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In a panel entitled “Public participation in internet governance, emerging issues, and good practices”, panellists Anriette Esterhuysen, executive director of the Association for Progressive Communications (APC) and Pavel P Antonov, board member of BlueLink, emphasised the potential for ICTs to inform, involve and empower people.

In a panel entitled “Public participation in internet

governance, emerging issues, and good practices”, panellists Anriette

Esterhuysen, executive director of the Association for Progressive Communications

(APC) and Pavel P Antonov, board member of BlueLink, emphasised the potential

for ICTs to inform, involve and empower people. The panel, held on Monday, 12

November,  largely focused on the potential of the Aarhus Convention – the

United Nations Economic Commission for Europe’s Aarhus Convention on Access to

Information, Public Participation in Decision-making and Access to Justice in

Environmental Matters – to be adapted to the internet governance process.

The panellists considered some of the differences between

the two processes, including that civil society fought for the Aarhus

Convention, internet governance is more of a global issue and is in a more

advanced stage and that Aarhus is obligatory for the government.

Anriette Esterhuysen explained that the Aarhus Convention

could be used as a prototype — that its purpose would be to accommodate

participation, encourage greater transparency and improve access to

information. She said that an agreement could be used to put soft-powered public

pressure on standards, and that a mechanism is needed to fund public

participation in the Internet Governance Forum (IGF). Currently there is

nothing legally binding. Pavel mentioned that a significant strength of the

Aarhus Convention is that it uses the capacity of national governments that

implement it.

Anriette and Pavel also posed questions to the audience.

Comments from the audience included a desire to find

mechanisms to involve real people – citizens – in the IGF process. Another

person expressed hope that a framework can be created at the IGF to create some

accountability for the players. A representative from ICANN said that this is

already possible within ICANN and that they are wide open to Aarhus Convention

idea and want more people to participate. Anriette responded that if this was

the case, as a citizen of South Africa, she would have good internet access

already.

The general assessment of the panel was that there is a need

to create a mechanism for internet governance participation and that this

should be brought together in a framework – e.g. a soft instrument, memorandum

of understanding or something else.

Description of panel