enhanced-cooperation.org                                       N. Bollow
Internet-Draft                                            August 1, 2012
Intended status: Informational
Expires: February 2, 2013


Request For Action to Establish an Enhanced Cooperation Task Force and a
                       Preparatory Working-Group
                          draft-bollow-ectf-01

Abstract

   This memo calls for the creation of a new governance forum named
   "Enhanced Cooperation Task Force" (ECTF).  The main purpose of the
   ECTF is to facilitate consensus-seeking discussions regarding
   information society governance actions that will be taken by national
   governments and international organizations.

Status of this Memo

   This Internet-Draft is submitted in full conformance with the
   provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79.

   Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering
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   This Internet-Draft will expire on February 2, 2013.

Copyright Notice

   Copyright (c) 2012 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
   document authors.  All rights reserved.

   This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal
   Provisions Relating to IETF Documents
   (http://trustee.ietf.org/license-info) in effect on the date of
   publication of this document.  Please review these documents
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   to this document.





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Table of Contents

   1.  Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  3
     1.1.  Avoidance of Requirements Language . . . . . . . . . . . .  4
   2.  Preparatory Working-Group  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  4
   3.  Draft Scope Statement for ECTF . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  5
   4.  Draft Working Directives for ECTF  . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  5
     4.1.  Fundamental Values . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  5
     4.2.  WG Working Procedures  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  5
     4.3.  Request For Action (RFA) Publication Procedures  . . . . .  6
     4.4.  WG Creation  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  7
       4.4.1.  Initial Informal Discussion  . . . . . . . . . . . . .  7
       4.4.2.  Terms of Reference Endorsement . . . . . . . . . . . .  7
       4.4.3.  Secretariat Actions  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  7
     4.5.  WG Termination . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  8
       4.5.1.  WG Dissolution by Rough Consensus  . . . . . . . . . .  8
       4.5.2.  WG Dissolution due to Disendorsement . . . . . . . . .  8
       4.5.3.  WG Dissolution due to Dysfunction  . . . . . . . . . .  8
     4.6.  Sustaining Members and the Secretariat . . . . . . . . . .  9
       4.6.1.  Categories of Sustaining Membership  . . . . . . . . .  9
         4.6.1.1.  Country Members  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  9
         4.6.1.2.  International Organization Members . . . . . . . .  9
         4.6.1.3.  Sustaining Industry Members  . . . . . . . . . . .  9
         4.6.1.4.  Sustaining Civil Society Members . . . . . . . . . 10
       4.6.2.  Committee of Sustaining Members  . . . . . . . . . . . 10
       4.6.3.  Secretariat Funding  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
       4.6.4.  Further Responsibilities of the Secretariat  . . . . . 11
   5.  Draft Terms of Reference for Some Initial Working-Groups . . . 12
     5.1.  WG on implementation of WSIS principles  . . . . . . . . . 12
     5.2.  WG on ICANN and Root Zone Oversight  . . . . . . . . . . . 13
     5.3.  WG on Law Enforcement and the Internet . . . . . . . . . . 13
     5.4.  Internet Rights and Principles WG  . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
     5.5.  WG on Government Activities to Further Sustainable
           Digital Culture  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
     5.6.  Directives WG  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
   6.  Security Considerations  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
     6.1.  Inappropriate Usage  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
     6.2.  Denial of Service  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
     6.3.  Human Rights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
   7.  IANA Considerations  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
   8.  Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
   9.  Endorsements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
   10. Request For Comments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
   11. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
   Author's Address . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17






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1.  Introduction

   In view of today's huge significance of information and communication
   technologies in general and the Internet in particular, governments
   nowadays need to strongly take this highly technical realm in
   consideration in regard to various governmental responsibilities.

   Consequently, the so-called Tunis Agenda for the Information Society,
   an international soft law instrument adopted at the UN World Summit
   on Information Society in Tunis in 2005, appropriately asks the UN
   Secretary General to convene "a new forum for multi-stakeholder
   policy dialogue-called the Internet Governance Forum (IGF)" with a
   mandate that includes making recommendations where appropriate (see
   [Tunis], para 72g).

