Thursday, May 14. 2009
At the Internet Governance Forum consultations currently going on in Geneva, the Chinese delegation has voiced its opposition to a 5 year extension of the IGF.
"When it comes to Internet governance, developing country points of view are not sufficiently reflected in the discussions," China's representative is quoted as saying by Milton Mueller on the IGP website. "This is why we don't agree that the IGF should continue its mandate after the 5 years are up. So we repeat that the delegation of China does not agree with extending the mission of the IGF beyond the 5 years. We feel that after the 5 years are up, we would need to look at the results that have been achieved. And we need, then, to launch into an intergovernmental discussion."
I have to admit to being in full agreement with the Chinese on this. Their approach seems both pragmatic and logical. The UN tends to have a natural tendency to produce entities that have no clear endgame in sight and where no-one really questions the fact that no goals are being reached (or have even been set for that matter).
But the flip side of this coin is China's insistence that an "intergovernmental discussion" replace the IGF. Is that a way of throwing the UN wrench back into the ICANN slash Internet governance works?
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