One of the more unexpected documents circulating at the WSIS Preparatory Committee in Geneva this week, is a jig-saw puzzle. The puzzle is a cartoon graphic of Internet governance, depicted as a building under construction. The ground floor is Infrastructure and Standards, and above that the successive floors contain Jurisdiction, Development, Economic, and Socio-cultural building blocks. Unravelling the "puzzle" of what Internet governance is or might be, what it should and should not address, who should make decisions and who should implement them, is one of the central issues of this second phase of the WSIS process. For civil society organizations, the issue has fundamental human rights implications and must be addressed within a framework that incorporates human rights, development and democracy as basic principles. Governments have very differing positions on this issue, and it is not at all clear what level of consensus, if any, could emerge from the Summit. However, there is almost unanimous disagreement with the status quo, in which most countries have no say in how the Internet is managed, and where a company registered under US law (ICANN), manages the administration of Internet (IP) names and numbers. Under the present system, organizations from certain countries can effectively be denied web domain names, as a result of US foreign policy or under the dictates of its antiterrorist legislation. In fact unilateral control of the system in theory gives one country the unacceptable power to cut off a whole country from Internet access. Brazil's representative to the Prepcom denounced that in the current situation, there is an undemocratic decision-making process on how the Net is being administered, a lack of transparency in who is making decisions, and insufficient participation of the international community. The range of positions among governments varies from those that are concerned mainly with development and digital divide issues, relating, for example, to lower interconnection costs to ensure better access for all; to those that are keen to get a bigger share in the business interests of running the networks, at present largely monopolized by US companies. Other governments, meanwhile, hope to increase their possibilities of monitoring or blocking content through technical means, or to be able to introduce regulations -something similar to the present regime in the fields of broadcast media or telecommunications-, by means such as national control of registration of Internet addresses and IP numbers. A multi-stakeholder Working Group on Internet Governance (WGIG), set up as a result of the 2003 Summit, is developing a report to be presented in July, intended to frame discussions at the third Summit Preparatory Committee (Prepcom), to take place in Geneva next September. Civil society has been working actively in and around the WGIG. The Internet Governance Caucus, set up during phase I of the Summit, went through an extensive consultation and nomination process to propose civil society members for the WGIG (most of whom were accepted), with a careful distribution by region, gender and areas of expertise. This contrasts sharply with the working group on Financial Mechanisms -that has already terminated its mandate-, where civil society was not consulted on participation. Despite the difficulties of working in a multi-stakeholder environment, the WGIG members are convinced that is has so far been a positive and necessary experience of dialogue, and allows civil society the opportunity to express and detail the positions they developed at the Summit to state and private sector actors. There is nonetheless some concern among civil society actors that the heated nature of debate around the control and regulatory aspects of Internet governance, such as those mentioned above and issues such as cybercrime and spam, are tending to overshadow the broader but very necessary discussions on the more enabling and social aspects of Internet governance. The IG caucus statement presented at this Prepcom, and endorsed by the civil society Content and Themes Working Group, addresses a number of these issues. "The WGIG should ground its work within a human rights and development framework. The rights to freedom of expression and privacy are of special importance in this context as is the need for a greater emphasis on the principles of openness and transparency. "The caucus believes that two outcomes of the WGIG that will add significant value are: 1. An understanding of how governance mechanisms can further these basic rights and principles, 2. An elaboration of the concept of democratic internet governance which fosters the goals of creativity, innovation and cultural and linguistic diversity." And as key issues that the WGIG will need to address, the caucus mentions: * Unilateral control of the root zone file and its effects for the name space * The crucial role of technical standards in the preservation of an interoperable global Internet * The impact of Internet Governance on freedom of expression and privacy * The different implications of Internet Governance for women and men * The impact of Internet Governance on consumer protection * International Intellectual property and trade rules where they intersect with Internet Governance * Access to knowledge as global commons. The statement also underlines the importance, in this debate, of giving opportunities for all concerned or affected groups to participate and influence outcomes, including those social groups that do not yet have Internet access, from all regions of the world, both men and women. By dealing with these different aspects, and incorporating diverse perspectives, it may be possible to start piecing together the puzzle of Internet governance. * Sally Burch ALAI/CRIS