   In this context of the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) which is
   explicitly mentioned in paras 67 and 72-78 of the Tunis Agenda
   [Tunis], para 68 says that "We recognize that all governments should
   have an equal role and responsibility for international Internet
   governance and for ensuring the stability, security and continuity of
   the Internet.  We also recognize the need for development of public
   policy by governments in consultation with all stakeholders."  Paras
   69-71 call for a process of "Enhanced Cooperation" with this
   objective: "to enable governments, on an equal footing, to carry out
   their roles and responsibilities, in international public policy
   issues pertaining to the Internet, but not in the day-to-day
   technical and operational matters, that do not impact on
   international public policy issues."

   Unfortunately, even though the Internet Governance Forum has been
   created and it is very valuable, the UN system has failed to
   implement the aspects of the IGF and Enhanced Cooperation which have
   been quoted above.  The IGF does not make any recommendations, and
   the UN has not initiated such a process of Enhanced Cooperation as
   outlined in the Tunis Agenda, nor heeded calls for the establishment
   of a multistakeholder working-group in this area as proposed e.g. by
   [APC].  For more details see [Malcolm].

   In view of how the UN generally operates, and in view of the various
   specific challenges in this topic area, it is not surprising that the
   UN has not or not yet achieved an implementation of the kind of
   Enhanced Cooperation that the Tunis Agenda calls for.  Rather, the
   UN's success in establishing the IGF as a valuable and vibrant
   multistakeholder discussion forum is a significant achievement that
   should be built upon in establishing the Enhanced Cooperation of the
   Tunis Agenda.

   Drawing inspiration from how the Internet Engineering Task Force



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   (IETF) works, the present memo proposes a way forward for meeting
   these Enhanced Cooperation needs.

   Here are some significant properties of this proposal:

   o  The ECTF proposal provides a way to implement Enhanced Cooperation
      as foreseen by the Tunis Agenda without further undue delay.
      Those governments and other stakeholders who are interested in
      such Enhanced Cooperation can proceed to implement it, without
      being hindered by those who would prefer to avoid any change to
      the status quo.

   o  ECTF is designed to complement the IGF and benefit from synergies
      with the IGF.  For example, ECTF Working-Group annual meetings
      will by default be organized as IGF pre-events.

   o  The IETF principles of great inclusiveness of participation and
      decision-making by rough consensus are built upon to minimize the
      risks of powerful stakeholders gaining undue influence.

   o  In the realm of intergovernmental Internet governance cooperation
      it is not immediately obvious whether a good analogue for the IETF
      principle of "running code" exists.  The ECTF proposal is inspired
      by the idea that an operationalized emphasis on human rights
      together with the principle of evidence based decision making
      might provide similarly valuable guidance to how IETF technical
      standardization work is guided by the "running code" principle.

1.1.  Avoidance of Requirements Language

   This memo requests and recommends actions, but it does not define
   requirements.  The use of the keywords of [RFC2119] describing
   requirement levels is therefore deliberately avoided.

   The Preparatory Working-Group described in Section 2 should not
   consider itself bound by any of the text in this memo, but rather it
   should feel free to reconsider and revise all of these
   recommendations.


2.  Preparatory Working-Group

   A Preparatory Working-Group with reasonably well-balanced
   multistakeholder participation shall be convened to review and revise
   the contents of this memo.

   The work of this Preparatory Working-Group could begin with an in-
   person kick-off meeting which might be a one-day pre-event for the



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   2013 Internet Governance Forum.


3.  Draft Scope Statement for ECTF

   As per the need for enhanced cooperation recognized in paras 68-70 of
   the Tunis Agenda [Tunis], ECTF's scope of work shall be to facilitate
   enhanced cooperation of governments with each other and with other
   organizations, enabling them to carry out their roles and
   responsibilities in regard to international public policy issues
   pertaining to the Internet.

   In particular, ECTF shall provide a framework that allows governments
   and governmental organizations to conduct policy consultations
   regarding information society topics of international scope in such a
   way that inputs from the broadest possible variety of stakeholders
   are distilled, by means of rough consensus processes, into concrete,
   internationally applicable recommendations.

   Day-to-day technical and operational matters, that do not impact on
   international public policy issues, are not included in ECTF's remit.


4.  Draft Working Directives for ECTF

   This section provides a draft set of rules that should be carefully
   considered and revised by the ECTF Preparatory Working-Group, with
   the goal of creating a good initial Working Directives document for
   ECTF.  The Preparatory Working-Group should at all times conduct its
   activities in accordance with what the current draft Working
   Directives say about how an ECTF Working-Group conducts its work.  In
   this way, the Preparatory Working-Group will be conducting an initial
   test of how the draft directives work in practice, and any
   unreasonably burdensome rules can be recognized and fixed quickly.

