Last night, Stanford Law School’s Journal of International Law and CALinnovates welcomed a prominent world telecom figure to Silicon Valley: Dr. Hamadoun Touré, the Secretary General of the International Telecom Union (ITU) to a two –day conference titled "The Virtual Battlefield: Securing Cyberspace in a World Without Borders" at Stanford Law School. The ITU chief was accompanied by Marco Obiso, Cybersecurity Coordinator of the Telecommunications Development Bureau of the ITU.
Dr. Touré’s remarks did not focus on cybersecurity however, but instead reviewed the treaty struck at last December’s 2012 World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT) which took place in Dubai. He touted that 89 countries signed the treaty at the conference, and two have signed since then. To put it in context, 55 nations declined to sign the treaty at Dubai, including the United States.
At the WCIT conference, nations discussed proposals for new International Telecommunications Regulations (ITRs) that sought to update a binding 1988 treaty. The 1988 treaty governs important principles relating to international telecommunication services and transport, interconnection and interoperability of telecommunications facilities, and accounting and settlement of international voice traffic. These are telecommunications policies dating back to the landline telephone era. Since 1988, the advance of technology has radically changed the international telecommunications marketplace, including most prominently, the creation and growth of Internet networks and IP-enabled services.
At WCIT, several countries proposed to move oversight or "control" aspects of the Internet and Internet development from the current non-governmental, multi stakeholder bodies such as ICANN, and put them in the hands of the United Nation’s ITU. In the months before WCIT, Internet stakeholders, a number of Western countries and policymakers expressed concerns that some ITU Member States could seek to leverage these telecom treaty negotiations to take greater governmental control over the Internet (perhaps with hidden intent to quash content unfriendly to these regimes). Deep tensions arose between those who favor the current open, multi stakeholder model of Internet governance, and those countries who favor national governmental control over Internet systems in their countries. In the aftermath of the WCIT meeting, the Internet Society has labeled the final treaty text as "disappointing." Questions are now being asked about implementation of the treaty, and the impact of the lack of consensus on the growth of global networks. More importantly, what is the role of nations in governing the Internet, which quite frankly, does not recognize political borders.
An elected official, Dr. Touré reviewed the 10 articles of the treaty in his talk, portraying each as necessary, positive, and benign. He was bemused that discussion of this treaty brought politics into the ITU’s arena "for the first time", and touted a moment during the WCIT conference when the US and Iran agreed upon a position. "This is a good example of how the world can work together," he said twice.
Dr. Touré said the heart of his concern is the fact that 4.5 billion people (2/3 of the world’s population) are not connected to the Internet. He acknowledged significant progress has been made in the last decade to bring access to the Internet to many people. He believes that connectivity – particularly through mobile wireless devices – is critical for self-expression. A key concern he expressed was how to ensure we have enough investment in infrastructure, particularly in the developing countries such as Africa to ensure that with the multiplying growth of Internet traffic, the world’s networks can handle it. Further, he voiced concerns that Internet access is affordable. Finally, he expressed concern about service quality and Net Neutrality, the latter term he quickly defined in terms of "infrastructure service quality" and not content.
Dr. Touré’s discussion of each article of the treaty touched on the declaration of human rights, and his perceived need for: Quality of Service technical requirements; principles of reasonable mobile roaming charges; access to emergency services perhaps using an international dialing symbol; a provision for technical tools controlling spam for network stability; "competitive network pricing" to promote broadband in rural areas, particularly mobile Internet; and looking at ways to ensure that disabled persons are not on the wrong side of the digital divide.
During the question-and-answer session, Richard Bennett, Senior Research Fellow of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation who attended the Dubai meeting, raised the issue that a number of the WCIT treaty provisions were quite controversial with major groups representing Internet stakeholders, including the Internet Society and by the many major countries who declined to sign the treaty. He suggested that should some of those controversial provisions be taken out, such as Quality of Service requirements particularly in the IP-enabled networks, there might be grounds for agreement.
Dr. Touré expressed his belief that there are problems which impact consumers, but objected to Bennett’s characterization that the ITU is seeking to take control over these issues via the treaty. He noted that any country can sign a treaty and lodge a reservation as to a particular article. This answer seemed to miss Bennett’s larger point which was why the ITU felt it needed to assert itself when the Internet governance issues are resolved in a transparent, open, multistakeholder manner today. It brings to mind the old saying, "If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it."
The conference continues today at Stanford Law School with three panels on Unpacking the Cyberthreat; The Future of Cyber Vigilantism: Private Actor’s Role in Policing the Internet; and the Promise and Pitfalls of Multilateral Cooperation for Cybersecurity. The conference is free and more information may be obtained at: https://www.law.stanford.edu/event/2013/04/11/the-virtual-battlefield-securing-cyberspace-in-a-world-without-borders.
