WSIS to Consider Internet Governance Under U.N.

penciling_in writes "The World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) starting next week in Geneva is expected to attract more than 50 heads of state and 6,000 delegates who will address issues from the digital divide to Internet governance. It will be addressing the broad range of themes concerning the Information Society and adoption of a Declaration of Principles and Plan of Action, which reportedly includes a recommendation to place the governance of the Internet under the United Nations. In response to issues leading up to this event, CircleID has been running a number of articles including Karl Auerbach's piece, 'Will ICANN Reveal Its True Self To WSIS?' and an extensive Interview (Part I | Part II) by Geert Lovink with Milton Mueller, author of 'Ruling the Root', one of the first detailed investigations into the Internet domain name policies." There's a Reuters story on this conference.

Comments

If you read the proposal....

[Matt Clare]

...it's basically just changing the name of ICANN and perhaps the members. I actually think that something like this is a good idea. After all, ICANN is right now subject to the American courts, what if the RIAA says decides that it can sue ICANN for assigning IPs to music swapers? If ICANN where to become a UN agency (and never change staff, never leave Cailiforina, etc.) it would be beyond domestic courts. I think it would look a lot like UNESCO. Though I do stress that something like this is the best idea, because suggestions like 'Will Iran be put in charge of online free speech?' are valid. One thing the UN is is charter bound - if this where to be set up like ICANN then unsucks.org could be registered, but things like IPv6 would be promoted so US companies can't hoard IPs and legal action would need the backing of a member state.

Re:Lowest Common Denominator

[Jhon]

Funny how people get so indignant when it's a "controlling multinational entity"

Funny how people consider the UN a "controlling multinational entity". It sure has a history of being able to govern and "control", huh? It sure follows through with all it's security council resolutions, huh?

Think about this. The way the UN is designed PREVENTS it from being able to do ANYTHING without unanimity. This was a problem for the US post revolution/pre constitution. The problem is if they hold a UN equivalent of a constitutional convention, any ability for this "multinational entity" to "control" would result in no nations signing the new charter.

People need to realize what the UN is -- a failed pipe-dream of Roosevelt. It's nothing but a place for countries to "vent". Any effort to do ANYTHING can take decades if it happens at all. Especially with immediate threats (re Angola, Somalia, Congo, etc).