Recognizing WSIS Impacts

WTSA Resolution 69


WTSA RESOLUTION 69 (Rev. Dubai, 2012)

Non-discriminatory access and use of Internet resources

The World Telecommunication Standardization Assembly (Dubai, 2012),

  • considering
    • that one of the purposes of ITU laid down in Article 1 of the ITU Constitution is “to maintain and extend international cooperation among a ll its Member States for the improvement and rational use of telecommunications of all kinds”,
  • considering further
    • a) the outcome documents of the World Summit on th e Information Society (WSIS), Geneva 2003 and Tunis 2005, including the WSIS Declaration of Principles, especially §§ 11, 19, 20, 21 and 49 thereof;
    • b) the United Nations Human Rights Council resolution on the promotion, protection and enjoyment of human rights on the Internet (A/HRC/20/L.13),
  • noting
    • that § 48 of the WSIS Declaration of Principles recogni zed that: “The Internet has evolved into a global facility available to the public and its governance shoul d constitute a core issue of the information society agenda. The international management of the Internet should be multilateral, transparent and democratic, with the full involvement of governments, the private sect or, civil society and international organizations. It should ensure an equitable distribution of resources, facilitate access for all and ensure a stable and secure functioning of the Internet, taking into account multilingualism”,
  • recognizing
    • a) that the second phase of WSIS (Tunis, N ovember 2005) identified ITU as the possible moderator/facilitator for the following WSIS action lines from the Plan of Action: C2 (Information and communication infrastructure) and C5 (Building confidence and security in use of the ICTs);
    • b) that the Plenipotentiary Conference (Guadala jara, 2010) entrusted the ITU Telecommunication Standardization Sector (ITU-T) with a range of ac tivities aimed at implementing the WSIS (Tunis, 2005) outcomes, a number of those activities havi ng to do with Internet-related issues;
    • c) Resolution 102 (Rev. Guadalajara, 2010) of the Plenipotentiary Conference, on ITU’s role with regard to international public policy issues pertaini ng to the Internet and the management of Internet resources, including domain names and addresses;
    • d) that management of the registration and alloca tion of Internet domain names and addresses must fully reflect the geographical nature of the Internet, ta king into account an equitable balance of interests of all stakeholders,
    • e) Resolution 64 (Rev. Guadalajara, 2010) of the Plenipotentiary Conference, on non-discriminatory access to modern telecommunication/information and communication technology (ICT) facilities, services and applications, including applie d research and transfer of technology, on mutually agreed terms;
    • f) Resolution 20 (Rev. Hyderabad, 2010) of the World Telecommunication Development Conference, on non-discriminatory access to telecommunication/IC T facilities, services and related applications;
    • g) Opinion 1 of the fourth World Telecommunicati on/ICT Policy Forum, on Internet-related public policy matters, and the Lisbon Consensus 2009 on the same matters,
  • taking into account
    • a) that ITU-T is dealing with technical and policy issues related to IP-based networks, including the Internet and next-generation networks;
    • b) that a number of the resolutions of this assembly deal with Internet-related issues;
    • c) the global and open nature of the Internet as a driving force in accelerating progress towards development in its various forms;
    • d) that discrimination in accessing the Internet could greatly affect the developing countries ;
    • e) that ITU-T is playing a key role in bridging standardization gap between developed and developing countries,
  • resolves to invite Member States
    • 1 to refrain from taking any unila teral and/or discriminatory acti ons that could impede another Member State from accessing public Internet sites and us ing resources, within the spirit of Article 1 of the Constitution and the WSIS principles;
    • 2 to report to the Director of the Telecommunica tion Standardization Bureau (TSB) on any incident of this kind referred to in resolves 1 above,
  • instructs the Director of the Telecommunication Standardization Bureau
    • 1 to integrate and analyse the informati on on incidents reported from Member States;
    • 2 to report this information to Member States, through an appropriate mechanism;
    • 3 to report to the Telecommunication Standardi zation Advisory Group (TSAG) on progress on this resolution, in order for TSAG to evaluate the effectiveness of its implementation;
    • 4 to report on progress on this resolution to the next world telecommunication standardization assembly,
  • instructs the S ecretary-General
    • to report annually to the ITU Counc il on progress on this resolution,
  • invites Member States and Sector Members
    • to submit contributions to the ITU-T study groups that contribute to the prevention and avoidance of such practices.