<incom> Fwd: ICANN, ITU and UNESCO will forge universal standards towards a multilingual cyberspace

[Danny Butt]

To follow up a few issues from offline emails back on the list - I  
guess I sound more cynical of the UNESCO position than I really am. I  
am just completely cynical of ICANN's role in the whole affair, and I  
don't see anyway that UNESCO's involvement is going to advance the  
basic problems in that body, given the historical (and often  
hysterical) hostility of ICANN to IDN advocates from the Asian region  
over the years.  And of course, there is little room for anyone not  
buying into their "open" governance structure of "prove your rugged  
individualist worth on the gladitorial stage of the English-speaking  
flame-war ridden email lists - or in the commercial market - then  
we'll listen to you". If you think this is an exaggeration I invite  
you to peruse the archives of the IDN mailing lists run by the IETF to  
see a fine display of cultural power at work.

I think that insurmountable gap between the philosophies of an  
intergovernmental body and the US-owned ICANN is reflected in these  
press releases from IGF: UNESCO are pleased to celebrate "steps taken"  
toward the multilingual internet, but soon as ICANN see that they are  
quick to offer a "clarification" to reassure their rabidly anti- 
government support base that they're not actually formally working  
with the UN system. So to me it just looks like UNESCO are getting  
played.

That's not to say that I don't think such agencies have an important  
role - UNESCO have been doing good work on multilingualism, and more  
particularly organisations such as IDRC have supported the basic  
infrastructure for computing localisation through the PAN Localization  
project <http://www.panl10n.net/>. This is the ground-level work that  
will allow non-roman script technical communities to grow, and I  
believe it is the long-term growth of those communities that will  
result in the truly multilingual cyberspace, rather than anything that  
ICANN maintains a hold on.

Regards

Danny

Begin forwarded message:

> From: Danny Butt <db at dannybutt.net>
> Date: 19 November 2007 11:12:42 PM
> To: incom <incom-l at incommunicado.info>
> Subject: Re: <incom> ICANN, ITU and UNESCO will forge universal  
> standards towards a multilingual cyberspace
>
> Perhaps ICANN's usual way of making conciliatory noises without  
> actually adjusting their governance issues that have suppressed  
> action on IDNs for years? Or were UNESCO thinking this could be a  
> good way of getting more involved in the ICT field, where a number  
> of other intergovernmental agencies seem to have been more active?
>
> Either way, my prediction is that UNESCO will have minimal leverage  
> to move the "industry-led" ICANN toward a rights-based approach  
> until the basic contracts with the US Government that inaugurate  
> ICANN (especially the IANA contract) are internationalized. Which is  
> not going to happen.
>
> In the meantime, I predict a lot of very valuable international  
> exchanges between people working in this area, the results of which  
> will be unenforceable. All going well, alternative systems will sort  
> this out in a way which is more responsive to local language groups  
> and their needs.
>
> Danny
>
> --------------------
>
> http://www.icann.org/announcements/announcement-2-15nov07.htm
>
> Clarification
>
> ICANN has agreed to work in partnership with the International  
> Telecommunication Union and the United Nations Educational,  
> Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) to encourage a  
> multilingual cyberspace, and in fact co-hosted an IGF session with  
> these bodies, but no formal agreement was signed. ICANN appologies  
> for any misunderstanding that may have resulted in this regard.
>
> On 15/11/2007, at 11:24 PM, Soenke Zehle wrote:
>
>> http://portal.unesco.org/ci/en/ev.php-URL_ID=25641&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html
>>
>> Steps taken for multilingual Internet
>> ICANN, ITU and UNESCO will
>> forge universal standards towards
>> a multilingual cyberspace
>> © ICANN
>>
>> 15-11-2007 (Rio de Janeiro)
>>
>> The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), the
>> International Telecommunication Union (ITU) and UNESCO will  
>> collaborate
>> on global efforts to forge universal standards towards building a
>> multilingual cyberspace.
>>
>> The three agencies organized a workshop on this subject during the
>> second Internet Governance Forum (IGF) taking place in Rio de  
>> Janeiro,
>> Brazil, from 12 to 15 November 2007.
>>
>> The Internet is a key factor in developing a more inclusive and
>> development-oriented information society, which stresses plurality  
>> and
>> diversity instead of global uniformity. Multilingualism is a key  
>> concept
>> to ensure cultural diversity and participation for all linguistic  
>> groups
>> in cyberspace. There is growing concern that hundreds of local  
>> languages
>> may be sidestepped, albeit unintentionally in the radical expansion  
>> of
>> Internet communication and information. The World Summit on the
>> Information Society (WSIS) recognized the importance attached to
>> linguistic diversity and local content, with UNESCO given the
>> responsibility to coordinate implementation of the Summit Action  
>> Line.
>>
>> Thanks to ICANN's evaluation of Internationalized Domain Names,  
>> Internet
>> users around the globe can n ow access wiki pages with the domain  
>> name
>> "example.test" in the 11 test languages - Arabic, Persian, Chinese
>> (simplified and traditional), Russian, Hindi, Greek, Korean, Yiddish,
>> Japanese and Tamil. The wikis will allow Internet users to establish
>> their own sub-pages with their own names in their own language; one
>> suggestion is: example.test/yourname.
>>
>> Domain Names, which are currently mainly limited to characters from  
>> the
>> Latin or Roman scripts, are seen as an important element in  
>> enabling the
>> multilingualisation of the Internet, reflecting the diverse and  
>> growing
>> language needs of all users. "ITU is fully committed to assist its
>> membership in promoting the diversity of language scripts for domain
>> names," said Hamadoun Touré, Secretary-General of ITU. "This workshop
>> represents an important opportunity to strengthen the need for
>> cooperation with relevant organizations, such as UNESCO, WIPO and  
>> ICANN
>> among others to ensure Internet use and advancement across language
>> barriers."
>>
>> The Plenipotentiary Conference of ITU, which took place in Antalya,
>> Turkey in November 2006, recognized the need to make Internet content
>> available in non-Latin based scripts. Internet users are more
>> comfortable reading or browsing through texts in their own language  
>> and
>> a multilingual Internet is essential to make it more widely  
>> accessible.
>> The WSIS outcomes also focused on the commitment to work towards
>> multilingualisation of the Internet as part of a multilateral,
>> transparent and democratic process involving governments and all
>> stakeholders.
>>
>> UNESCO, joined by both ITU and ICANN, seeks to convene all major
>> stakeholders around the world towards an agreement on universal
>> standards regarding language issues in cyberspace. Such issues are  
>> far
>> broader than the single issue of IDNs as they extend to standards for
>> fonts and character sets, text encoding, language implementations  
>> within
>> major computer operating systems, content development tools, au  
>> tomatic
>> translation software, and search engines across languages.  
>> Ultimately,
>> equitable access to information can be only achieved if we resolve
>> language barriers at the same time we build communications
>> infrastructures and capacity building programmes.
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>