11.06.12 HAMADOUN TOURÉ:  Your Excellency, Deputy Prime Minister, Excellencies Ministers, Excellency Minister Wu Hongbo Under Secretary General for Economic and Social Affairs, ladies and gentlemen, distinguished guests, it is a great pleasure to be here with you today for the opening of the 7th annual meeting of the Internet Governance Forum which is taking place here in this wonderful city of Baku alongside the 18th edition of BakuTel, the largest ICT event in the Caspian and Caucuses region.

The IGF is an excellent example of multi-stakeholder in action.  This is hardly surprising as the IGF was one of the outcomes of the World Summit on the Information Society, the WSIS, which was the most wide-ranging, comprehensive and inclusive debate ever held on the future of the information society organised by ITU.

For the first time governments, the public sector, the private sector, intergovernmental organisations and Civil Society all worked together hand-in-hand for the common good.  ITU remains firmly committed to the multi-stakeholder WSIS process and has been afforded the leading manager role in terms of responsibility for the WSIS plus 10 review process following the endorsement by the United Nations Chief Executive Board of the plan of action for the overall review of the implementation of the WSIS outcomes.

I therefore look forward to welcoming you all to the next year's WSIS forum which, once again, will be the main forum for multi-stakeholder dialogue on the future of the information society.  The forum will be held in Geneva from 13 to 17 May 2013.

Distinguished colleagues, the 2013 forum coincides with the 5th World Telecommunications Policy Forum, WTPF13.  This event will be of very special interest to IGF participants as the team is international internet?related public policy matters.

The WTPF exists so that ITU membership can debate key issues in the world of ICTs in a low pressure setting.  WTPF13 therefore represents a tremendous opportunity to air the issues among fellow experts and I look forward to seeing many of you there.

In July this year, ITU council agreed that all 11 stakeholders should participate in the informal group of experts that has prepared the content for the discussion at the WTPF.  As a result, participation in the work of this expert group is now open to all 11 stakeholders and many ITU nonmembers, such as ICANN, Google and Paypal, to name just a few, are now actively participating in the WTPF expert group meeting.

With regards to ICANN, I would like to offer personal congratulations to Mr Fadi Chehade, the new President and CEO of ICANN.  Mr Chehade is well-known and highly respected by the ITU membership.  His appointment represents a new era and I look forward to the exciting opportunities that lie ahead and all that can be achieved together and in a positive spirit of collaboration.

Ladies and gentlemen, we are now less than month away from the start of the Conference on International Telecommunications 12 which runs from 3 to 14 December in Dubai.  WCIT 12 will review the international telecommunication regulations, the ITRs, which date back to 1988.  The current ITRs set the stage for the mobile revolution and the information society and we are confident that the 2012 ITRs will help assure us in the knowledge society.

Simply put, WCIT 12 is about putting ICTs in the hands of all the worlds' people.  It is about the free flow of information, promoting affordable and equitable access to all, including people with disabilities; the continued development of broadband, including an increased focus on energy efficiency, and combating climate change; it is about continuing investment in network, services and applications and perhaps, more importantly, in this very fast?moving world continuing to promote a harmonious and conducive international environment that drives innovation.

Governments who implement new provisions that might be provided by updated ITRs would help to stop fraud and other crimes, but some commentators have suggested that they could also legitimise censorship and we have to be very careful about that too.

The fact is, however, that ITU Member States already have the right, as stated in Article 34 of the Constitution of ITU, to block any private telecommunication which appear dangerous to the security of a State or contrary to its laws, to public order or decency.  The ITRs cannot overwrite the constitution and many authorities around the world already intervene in communications for various reasons such as preventing the circulation of pornography or extremist propaganda, racist behaviours or the promotion of genocide.

Clearly a balance must be found between protecting people's privacy and the right to communicate and protecting individuals, institutions and whole economies from criminal activities.  WCIT 12 is where these fundamental issues can be openly debated in search of a solution that is acceptable to all and let me remind you that no proposal can or will be accepted if they are not agreed by consensus.  This is the ITU way and have proven extraordinarily successful and durable over our long history dating back almost 150 years.

Other important barriers to connectivity that will be addressed at WCIT 12 are the serious obstacles faced by the 1 billion people with disabilities in the world today.  The ICT sector needs to step up to its responsibilities in this regard and find workable solutions that fully include all people and recognise everyone's potential in our shared need to be connected.

Indeed, this right to be connected is in itself enshrined in Article 33 of ITU constitution which is directly supporting to the critical use of freedom of expression and the right to communicate.

This is parallelled in the universal declaration of Human Rights.  Indeed, let me quote you Article 19 of that declaration.  Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression.  This right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.  So let me be absolutely clear: WCIT 12 is not in any way going to be challenging Article 19 or indeed any other Article in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and I hope to see that in the preamble of that document.

Distinguished colleagues, concerning WCIT and the internet, you will have seen misleading stories about ITU and the United Nations taking over the internet.  This is of course ridiculous.  ITU continues to play its role in the reality of the internet and, as we have done since the internet's inception, for example, through ITU broker and ITU approved global standards for the critical transport layers of the internet and internet access technologies.  But this does not mean that ITU want to take over the internet or control the internet.  Indeed, I don't even know what that might or would really mean in practical terms.

In any case, I can tell you, I welcome again the opportunity with organisations like such as ICANN and the new leadership  and fulfil our different mandates that are different but complementary for the good of human kind.

Before I close, ladies and gentlemen, let me say once again that ITU has been  and will continue to be an active participant in the IGF we continue to be working with the stakeholders and we are pleased to be able to offer a multi-stakeholder forum for open discussion of these and any other issues.  So let's continue working together to ensure that all the world's people can benefit from equitable, affordable and safe access to the internet.  I thank you very much.

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