on that because not having that, I fully agree with Paul, we would not progress at all.

Secondly, I would like to bring you back to the history. The radio, the television, the pickup, or turntable or recorders, the cars, they were never created by incentives from the government. They were created by inventive people, ones who create the car, this was not a government programme. But the people started to like it. And then the government started to face the problem: Then what we do? Shall we leave it in full -- so the people will start killing them every day because they move

from right to left in any speed, any way, or we should regulate this? So the public did agree that the regulation is necessary and it is done. They have a code of conduct. They have traffic lights. They have speed limits. We have everything. And still they have casualties, but they are much less.

So, now, I don't think that in the Internet we have something very special. The principles of progress are applying to the Internet space, as well. And they need to have some sort of a governance. They need to have some sort of regulation. The question is: Which governance and which regulation? Will this going to be constructive, stimulating to further development? Or will this going to be handicapping the progress? And that is a thing which we have to make sure is not happening.

I agree with Paul that if the government would write up some sort of a strategy or regulation, they put it somewhere hidden in one website for 20 days and then they -- perhaps they will find one or two comments or not, this is a public participation that was done. I agree with Iman. This is the real thing which I am seeing in my country with the digital television introduction is that this process is leading to stakeholders. The whole thing is starting again. So they have to start involving all the people, interested parties, give them the freedom and the Forum to fight, to exchange ideas. And then to start understanding each other and to agree to common goals and principles.

Now, the last thing which I wanted to say is that still for us we are not very clear what Internet is. For example, cyber security issue is not understood at all by many people have many people they believe that this is something which is hidden [Inaudible] it is not that. So anything in the real life, they are having regulation; and if something is against the law, against the interest of the human being, the citizens, then the law is applied. So in the Internet sphere or space, we have to find out which are those few parameters which would be exchanged internationally so that the quick and voluntary action would be taken by the request -- by the requested government from the questioning one. And this is going to be done on the voluntary basis if you like to because [Inaudible] and all the people who got intentions, they may operate in any one country of 192 ITU members. So we have to make sure that it's simple. It's mutually acceptable. It is not counterproductive and conflicting with the national legislation and culture. I believe, then, we would clean up the progress of the Internet and accept [Inaudible] because believe me or not, this is becoming a basic commodity of life. We have to make sure this is happening in the right way. Thank you.

>> QUSAI ALSHATTI: Any final comments? I'm sure it's lunchtime and we need to wrap up. I would like to thank my

wonderful panel. Give applause. (Applause.) Thank you very much for being with us and for the wonderful

audience, really. And I hope this workshop was useful for all of us. Thank you.

(end of meeting)

* * * * *This is being provided in a rough-draft format.

Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART) is provided in Order to facilitate communication accessibility and may not be a totally verbatim record of the proceedings.

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