4.1.  Fundamental Values

   The fundamental values of the ECTF are that the human rights, as
   defined in the various international human rights treaties, shall be
   upheld and implemented in every way possible.

   Evidence-based arguments on how these objectives can be best achieved
   shall be given precedence over more speculative arguments.

4.2.  WG Working Procedures

   ECTF Working-Groups are generally free to define their own working
   procedures subject to the constraints that everyone without



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   restriction must be welcome to participate as long as they
   participate constructively, and that decisions are made by the
   principle of rough consensus.

   Unless foreseen differently in the Terms of Reference of a Working
   Group, or the Working-Group decides otherwise, the ECTF Secretariat
   (see Section 4.6) shall use its discretion in setting up electronic
   communication infrastructure (such as an email mailing list) for the
   Working-Group, and in organizing in-person meetings, and in reminding
   participants, when this may be necessary, of the principles of
   professionally respectful conduct, or of international human rights
   law, or of the Terms of Reference of the particular Working-Group.

   If and only if such reminders prove ineffective, the Secretariat
   shall request the Committee (see Section 4.6.2) to decide an
   appropriate sanction which may take the form of barring specific
   persons from participation in ECTF for a specific amount of time.
   The Committee can decide to impose such sanctions only by consensus
   or rough consensus but not by majority voting.

   Unless foreseen differently in the Terms of Reference of a Working-
   Group, or the Working-Group decides otherwise, the ECTF Secretariat
   shall organize, for each Working-Group, an annual in-person meeting
   as an IGF pre-event.

   All ECTF Working-Groups shall seek to interact with the broader
   Internet Governance community by active participation in the IGF.

   All electronic communication infrastructure shall be fully accessible
   using a variety of computer operating systems, using Free and Open
   Source Software (FOSS), and using assistive technologies for persons
   with disabilities.

   All WG documents and draft documents shall be licensed under a
   Creative Commons Attribution license with a note that a link to
   http://enhanced-cooperation.org/ suffices as attribution.

4.3.  Request For Action (RFA) Publication Procedures

   The Secretariat shall process requests for publication of draft
   documents as Request For Action documents as follows:

   o  Unless the Working-Group made the decision to publish the draft as
      a Request For Action documents in the presence of a representative
      of the Secretariat, the Secretariat shall make reasonable
      enquiries to ensure that this decision has indeed been made by
      rough consensus and in accordance with the Terms of Reference of
      the Working-Group.



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   o  The Secretariat shall verify that the Working-Group which made the
      request has Active status.  (All Working-Groups have Active status
      initially, this status can change to Inactive in case of
      Sustaining Member disendorsements, see Section 4.5.2.)

4.4.  WG Creation

   This section outlines the process for the formation of new ECTF
   Working-Groups.  The objective of these rules is to make it as easy
   as reasonably possible to create such Working-Groups as soon as there
   is sufficient interest, while avoiding the creation of Working-Groups
   that would violate ECTF's fundamental values (see Section 4.1) or
   that would not attract a sufficient number and variety of
   participants that output documents of high quality can be achieved.

4.4.1.  Initial Informal Discussion

   The ECTF Secretariat (see Section 4.6) shall make electronic
   communication infrastructure (such as an email mailing list)
   available for the purpose of informal discussion of ideas for new
   ECTF Working-Groups.

   Such communication infrastructure shall be fully accessible using a
   variety of computer operating systems, using Free and Open Source
   Software (FOSS), and using assistive technologies for persons with
   disabilities.

   The Secretariat shall use its discretion in sanctioning any
   participants whose behavior is clearly not in line with the
   principles of professionally respectful conduct, in order to achieve
   a reasonably pleasant working atmosphere.

4.4.2.  Terms of Reference Endorsement

   After at least one month has elapsed since an idea has been initially
   proposed for information discussion, an ECTF Working-Group can be
   formed by three or more Sustaining Members endorsing Terms of
   Reference for the new Working-Group.  The Terms of Reference shall
   specify objectives and guiding principles for the Working-Group.

