Failure in Dubai: WCIT falls apart

After over a year’s worth of preparation on the part of nearly every country on earth, today the WCIT conference fell apart, with the U.S., Canada, UK, and other countries refusing to sign the new International Telecommunication Regulations (ITRs). They all had good reason to not sign.

Never fear! The Internet is still here and open for business. Treaties have failed before and yet the world goes on.

This treaty-

put into play regulation of Internet Service Providers (ISPs), and would have required governments to impose international obligations on them.
attempted to add claims about human rights,
challenged the role of the U.N. security council, and whether U.N. sanctions could apply to telecommunications.
went headlong into cybersecurity and spam, without any real basis or understanding for what it would mean to do so.
worst of all ran headlong into Internet governance, challenging the flexible approach that has grown the network from nothing to 2.5 billion people.

This was never going to be an easy conference. It has been clear for many years that the developing world has very different views from the developed world, and the views of Russia, China, and Iran are quite different from those of the U.S., Canada, and Europe. In the end, the gulf between these worlds was too great.

I extend my sincere thanks to those who spent many tireless hours in Dubai in defense of the Internet. A partial list includes Markus Kummer, Sally Wentworth, Karen Mulberry, and Leslie Daigle of the Internet Society; Chip Sharp, KY Hong, Hosein Badran, and Robert Pepper of Cisco Systems; Adam Gosling of APNIC; Patrik Fältström of NetNod; Phil Rushton of BT; Mike Blanche, Sarah Falvey,and Aparna Sridhar of Google; Tom Walsh of Juniper; Anders Jonsson of the Swedish Administration; Dr. Richard Beaird, James Ennis, Vernita Harris, Ashley Heineman, Joanne Wilson, Franz Zichy, and many others from the American Administration; and Dr. Bruce Gracie, Avellaneda, and Martin Proulx from the Canadian administration.

These people spent many weeks away from their families, both in Dubai and in preparation. This was not the result they were hoping for.

A special thanks to Vint Cerf, who travels the earth to keep the Internet bringing communications to all.

What’s WCIT about? It depends on who you ask.

This week the World Conference on International Telecommunication (WCIT) began with a remarkable and important declaration from the Secretary General, Dr. Hamadoun Touré:

And WCIT is not about Internet governance. WCIT is about making sure that we connect the billion people without access to mobile telephony, and that we connect the 4.5 billion people who are still off line.

Let’s first take a moment to celebrate the fact that 2.5 billion people have access to the Internet, and that the rate of Internet penetration has grown at a rate of 14% over the last few years to 35%, according to the ITU’s own numbers. That’s great news, and it leads to a question: how shall WCIT focus on improving on that number? How have the International Telecommunication Regulations that have served 2.5 billion people not served the other 4.5 billion?

Unfortunately, none of the proposals that have been made available actually focus on this very problem. Instead, at least one prominent proposal from Russia focuses on… Internet governance. Let’s wish the Secretary General great success in persuading Russia and other governments that indeed that is not what this conference is about.

Access to WCIT available to ALL

As I wrote earlier, WCIT is now taking place in Dubai. This conference could impact your ability to use the Internet, either by stifling growth due to encoded business models, or by mandating specific standards, rather than allowing creativity to flow. We have the opportunity to listen to parts of this conference, specifically plenary and whole committee meetings. After a tremendous amount of pressure, the participants of that conference have allowed open access to the streaming. You can access the streams at the ITU web site. To be sure, it’s a fairly technical conference. If you listen in and have questions, you can join an XMPP chatroom. If I’m around I will answer your questions. You can also post them here, although in either case I may not have the answer.

A view from Dubai and WTSA

I am just back from the World Telecommunication Standardization Assembly (WTSA) in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. The conference itself sets terms and work plan for the standardization sector of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) for the next four years. This was a political conference, where much jockeying for position ahead of the World Conference on International Telecommunication will occur this week.

There were debates over seemingly innocuous definitions and terms, like ICT or Operating Authority versus Recognized Operating Authority. I was part of the delegation from ISOC as the IETF liaison manager, which meant I mostly observed the proceedings, occasionally speaking with representatives from various countries.

Dubai itself is a lovely city with many activities. While I’m not sure I could get used to its summer temperatures, in November we enjoyed a pleasant 27°C, with a bit of a breeze.

Our hosts were quite generous and made us feel welcome. I didn’t get a chance to do much sight seeing, but what you are looking at below is my colleague Tony with a friend Mahmoud from Oman, in front of the world’s tallest building, the Burj Khalifa, one of the most beautiful structures I have ever seen. It is rounded and terraced every 10-15 floors. We were by the Dubai fountains which themselves are an enjoyable spectacle.

Why is Hamas Attacking Now? It’s All About One Man

Egyptian President Morsi is the one man that Hamas is looking toward to start a war with Israel, and that is why there are rockets flying back and forth.

While there has been very little news of formal progress between the Israelis and the Palestinians, until this week there had been modest informal improvements day to day in the West Bank, at least. Why now, then, did Hamas decide to escalate in southern Israel? The answer can be found in the protests occurring in Egypt, and the new government of President Mohamed Morsi, who is aligned through the Muslim Brotherhood with Hamas.

President Mohamed Morsi By escalating the violence, Hamas hopes to elicit a reaction from Israel that would stoke people in Egypt to press Mr. Morsi to abrogate Egypt’s treaty with Israel. Mr. Morsi previously signaled that the treaty is not inviolate, by stating that the Camp David Accords had envisioned a permanent solution long ago.

This fits a pattern that the Palestinians have been attempting for the last year: rather than come back to the table, they would prefer to see international pressure exerted on Israel, and the more the better. Firing rockets toward Jerusalem has therefore pushed the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu into a corner: the Israeli response against such attacks has always been robust, if not aggressive. If the the rocket attacks into Gaza that demonstrate this point have caused as many Egyptians to protest, imagine what the result of a ground offensive would be.

In the meantime, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has had to cut short his world tour, where he has pushed the countries to elevate the status of Palestine to observer state. This has many implications in both political terms and International legal terms, and would represent an attempt at an end run around a bilateral solution. It would provide Palestinians legal claims to sovereignty of their territory. Those claims would do the Palestinians little good in the short term, as Israeli tanks roll across Gaza, and all for the veiled hope that they will somehow come out better (and Israelis worse) thanks to Egypt coming into a war on their side, perhaps bringing others with them.

It all hinges on how President Morsi responds to this crisis, and there is reason to be concerned that he will not respond well. Either the Palestinians have grossly misread his support, or he has failed to communicate his position clearly to them, or he is willing to go to war for them in the right conditions. The first two possibilities would seem naïve. If Israel is perceived by enough people to have not responded proportionally, the matter will escalate beyond its borders. This is what Hamas is hoping for. It is a very high stakes game, that involves live ammo and the deaths of both Palestinians and Israelis. Americans who think this won’t involve our military are being equally naïve.

Benjamin Netanyahu now joins the ranks of prime ministers of Israel who have advocated strength and ended up seeing Israelis attacked. Good one, Bibi.