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