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Source: http://www.ntia.doc.gov/speechtestimony/2011/remarks-assistant-secretary-strickling-internet-governance-forum-usa

July 18, 2011
Remarks by Lawrence E. Strickling
Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Communications and Information
Internet Governance Forum--USA
Washington, DC
July 18, 2011
-As prepared for delivery-

Thank you for the opportunity to speak once again at the IGF-USA. I
want especially to thank Marilyn Cade for her work in pulling together
the third edition of this meeting and I am glad to have had the
opportunity to speak at each of these sessions.

We are at a critical time in the history of the Internet. Last month
I spoke at the Internet Society’s INET meeting in New York City where
the question before the house was “What kind of Internet do I want?”
I answered that I wanted an Internet that is open, innovative, growing
and global and that continues to rely on the established global
Internet institutions for guidance and direction.

But in the last year we have seen more and more instances of
restrictions on the free flow of information online, disputes between
various standards bodies and even appeals from incumbent carriers in
Europe for government intervention on the terms and conditions for
exchanging Internet traffic. We have seen statements by international
organizations and even some governments to regulate the Internet more
directly. All of these events only strengthen my view that now is
truly a time for all to get involved who are concerned about
maintaining a vibrant and growing Internet and who want to preserve
established global Internet institutions. When we speak of global
Internet institutions, we are referring to multistakeholder
organizations, like the Internet Society, the Internet Engineering
Task Force (IETF), and the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), that have
played a major role in the design and operation of the Internet.

A top priority of the Obama Administration, and in particular, NTIA,
is to preserve and enhance the multistakeholder model that has been a
hallmark feature of the global Internet institutions that have been
responsible for the success of the Internet. Maintaining the openness,
transparency, and user choice of today’s Internet can only be
sustained and advanced in a world where all stakeholders participate
in relevant decision making, not one where governments, or other
stakeholders, dominate. We believe that preserving our existing
institutions while extending this model to other aspects of Internet
policymaking is important for ensuring the continued growth and
innovation of the Internet.

Today, I would like to discuss some recent events where we have made
substantial progress on our goal to protect and enhance the
multistakeholder process for Internet governance.

First, many of you know that I have devoted a lot of time in speeches
to the accountability and transparency of ICANN, the multistakeholder
organization that coordinates the Domain Name System for the Internet.
Starting last year, as one of its commitments to the global Internet
community set forth in the Affirmation of Commitments, ICANN undertook
a detailed review of its accountability and transparency. I had the
privilege of participating on the team that conducted this review. It
was truly multistakeholder, with members from around the globe
including China, Egypt, and South America, representing elements of
the global Internet community such as registries, registrars, users,
and governments. The team completed its review last December and
issued a report with 27 recommendations to the ICANN Board for
improving accountability and transparency at ICANN.

A little more than three weeks ago, at its meeting in Singapore, the
ICANN Board adopted these recommendations as proposed by the review
team. I am very pleased by the Board’s action, which demonstrates a
commitment to improving the accountability and transparency of ICANN
and to the multistakeholder process of Internet policymaking. Now the
focus turns to ICANN management and staff, who must take up the
challenge of implementing these recommendations as rapidly as possible
and in a manner that leads to meaningful and lasting reform.

These recommendations, when implemented in a thorough and meaningful
way, will measurably improve the accountability and transparency of
the organization. And while a lot of people worked very hard to get
to this point with ICANN, I think the success of the effort so far
illustrates an important point about multistakeholder organizations.
Multistakeholder institutions derive their legitimacy from the support
and active participation of all stakeholders. Accordingly, they are
more likely than regulatory or treaty-based organizations to adapt to
change and evolve when the stakeholders demand it. It is difficult to
imagine employing a similar process to reform more traditional
regulatory agencies as quickly or as thoroughly.

The other big news in Singapore was ICANN’s decision to move forward
to expand the number of generic top level domains, or gTLDs. While
that decision may not have satisfied everyone, the process used by the
Board to reach its decision is worthy of note. In response to
long-standing concerns held by governments about the expansion
proposal, the ICANN Board held a number of focused exchanges with the
Government Advisory Committee to resolve as many of the issues as
possible. These exchanges represented the first meaningful
interactions between the GAC and the ICANN Board since ICANN’s
inception and it is critical that the lessons learned through these
recent interactions result in clear, predictable processes for the
ICANN Board and the GAC going forward.

