{"id":39679,"date":"2012-09-10T18:15:03","date_gmt":"2012-09-10T17:15:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/?p=39679"},"modified":"2017-07-21T16:54:33","modified_gmt":"2017-07-21T15:54:33","slug":"index-opposes-itu-authority-over-the-internet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/?p=39679","title":{"rendered":"Index opposes ITU authority over the internet"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"IndexIndex\u00a0joins civil society groups in voicing concerns about proposals made by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) that would threaten the openness of the internet<\/strong><\/p>\n

To Member States and Government Delegations of the International Telecommunication Union:<\/p>\n

In the interests of promoting and protecting global Internet openness and the exercise of human rights online, we write to urge<\/a> International Telecommunication Union (ITU) member states and their delegates to the World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT) to refrain from expanding the scope of the International Telecommunication Regulations (ITRs) treaty to include the Internet.<\/p>\n

At the WCIT, governments will consider proposals that would expand the scope of the ITRs to include the Internet. Such expansion could have a significant negative impact on the Internet\u2019s openness, its positive effects on economic growth, and the human rights of citizens.<\/p>\n

As recently reaffirmed by the UN Human Rights Council, governments have a duty to protect human rights when making policy decisions for the Internet.<\/a> However, while the ITU has extensive expertise in telecommunications policy and regulation, we do not believe that it is the appropriate forum to develop policies and standards that could affect the exercise of human rights on the Internet.<\/p>\n

Further, the ITU maintains a relatively closed, non-transparent decision-making process in which only governments are allowed full participation. In contrast, the Internet has flourished under an open, decentralized model of governance, where groups representing business, the technical community, and Internet users as well as governments focus on different issues in a variety of forums. In keeping with the World Summit on Information Society commitments, we believe that such open, inclusive processes are necessary to ensure that policies and technical standards for the global Internet preserve the medium\u2019s decentralized and open nature and protect the human rights of its users.<\/p>\n

In recent months, many civil society groups have urged the ITU to reform its process so that it is fully transparent and open to participation by all relevant stakeholders. Advocates have pushed for these changes not only because we believe that transparency and participation are the best approach, even with respect to telephony, but also because we feared that certain countries\u2019 proposals would pose grave threats to human rights on the Internet. Leaked documents detailing proposals for the WCIT have confirmed these fears. Thus, we both continue to call on member states to provide full transparency and open participation to all relevant stakeholders as they prepare for the WCIT, and urge all delegates to reject proposals that would threaten openness and human rights online.<\/p>\n

We call on member states to:<\/p>\n