U.S. Will Prevent Changes to ITRs Regarding Internet, Strickling Tells IGF
BAKU, Azerbaijan -- NTIA Administrator Lawrence Strickling said the U.S. remains strongly committed to preventing changes in the International Telecommunication Regulations (ITRs) that would subject the Internet to U.N. oversight. Speaking at the opening session of the Internet Governance Forum, Strickling said people all over the world know how partisan and contentious the U.S. electoral campaigns have been, but “on one issue all Americans stand shoulder by shoulder: that the Internet remains stable, secure and free from governmental control."
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"When our Congress finds little to agree [on], what it does support is the multistakeholder model” for Internet governance, Strickling said. The success of the Internet has been the result of collaboration, he said. Strickling applauded a letter by civil society groups criticizing the lack of inclusiveness and transparency of the World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT) preparatory process. WCIT is scheduled to meet Dec. 3-14 in Dubai.
Any proposed revisions of the ITRs should be confined to the traditional scope of the ITRs, where international regulation was limited to necessary technical issues of telecommunication networks and interoperability standards, the civil society groups said. “There should be no revisions to the ITR[s] that involve regulations of the Internet Protocol,” said the declaration signed by over 20 nongovernmental organizations, including Access, the Center for Democracy and Technology and Consumer International.
Richard Beaird, U.S. State Department coordinator, international communications and information policy, said during a workshop session Tuesday that the U.S. delegation included all stakeholders at near-even terms. “First of all, we want to maintain minimal changes to the preamble to the 1988 ITRs,” he said. The goal is to maintain the standards of the 1988 ITRs, “which consists of nine pages of text, and we wish to come away from Dubai with nine pages of treaty text.” Other cores of the U.S. position are to keep recommendations voluntary, instead of making them mandatory, he said.
Brazil sees the WCIT as an opportunity to update the ITRs, but favors a “treaty of principles, not a treaty that will go to specifics,” said Franklin Silva Netto, head of the Division for the Information Society at the Brazilian Ministry of External Relations, during the WCIT workshop. To mix provisions for telecom and Internet operators is not possible under Brazilian law, he said.
A lot of consensus has already been built for WCIT, said WCIT Chair Mohamed Al-Ghanim, director general of the Telecommunication Regulatory Authority of the United Arab Emirates. He said he intends for the meeting in December to spend only one day on those issues already agreed on during preparatory rounds, to allow nine days for the still-contentious issues.