>From our perspective, ICANN improved the new gTLD program by
incorporating a significant number of the GAC proposals. The fact
that not all of the GAC’s proposals were adopted does not represent a
failure of the process or a setback to governments; rather, it
reflects the reality of a multistakeholder model. More important is
the fact that the ICANN Board now recognizes the need to bring
governments into its multistakeholder policymaking in a more
meaningful way. If we are to combat the proposals put forward by
others, such as to grant the International Telecommunication Union the
authority to veto ICANN Board decisions, we need to ensure that our
multistakeholder institutions have provided a meaningful role for
governments as stakeholders.

A second major achievement of the last month was the action taken by
the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in
Paris at the end of June to adopt a set of Internet policymaking
principles.

The occasion was the OECD’s High Level Meeting on the Internet Economy
for senior decision-makers from governments, the private sector, civil
society, and the technical community and it was an unprecedented
opportunity to advance the global consensus around the working
multistakeholder model that we believe is critical to the Internet’s
continued success.

Participants at the meeting agreed to a communiqué on policy-making
principles that will create the conditions for an open, interoperable,
secure, and continually innovating Internet. The communiqué reflects
a growing global consensus on the value of the multistakeholder
approach towards addressing Internet challenges. The principles are
not intended to harmonize global law, but rather provide a common
framework for companies and governments as they consider Internet
policy issues.

The OECD member nations endorsed the policymaking principles as did
the business and technical advisory committees. The civil society
advisory committee could not endorse the entire document due to its
concern with provisions relating to online protection of intellectual
property. However, everyone supported the plank encouraging
multistakeholder cooperation in policy development processes.

So, with these actions in Singapore and Paris, where do we go next?
What is the call to action for all of you?

First and foremost, do not take the OECD principles as the end of the
work. Really, we are just at the beginning. Reaching an agreement on
the OECD language was a challenge, but our history with those member
states and ideological similarities gave us confidence that we would
eventually reach consensus. However, some other nations, many with
less experience with the multistakeholder model, may be inclined
instead to support treaty-based structures for Internet governance. It
is our job to advocate for this model and highlight how this
multistakeholder process protects their national interests.

The United States is most assuredly opposed to establishing a
governance structure for the Internet that would be managed and
controlled by nation-states. Such a structure could lead to the
imposition of heavy-handed and economically misguided regulation and
the loss of flexibility the current system allows today, all of which
would jeopardize the growth and innovation we have enjoyed these past
years. The OECD’s policymaking principles are perhaps the clearest
statement yet that the United States and like-minded nations oppose
treaty-binding regulation of the Internet.

Now our challenge is to convince the rest of the world of the
advantages of the multistakeholder approach. Next November, the
United States will participate in the ITU’s World Conference on
International Telecommunications (WCIT). This treaty negotiation will
conduct a review of the International Telecommunication Regulations
(ITRs), the general principles which relate to the provision and
operation of international telecommunication services. We can expect
that some states will attempt to rewrite the ITRs in a manner that
would establish heavy-handed governmental control of the Internet and
cybersecurity. These are the countries that we, including all of us
in this room, must reach to promote the multistakeholder model, and
our work must begin right away.

The IGF in Nairobi will provide us all with an excellent opportunity
to get started on this important task. I will use speaking
opportunities at the IGF and the Government of Kenya’s Ministerial
meeting to explain why we feel multistakeholder Internet governance is
so valuable to preserving and enhancing a dynamic Internet and how it
can be most useful in countries with little tradition of employing it.
My team at NTIA will also work extensively at the bilateral level
over the next year to spread the message. We ultimately hope to
attain a global consensus on Internet governance that will preserve an
open, interoperable, secure, and continually innovating Internet. But
we need your help.

Before I close, I would like to remind everyone of the July 29th
deadline for responses to NTIA’s Further Notice of Inquiry on the IANA
functions contract. This process is the first comprehensive review
of the IANA functions contract since the award of the initial contract
in 2000. We have been conducting what I hope the community agrees is
an open and transparent process on the contract. Based on comments
received to our original notice, we have gone back to the global
community to confirm that we interpreted correctly what was said in
the comments. We set forth our tentative conclusions in response to
the comments and then provided a draft Statement of Work for public
comment. This is the first time NTIA has sought public input on the
draft Statement of Work. In keeping with our commitment to the
multistakeholder model, NTIA is actively seeking the input of global
stakeholders. I encourage you to all carefully read the Further
Notice and submit comments by the deadline.

In closing, let me assure all of you that the United States government
is committed to the multistakeholder model of Internet policymaking.
We are encouraged by the fact that support for the model is the
consensus view of the participants in this conference and we look
forward to working with all of you to build a global consensus on this
principle with nations around the world. Thank you.