Dear Colleagues,
those of you attending ICANN84 will have been aware of the
stakeholder consultations that His Excellency Ambassador Ekitela
Lokaale (Kenya) held throughout the week, both in open, large
assemblies and in small groups.
Ambassador Lokaale is one of the two Co-Facilitators of the WSIS+20
review process, the other being Her Excellency Suela Janina
(Albania), who was not present in Dublin.
I was very pleased with the extent to which Ambassador Lokaale was
open to full dialogue and to listening to all parts of ICANN's
community. It was also very interesting to obtain some feedback as
to what topics to be included in the Paper will have a chance to
remain there and what topics are already flagged as receiving
significant opposition by some member States.
Of course, the next big steps will be the virtual stakeholder
consultations to be held on 14 November. Instructions on how to
participate are given on:
https://publicadministration.desa.un.org/wsis20 and
https://publicadministration.desa.un.org/wsis20/rev1consultation
But then, the final meeting in the process will be that of the UN
High Level Event on 16 and 17 December 2025:
https://publicadministration.desa.un.org/wsis20/GA%20High-Level-Meeting
And this is where one particularly concerning bit of information
troubled me: that there might be some "issue trading" at this high
level, with issues that are not related in any way with the WSIS+20
process, traded for geopolitical reasons. And therefore, I heard
that we, in our communities, should make sure that our countries'
respective Ambassadors and Delegations at the UNGA be fully briefed
about the importance of the WSIS+20 process, of our multistakeholder
values, of the importance of the WSIS principles to the Internet and
its repercussions beyond the Internet.
This is a job for each and everyone of us, with our respective
national delegations.
Kindest regards,
Olivier Crépin-Leblond