Threat Analysis of ITU’s WCIT (Part 1): Historical Context. Internet Governance Project, May 24, 2012.
From the article: "The relevance of the International Telecommunication
Union’s World Conference of International Telecommunications (WCIT) to Internet
governance is a hotly debated topic. There is an organized campaign to raise
concern about it, with the latest entry being the scheduling of a hearing
in the U.S. House of Representatives.
What this means is that 20 years after the opening of the Internet to the
public, 13 years after the creation of ICANN, 7 years after the conclusion of
WSIS, we are still having an intense debate about the relationship between
nation-states and the governance of the Internet…. I think that a lot of
participants in the current debate would benefit from the historical
perspective and theoretically grounded analysis it provides. There is no doubt
that some governments, notably Russia, would like to see the ITU replace ICANN
and other private sector-based Internet institutions. What most people don’t
realize, however, is that certain governments have advocated that position for
more than a decade – and they have repeatedly failed to realize those goals.
The history is worth recounting." Read more
