How not to conduct negotiations: the CSTD gives a masterclass

A draft resolution on WSIS was an exercise in frustration

You'd never know it from the disproportionate amount of time spent discussing Internet governance during the drafting of the CSTD resolution [pdf] last month, but the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) was about a lot more than Internet governance.

It includes action lines on media, cultural diversity, capacity building, and ICT applications (including e-health, e-science, and e-agriculture).

But just as the original summit process in 2003-5 became about finding a replacement for ICANN, so many countries continue to try to find ways to advance their cause in the texts of UN agency resolutions.

Polar opposites

Given the global reach of the Internet, many Member States have serious concerns about the concentration of Internet management related activities in the USA, particularly the possibility of the US government withdrawing country code top-level domains or revoking IP address blocks through its IANA contract.