4.4.3.  Secretariat Actions

   The Secretariat shall verify that the Terms of Reference for the new
   Working-Group do not violate ECTF's fundamental values (see
   Section 4.1), and that the Terms of Reference uphold these values at
   least as well as any other Working-Group addressing a very similar
   topic area for which the required Endorsement has been received
   earlier or up to two days later.  For any Terms of Reference document



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   which fails this test, the corresponding Working-Group shall not be
   created.  The purpose of this rule is to ensure that if different
   groups of Sustaining Members propose different frameworks to address
   the same problem, so that one of them is clearly better from a human
   rights perspective, then precedence is appropriately given to the
   better framework.

   When it has been decided that establishment of the Working-Group is
   appropriate, the Secretariat shall set up appropriate communications
   infrastructure and add the new Working-Group to the list of ECTF
   Working-Groups, with Active status.  Furthermore, the Secretariat
   shall inform about the new Working-Group all registered participants
   including the sustaining members, as well as the general public, and
   all known civil society organizations with relevant expertise.

4.5.  WG Termination

   This section outlines the procedures for closing down a Working-
   Group.  These procedures are intended to be used not only when the
   tasks of a Working-Group have been completed, but also if it becomes
   clear that progress is only possible by creating a new Working-Group
   on essentially the same topic but with Terms of Reference that
   provide more specific guidance which makes it easier to reach rough
   consensus.

4.5.1.  WG Dissolution by Rough Consensus

   A Working-Group has the power of making the decision to dissolve
   itself.

4.5.2.  WG Dissolution due to Disendorsement

   Sustaining Members which have endorsed a Working-Group can at any
   time withdraw their endorsement.  If this causes the number of
   Sustaining Members which endorse a particular Working-Group to drop
   below three, the status of the Working-Group changes to Inactive; as
   long as a Working-Group has Inactive status, it cannot decide to
   publish Request For Action documents.  The status changes to Active
   again if the number of endorsing Sustaining Members again increases
   to three or more.

   A Working-Group which has Inactive status for a continuous period of
   six months or more is dissolved.

4.5.3.  WG Dissolution due to Dysfunction

   As outlined in Section 4.6.4, the Secretariat will if necessary take
   corrective action if a Working-Groups fails to function.  In such a



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   situation, a Working-Group may be dissolved if no-one is willing to
   serve as chairperson.

4.6.  Sustaining Members and the Secretariat

   A Secretariat for the ECTF shall be established with seat in Zurich,
   Switzerland.  A host country agreement shall be established with the
   country of Switzerland which ensures that if the Secretariat should
   not act fairly and diligently according to its various
   responsibilities, injunctions to correct the behavior of the
   Secretariat can be obtained from Swiss courts of law.  Any natural or
   legal person, internationally, without restriction, shall have
   standing to sue for an injunction for correction of the behavior of
   the Secretariat.

   The ECTF Secretariat shall be funded, and decisions of budget and
   staffing of the ECTF Secretariat shall be made by a Committee of
   Sustaining Members, as described in Section 4.6.2 below.  In
   addition, Sustaining Members have a special role in regard to
   Working-Group formation (see Section 4.4.2) and dissolution (see
   Section 4.5.2).

4.6.1.  Categories of Sustaining Membership

   This section defines categories of Sustaining Membership and
   corresponding eligibility criteria.  All Sustaining Members have
   equal rights in regard to the endorsement of Working-Groups (see
   Section 4.4.2).  The categories differ only in regard to the
   responsibilities for funding the ECTF Secretariat, and in regard to
   representation on the Committee of Sustaining Members.

4.6.1.1.  Country Members

   Any country which is recognized by the UN as a country may become a
   Country Member of the ECTF.

4.6.1.2.  International Organization Members

   Any membership organization of which at least three members are
   recognized by the UN as countries may become an International
   Organization Member of the ECTF.  Alternatively, any organ or other
   subentity of such an international organization may become an
   International Organization Member of the ECTF.

4.6.1.3.  Sustaining Industry Members

   Any company or industry organization which is willing and able to
   fulfil the financial obligations outlined in Section 4.6.3) below may



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   become a Sustaining Industry Member.

4.6.1.4.  Sustaining Civil Society Members

   Individuals and civil society organizations will upon request be
   recognized as Sustaining Civil Society Members if they fulfil both of
   the following conditions:

   o  They provide a credible assurance of seeking to promote the public
      interest.

   o  They have participated constructively in the ECTF since its
      beginning or for the past two years.

