WSIS+10 Gets Underway Ten Years After UN Internet Summit

Ten years after the UN World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) member states and stakeholders are meeting this week for the WSIS+10 High Level Meeting in the UN headquarters in New York to review a decade of developments in internet governance.

Changes recorded in the draft outcome document that has been prepared beforehand include considerable growth in mobile phone (2.2 to 7.1 billion users) and internet usage numbers (now 43 percent globally).

With regard to the management of critical internet resources which brought WSIS negotiations in Geneva (2003) and Tunis (2005) to the brink of failure, the potential withdrawal of the US from its oversight role over the internet domain name system is a big development.

The third, and many hope final draft, of accountability for the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) is still up for a few days of consultation.

Speeches during a side event yesterday on the eve of the high-level WSIS+10 meeting hailed the broad global acceptance of the multi-stakeholder model for internet governance as one of the results of the first post-WSIS decade.

But the discussion over the roles of governments in multi-stakeholder and the relation of multi-stakeholder versus multilateral remains. Not only the UN-led Internet Governance Forum will get a nod to continue for another ten years, the controversial enhanced cooperation will as well.

For some countries, a call for added influence of all governments in internet governance decisions will live on in yet another Commission on Science and Technology for Development Working Group.

A big side event after the WSIS+10 High-level Meeting also looks at terrorism and the internet, and terrorism as well as better oversight over state surveillance have both made it to the WSIS+10 document, side by side.

For first thoughts on the WSIS+10 document, check the Internet Society (ISOC) president’s post.

CIRA CEO Byron Holland’s post is here.

A post concerned over lack of net neutrality decisiveness by Member of European Parliament Marietje Schaake is here.