[cctld-discuss] Fw: Christopher Wilkinson's text from Paris meeting on 3 July 2003

["Elisabeth Porteneuve" <Elisabeth.Porteneuve@cetp.ipsl.fr>]

Greetings,


There is a lot of very rich and interesting topics in presentations from
"Domain Name 2003" - Etats Généraux de l'Internet, held in Paris on 3 July
2003 (cf. http://www.eurocio.org/domainname/, under "Documents"), which I
recommend to you.
In particular the presentation by Christopher Wilkinson is very well written
(no surprise !), with several interesting ideas.


What Wilkinson says on substance:

(1) It seems impossible that Internet governance be anything else than
private-public partnership - this kind of solution to global Internet
governance is the only viable way forward. Any idea about an
inter-governmental solution can only lead to the failure, because of its
inherent impossibility to be implemented, absent the cooperation of relevant
constituencies and operators worldwide, that would clearly not be
forthcoming.

(2) In general the governments are happy to deliver non mandatory advices
and to remain within a Consultative Committee GAC. The basic reason for that
is that GAC members themselves insisted that the ultimate responsibility for
ICANN decisions - and eventual liability - must remain with the ICANN Board.

(3) The Internet's architecture, technology and protocols do not conform to
those of the international telecommunications system. The UIT was a place to
inter-connect disparate telephony, to unify and make standards, and to
validate interoperability through formal links and agreements between States
and by an international treaty, while the Internet is global since its
inception, there is nothing to inter-connect;

(4) When the governments understand how the Internet works, their real
demands are not for sovereignty over their bit of the Internet, but rather a
shared authority over critical functions for the global Internet as a whole.
Contrary-wise, if all that most governments can ask for, and hope for, is
sovereignty over their ccTLD, in practice that would reduce, not increase,
their influence over the Internet in their jurisdiction. A very bad deal
indeed. On the contrary, the GAC in relation to ICANN does provide a forum
for the development and implementation of shared public authority, where
necessary.

(5) the role of the ccTLD is fundamental, and shall be seen in lights of
what precedes.


Kind regards,
Elisabeth

NB. Original PDF is attached.

christopher_wilkinson_ang.pdf