   The Secretariat decides whether these conditions are satisfied.

4.6.2.  Committee of Sustaining Members

   Decisions of budget and staffing of the ECTF Secretariat shall be
   made by a Committee of Sustaining Members, as follows: From each of
   the four categories of Sustaining Members, up to five representatives
   may be delegated to the Committee, so that in total the committee
   consists of up to twenty persons.

   When in any category of Sustaining Members there are five or less
   Sustaining Members in the category, they shall each be invited to
   delegate a person to the Committee.

   When in any category of Sustaining Members there are more than five
   Sustaining Members, they shall attempt to agree among themselves on a
   way of selecting five representatives (for example by adopting a
   system of rotation).  If they cannot agree and more than five want to
   be on the Committee, the Secretariat shall randomly choose, for a
   two-year term, five from among those who want to be on the Committee.

   The Committee shall attempt to make decisions by rough consensus.  If
   this fails, decisions regarding the Secretariat may be taken at a
   meeting at which decision making by majority vote is allowed, which
   may be convened no earlier than 16 hours after the rough consensus
   process has failed.

   The Committee shall review any proposed changes to the ECTF Working
   Directives before publication as a Request For Action document.  It
   shall communicate any concerns to the Working-Group which is
   proposing changes to the Working Directives.






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4.6.3.  Secretariat Funding

   Organizations which are interested in being Sustaining Industry
   Members shall make, for a specific number of years, a commitment that
   they are willing to contribute to funding the costs of the
   secretariat up to a specific amount.

   Independently of whether this commitment is actually called upon (see
   below) a maximal set of Sustaining Industry Members is chosen so that
   the yearly commitment limit of each Sustaining Industry Members is
   greater or equal than the budget of ECTF divided by the number of
   Sustaining Industry Members.

   The Country Members as a group have the right to organize a way of
   funding ECTF which is independent of the Sustaining Industry Members.
   In that case the commitments of the Sustaining Industry Members are
   not called upon.

   Unless the Country Members make use of this right, the Secretariat
   and the Committee shall seek to ensure adequate funding by means of
   one or more of the following sources of funds: Voluntary
   contributions, grants from foundations and/or other grant-giving
   institutions, calling upon the Sustaining Industry Members to each
   contribute an equal amount.

   If there are no Sustaining Industry Members and the operations of the
   Secretariat have also not been adequately funded otherwise, the
   Secretariat shall have the authority to suspend some of its
   operations, according to its sole discretion.

   If the Committee intends to increase the budget of the Secretariat,
   the Committee shall, before making the decision to do so, secure
   commitments that sufficient funding will be made available.
   Furthermore, the Committee shall regularly assess the risk of
   available funding potentially dropping below the level of the current
   budget, and appropriate contingency plans shall be made.

4.6.4.  Further Responsibilities of the Secretariat

   The Secretariat shall seek to ensure an official presence at the IGF,
   for example by means of a booth.

   The Secretariat shall provide guidance to ECTF Working-Groups on how
   to self-organize on the basis of the principle of rough consensus
   decision-making.

   If an ECTF Working-Group proposes a new version of the Directives,
   the Secretariat shall organize a consensus call among all Sustaining



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   Members.  If and only if there is rough consensus among the
   Sustaining Members for adoption of the revised Directives, the
   Secretariat shall put them in force by publishing a Request For
   Action document that gives the details about how the new version was
   adopted, and requests the new version of the Directives to be
   followed from now on.

   If it is brought to the attention of the Secretariat that an ECTF
   Working-Group has, for an continuous period of three or more months,
   failed to self-organize or otherwise failed to make any substantive
   progress towards its objectives, the Secretariat shall take the
   following steps: First the Secretariat shall verify that this is
   indeed the case.  If yes, the Secretariat shall solicit nominations
   and self-nominations from among the Working-Group members of
   potential chairpersons who could organize the work of the Working-
   Group.  If at least one person is nominated, the Secretariat shall
   appoint a chairperson.  If no-one is nominated, the Secretariat shall
   dissolve the Working-Group.

   Working-Groups may also by means of a rough consensus decision
   request and empower the Secretariat to execute this process of
   chairperson appointment.  The Secretariat shall honor such requests.


