[kictanet] WCIT - day 1

[alice at apc.org]

Dear all,
Below a WCIT day one brief from ISOC.

Thank you ISOC for keeping us updated.
Best
Alice
----------------------------------- 

Hi everyone,

As you well know by now, the WCIT officially began today in Dubai.  There are over 1000 people registered for WCIT from over 130 countries.  At the opening ceremony, the ITU Secretary General spoke along with a recorded speech from the UN Secretary General, Ban Ki Moon, the WCIT Chairman, Mohamed Nasser Al-Ghanim, and ICANN CEO, Fadi Chehade. 

Speeches from the opening ceremony may be read here: http://www.itu.int/en/wcit-12/Pages/speeches.aspxOf particular note was a repeated them throughout the ITU Secretary General's remarks (he spoke at the opening ceremony and then the opening plenary) that this conference is not about ITU takeover of the Internet, about the need to work together with the Internet community, the need to reach consensus and the need to address the very real concerns of developing countries. 

ICANN CEO Chehade emphasized the importance of engagement and the commitment of the Internet community to cooperate with the ITU while also respecting our distinct roles.


 *******

In the afternoon, we moved to the opening plenary which was largely (but not exclusively) a procedural and organizational discussion.  The conference will have 5 committees  - the bulk of the substantive work will happen in Committee 5 which will be chaired by Ghana.  

Committee 5 will be broken into 2 Working Groups.  

Working Group 1 of Committee 5 – Articles 2, 6 and 9 and related matters:  chaired by Trinidad & Tobago (Vice Chairs from Japan and Saudi Arabia)

Working Group 2 of Committee 5 – Articles 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 10 and related matters: chaired by Italy (Vice Chair from Cote d'Ivoire)

After a lot of procedural discussion, there was a brief debate over whether the ITRs should apply to Recognized Operating Agencies (ROA) or to Operating Agencies (OA). 
This issue wasn't resolved and will be considered further tomorrow in plenary.  
We also expect issues related to scope to come up in plenary prior to moving to committee work.  Both Canada and the USA, with support of several delegations, have urged the conference to address these issues prior to moving ahead with other topics. 

_