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Name :	HILL, Richard
Date :	October 24, 2019
Organization :	Association for Proper Internet Governance
Country :	Switzerland
Job Title :	President
Contribution :	The factors that are key for harnessing new and emerging telecommunications/ICT for sustainable development are largely the factors that we have discussed in our previous submissions to CWG-Internet, in particular the urgent need to reduce the cost of connectivity in developing countries. This can be achieved by fostering competition (which may include functional separation), funding infrastructure, taking steps to reduce the cost of international connectivity, supporting the development of local content, capacity building, and a proper governance system. It is also necessary to improve trust and security. It is urgent to recognize that market failures are partly the cause of the current lack of security of the Internet. Steps must be taken to address the externalities arising from lack of security (entities that do not secure their systems sufficiently do not bear all the costs of security breaches), and to address information asymmetries (consumers have no way of knowing which services are sufficiently secure). At the same time, it is imperative to protect human rights, protect data privacy, protect consumers and workers (in particular against abuse by dominant platforms), curtail unnecessary and disproportionate mass surveillance, address the issue of job destruction and wealth concentration engendered by the Internet’s current governance mechanisms, address the ethical issues arising from automation and artificial intelligence, and deal with platform dominance. States should practice good faith in negotiations and refrain from forum shopping. In particular, states should not propose to agree binding treaty-level provisions in free trade negotiations while, at the same time, arguing in ITU that no such treaty-level provisions are needed. Further, states should not propose to discuss Internet-government related issues in free trade negotiations, which are not open, not transparent, and not multi-stakeholder. And they should not propose to discuss telecommunications issues in the WTO: given the specialized and technical nature of the subject, such discussions should take place in ITU. Finally, those states that support these open consultations should refer to the contributions made to the open consultations in discussions in CWG-Internet, which has not been the case in the past. The body of the paper contains specific recommendations for the issues mentioned above.
Attachments :	CWG-Internet 2019.pdf