5.  Draft Terms of Reference for Some Initial Working-Groups

   This section provides draft Terms of Reference statements for some
   possible ECTF Working-Groups (WGs).

   The ECTF Preparatory Working-Group should consider and revise these
   texts in order to ensure that when ECTF is created, it will be easy
   to quickly also establish some worthwhile Working-Groups.

   The Preparatory Working-Group will not itself create these Working-
   Groups; rather it should publish, in addition to a Request For Action
   document with recommended Working Directives, also a Request For
   Action document recommending Terms of Reference for some Working-
   Groups.  It should then be easy to create such Working-Groups by
   means of the procedure for WG Creation in the Working Directives (see
   Section 4.4).

5.1.  WG on implementation of WSIS principles

   This WG shall promote and assess, on an ongoing basis, the embodiment
   of WSIS principles in Internet governance processes.  The WG shall
   publish its findings as Request For Action documents and seek to
   inform the IGF.




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   Rationale: According to para 72(i) in the Tunis Agenda this is part
   of the mandate of the IGF.  However as it is currently constituted,
   the IGF is not able to fulfil this aspect of its mandate.

5.2.  WG on ICANN and Root Zone Oversight

   This WG shall develop a solid proposal for transferring to a more
   international body the ICANN oversight functions that are currently
   in the hands of NTIA.  The WG shall publish this proposal as a
   Request For Action document.  This document shall particularly
   emphasize the measures for ensuring the integrity of the DNS root
   zone file by preventing (intentional or unintentional) inappropriate
   modifications, while avoiding undue delays of appropriate
   modifications.

   Rationale: Many people, governments and civil society organizations,
   especially outside the US, consider the current situation
   unsatisfactory or even unacceptable.  ICANN, ISOC, and the RIRs are
   also all on the record favoring a shift.

5.3.  WG on Law Enforcement and the Internet

   This WG shall observe, compare and discuss the legal frameworks and
   procedures of various countries in regard to how law enforcement
   agencies deal with the challenges and opportunities of the Internet.
   The WG shall regularly publish Request For Action documents with its
   findings, emphasizing in particular any undesired side effects on
   human rights (such as for example when connection data is stored by
   ISPs on the basis of data retention demands for law enforcement
   purposes, but the data is at least sometimes abused for other
   purposes) and the importance of finding an appropriate, evidence-
   based balance between law enforcement needs and other human rights.
   The WG shall furthermore study what kinds of technical changes to the
   Internet infrastructure would be possible in order to better meet the
   needs of law enforcement, and if it turns out that such technical
   changes would be possible without significant negative impacts on
   other human rights, the WG shall publish Request For Action documents
   with corresponding recommendations.

   Rationale: Numerous governments have spoken, e.g. at ICANN and RIR
   meetings, about the need for more regard for the needs of law
   enforcement.  On the other hand, many civil society organizations are
   concerned that some measures that law enforcement agencies would
   propose may have highly negative side effects on fundamental rights
   of privacy and freedom of expression.






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5.4.  Internet Rights and Principles WG

   This WG shall compare and discuss the various existing statements of
   Internet rights and principles (see for example the list of links on
   the website of the Civil Society Internet Governance Caucus [Links]),
   and publish, as a Request For Action document, a consolidated version
   which provides reasonably detailed guidance on interpretation of
   human rights in the Internet context and on guiding principles for
   Internet governance to further human rights.

   Rationale: The current situation with so many independently developed
   statements of Internet rights and principles is not very helpful in
   practice.

5.5.  WG on Government Activities to Further Sustainable Digital Culture

   This WG shall follow up on the Workshop on Standards for Sustainable
   Digital Culture taking place at the 2012 IGF in Baku, see [Culture].
   The WG shall publish, in the form of one or more Request For Action
   documents, appropriate recommendations regarding government
   activities aimed at the furtherance of culture.

   Rationale: As outlined in the Background Paper for that workshop, see
   [Bollow], this is important in regard to the human rights of artists
   and the general public.

5.6.  Directives WG

   This WG shall continually observe the progress of the work of ECTF,
   in particular in view of the need for progress in regard to practical
   realization of human rights, and discuss any suggestions for changes
   to the Working Directives.  Whenever the WG has rough consensus that
   a change to the Working Directives may be desirable, the WG shall
   publish a Request For Action document with revised Working Directives
   and an appendix that explains the rationale for the changes.  This
   document shall not be phrased as definitely containing the new
   Working Directives, but rather as a request to the body of Sustaining
   Members of ECTF to adopt the proposed new Working Directives.
   (Adoption of such a revised Working Directives document is done by
   rough consensus among the Sustaining Members of ECTF.)

