Topics: 2014
JPRS submitted its comments in response to the questionnaire of CSTD
(16 September 2014)
On September 15th, 2014, JPRS submitted its comments in response to the questionnaire of the Commission on Science and Technology for Development (CSTD) within United Nations.
The purpose of this questionnaire provided by CSTD is to gather comments relevant to the implementation of WSIS outcomes. Submitted comments will be used in the review of WSIS outcomes including "Tunis Agenda[*1]" which was adopted at "World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) "in Nov 2005[*2]. CSTD seeks inputs to this questionnaire broadly.
JPRS has strongly supported the arrangement of the issues relevant to Internet with private sector initiative, and therefore support the open and bottom-up multistakeholder model.
With the above background, JPRS submitted comments to CSTD as follows.
■References:
- *1. What is "Tunis Agenda"? (JPNIC official Website: Japanese only)
https://www.nic.ad.jp/ja/basics/terms/tunis-agenda.html
- *2. What is "Internet Governance"? (JPNIC official Website: Japanese only)
https://www.nic.ad.jp/ja/newsletter/No26/020.html
JPRS Comments to the Questionnaire of the Commission on Science and Technology for Development
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8. How far do you consider the implementation of specific WSIS outcomes to have been achieved?
As for IGF:
We think its purpose has been achieved to some meaningful extent.
Some of the meaningful achievements include:
(1) Various stakeholders cooperate with each other in carrying out the IGF, from agenda setting to discussion itself.
(2) IGF has become to deal with issues that widely and deeply matter to human activities, while in early days CIR management from political background was the big controversial issue.
10. What are the challenges to the implementation of WSIS outcomes? What are the challenges that have inhibited the emergence of a "people-centred, inclusive and development-oriented Information Society"?
As for the level of stakeholders' participation in IGF:
Evolution of remote participation environment is very much appreciated in enhancing participation of those who have difficulties in joining the IGF activities physically in person.
Discussion in IGF are intensively conducted by various stakeholders. We think the language barrier, however, still hinders some participants to join at full.
Involving participants other than UN official language speakers is important especially when we think about the people who are to become Internet users in the days to come. While we need to maximize the balance among cost, speed, and level of participation, we should try to seek and implement the ways to enhance the level of participation of all stakeholders who speak various languages.
15. Please add any other comments that you wish to make on the subject of the review that you believe would be helpful.
The expansion of IGF activities, from global to regional and national arena, is a favorable trend. However we have to be careful not to regard regional IGF's and national IGF's as subordinate body of global IGF. Each region or country has their own structure of organizations and activities, which reflects its unique characteristics and circumstances.
We should respect "one size doesn't fit all" in that sense.
For example, in Japan, we recognize at least two fora that deal with Internet Governance per se. They are called "IGCJ (Internet Governance Conference Japan)" and IGF-Japan, both of which have their characteristic value. They have different approaches of gathering participants, setting topics, and possibly the purpose of the forum.
Therefore, we should not use the term "regional IGF or national IGF" when we refer to local activities. Instead, we should use the term "regional or national organization/forum to discuss Internet Governance".
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