U.S. Urged to Stand On Principle as WCIT Gets Under Way

The U.S. could find itself in a position where it has to offer compromises this week as the World Conference on International Telecommunications gets started in Dubai, observers say. They noted that Ambassador Terry Kramer has indicated the U.S. will stand firm on Internet governance at WCIT, though he must answer to the State Department and the Obama administration. If the U.S. decides it must move toward compromise, the decision won’t be Kramer’s alone.

One complicating factor for U.S. negotiators is that the Senate ultimately would have to ratify any changes to the International Telecommunication Regulations (ITRs) that emerge from the meeting. While the U.S. delegation is made up of more than 100 industry officials, primary negotiations for the U.S. will be handled by a much smaller team, including Kramer; Phillip Verveer, U.S. coordinator for international communications and information policy; and NTIA Administrator Larry Strickling, officials noted. FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski and Commissioner Robert McDowell will also be in Dubai as part of the delegation.

It’s possible the U.S. may reach a nominal compromise on some issues on which there is broad agreement, Kramer said in an interview Monday. The “fundamental issues” the U.S. has voiced opposition to are not on the table, he added. “We're coming into this in the spirit of trying to find common ground,” he said. “We want to articulate our position through our outreach to other states’ delegations and come to a consensus. But if there’s an issue on which we're completely resolute in opposing, so be it.”

The non-negotiable items include any proposed revisions to the ITRs that address Internet governance, Kramer said. He cited a set of proposals from the Russian Federation that the U.S. and its allies have criticized (CD Nov 21 p7) OR (WID Nov 21 p4). The U.S. also refuses to negotiate on proposals that deal with content restrictions or Internet traffic compensation, Kramer said, including the “sender party pays” proposal that originated with the European Telecommunications Network Operators’ Association (ETNO) and has since found new life via delegations in Africa and the Middle East (CD Nov 30 p9) OR (WID Nov 30 p1).

If a proposal the U.S. finds objectionable gets adopted into the revised ITRs, the delegation can take out a reservation that says its government will not follow that particular aspect of the treaty-level document, Kramer said. If the new ITRs contain enough objectionable provisions, the U.S. could simply choose not to sign the treaty, he said. But Kramer said his experience during the first day of WCIT did not indicate that the U.S. would have to stand alone in opposing these proposals, noting support for the U.S. view from Europe and other Western allies. WCIT leaders, including ITU Secretary-General Hamadoun Touré, were also sending the right signals Monday on the need for consensus at the conference, Kramer said.

Since it is so early in the conference, no one is worried about compromises yet, said Ross Schulman, public policy counsel for the Computer & Communications Industry Association and a member of the U.S. delegation. “I don’t think anyone knows for sure where many of the other countries are coming down on the big issues.”

"My understanding is that whether there are compromise positions or not varies from issue to issue,” said Gigi Sohn, president of Public Knowledge, who has followed the developments at the WCIT closely. “I'm not on the delegation. I don’t know what positions are the ones where there are some compromise positions and the ones on which they'll just kind of hold firm no matter what.” Sohn added that WCIT is an international conference. “There’s diplomacy taking place,” she said.

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Larry Downes, adjunct fellow at TechFreedom, said Kramer hasn’t publicly indicated that the U.S. is willing to compromise on Internet governance or core principles. “Pressure is building worldwide for WCIT to stay clear of the Internet as users begin to understand what’s at stake,” Downes said. “But I have little experience with secret international treaty negotiations. I certainly hope the U.S. maintains the position it has held all year, and which Congress urged the delegation to fight for in the joint resolution.” In September, the Senate approved S.Con. Res. 50 (http://xrl.us/bnqhzd), backing “the consistent and unequivocal policy of the United States to promote a global Internet free from government control and preserve and advance the successful multi-stakeholder model that governs the Internet today” in response from proposals before WCIT.

Less Government President Seton Motley noted whatever WCIT does must be ratified by the Senate. “There is no benefit gained by going wobbly,” he said by email. “Stand firm. My concern is that the Obama Administration was never overtly interested in stopping the ITU power grab.” Public-interest communications lawyer Andrew Schwartzman has “heard some people argue that minor concessions are OK, because any treaty based on such language would never be ratified anyway,” he said. “However, I think that it is very important to maintain a firm line that the only acceptable Internet is an open Internet."

"I assume the U.S. will remain steadfast in opposing changes that would bring the Internet within the telecom regulatory regime,” said Free State Foundation President Randolph May. May noted he has no inside knowledge of the process. “This is a negotiation among nearly 200 countries, and we know there are some differences of opinion and perhaps there may be room for some minor compromises around the edges,” May said. “But there shouldn’t be compromises that sanction a move away from the privatized, multistakeholder governance model. If that is the direction that the conference delegations end up going, then the U.S. should not go along.”

Australia, Europe, Argentina, Costa Rica and Japan sided with the U.S. and Canada on their effort to limit the scope of future ITRs on the opening day of conference. The U.S. and Canada last week submitted a proposal to stick to the term “recognized operating agencies” in order to ensure clarity that it was large network operators like AT&T or Verizon in the U.S. that would be bound by future ITRs.

A change to operating agencies could be interpreted to include private networks, Internet networks, cloud computing and government networks, Kramer said. “We prefer to know the impact of the proposals to revise the ITRs before we agree to those proposals,” he said during the first day’s afternoon plenary, saying it would “bolster the likelihood of a successful outcome to the conference.”

Given the range of suggested proposals, it’s important to decide certain matters early, said one of the heads of the Australian delegation: “Otherwise we risk creating a situation where text that has been agreed [to] for inclusion will later become unacceptable.”

Besides the definition of recognized operating agencies, the general issue of the scope of the ITRs and the definition of telecommunications must be dealt with, said Anders Jonsson, senior adviser to the Swedish Post and Telecom Authority. “We believe that is important and it has to be resolved before we discuss the matter of substance,” Jonsson said.

It remains unclear how long the debate about the limitation of the scope will tie up delegations, officials said. Brazil, Russia and the United Arab Emirates were clearly opposed to keeping the much narrower operator definition.

Sweden has also tried to move forward on making the meeting more transparent by allowing the press and the public to participate “based on the general rules of meetings GR 164,” Jonsson said Sunday: “We also proposed to allow access to conference documents without password.” After very strong opposition, it was finally approved by the heads of delegations Monday “to allow press to participate according to standard procedures, webcast the meetings of Plenary and COM 5 (which talks on the substantive proposals) and publish input documents up to the first day of the conference and the final output from the plenary.”