   Rationale: Every organization needs to observe its own performance,
   and to take corrective action when necessary.


6.  Security Considerations

   Similarly to security considerations for technical systems (see



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   RFC 3552 [RFC3552]), governance fora and processes need to be
   designed for robustness against attempts of "inappropriate usage" and
   "denial of service".  In addition, the integrity of ECTF work with
   regards to human rights needs to be safeguarded.

6.1.  Inappropriate Usage

   Clearly ECTF needs rules governing the interaction between
   participants.  In the absence of appropriate rules, participation in
   ECTF cannot be expected to be effective, time-efficient and a
   pleasant experience.

   These rules need to be designed so that bona fide well-intentioned
   newcomers with reasonably good communication skills will be able to
   quickly learn how to participate effectively, while on the other hand
   there need to be effective disincentives that discourage and penalize
   disruptive and non-constructive behavior.

6.2.  Denial of Service

   It is particularly important to avoid vulnerability of ECTF and its
   working-groups to the political equivalent of what is called "denial
   of service" attacks in the technical realm: It must not be possible
   for beneficiaries of the status quo (who may fear a potential loss of
   power) to disrupt discussions that could lead to new forms of
   enhanced cooperation.

6.3.  Human Rights

   The rules of ECTF need to ensure that all recommendations published
   by its working-groups are designed to uphold the fundamental
   principles which are internationally recognized as human rights, and
   to improve as much as possible the practical ability of people
   everywhere to enjoy their human rights.


7.  IANA Considerations

   This memo includes no request to IANA.


8.  Acknowledgements

   This memo has been inspired significantly by postings on the mailing
   list of the Civil Society Internet Governance Caucus [IGC] from
   various participants, including Bertrand de La Chapelle, Avri Doria,
   William Drake, Anriette Esterhuysen, Andrea Glorioso, Michael
   Gurstein, Wolfgang Kleinwaechter, Jeremy Malcolm, Lee W McKnight,



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   Parminder Jeet Singh, and Roland Perry.  This acknowledgement of
   inspiration is not intended to imply that any of the named persons
   endorse the contents of this memo.


9.  Endorsements

   Endorsements will be solicited at a later stage.


10.  Request For Comments

   Comments and other feedback of any kind regarding this Internet-Draft
   are requested in the form of postings to the mailing list of the
   Civil Society Internet Governance Caucus [IGC] (preferred) or in the
   form of personal communications to the author.


11.  Informative References

   [APC]      Association for Progressive Communications (APC),
              "Enhancing cooperation among stakeholders in internet
              governance", <http://www.apc.org/en/news/
              enhancing-cooperation-among-stakeholders-internet>.

   [Bollow]   Bollow, N., "Standards for Sustainable Digital Culture
              (Background Paper)", 2012,
              <http://bollow.ch/papers/SustainableDigitalCulture.pdf>.

   [Culture]  Bollow, N., "IGF Workshop: Standards for Sustainable
              Digital Culture", 2012,
              <http://wsms1.intgovforum.org/node/21>.

   [IGC]      Civil Society Internet Governance Caucus, "Mailing list",
              <http://igcaucus.org/membership>.

   [Links]    Civil Society Internet Governance Caucus, "Links",
              <http://igcaucus.org/links>.

   [Malcolm]  Malcolm, J., "Picking up where the IGF left off: our role
              in the future of Internet governance", 2012,
              <http://jere.my/l/2w>.

   [RFC2119]  Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
              Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997.

   [RFC3552]  Rescorla, E. and B. Korver, "Guidelines for Writing RFC
              Text on Security Considerations", BCP 72, RFC 3552,



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              July 2003.

   [Tunis]    UN World Summit on the Information Society, "Tunis Agenda
              for the Information Society", 2005,
              <http://www.itu.int/wsis/docs2/tunis/off/6rev1.html>.


Author's Address

   Norbert Bollow
   Weidlistrasse 18
   CH-8624 Gruet,
   Switzerland

   Phone: +41 44 972 20 59
   Email: nb@bollow.ch
   URI:   http://bollow.ch/


































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