Orbit

Dear All,

*Background*

Following Snowden's revelations of Surveillance that the US were spying on Brazil which led to her addressing the UN General Assembly on the matter, there was an initiative to explore the issue of Internet Governance particularly where it pertains to surveillance. As such she announced that Brazil would host an Internet Governance Meeting to discuss the issues. A subsequent meeting by the ICANN President Fadi Chehadi led to discussions with Brazil's President. The Monte video Declaration of some the Internet Stakeholders was made and the 1Net was birthed as a mechanism to channel dialogue and discussions. Steering committees and various subcommittees have since been established as stakeholders have sent in their representatives.

In Bali at the IGF last year, a well respected Internet Governance expert former Diplomat and Founding Director of Diplo Foundation Jovan Kurbalija said, "Make No Mistake, Internet Governance is in Crisis". The German Chancellor Angela Merkel was also mentioned by Snowden as a Target for US NSA Surveillance. It is no surprise that Argentina, Brazil, France, Germany, Indonesia, South Korea, Tunisia, Turkey and United States of America have all confirmed attendance at this meeting. There are many countries who have yet to confirm their participation. My sole concern is that our voice is not absent from the discussions and it is a very important series of discussions.

As the world and all its stakeholders will make their submissions, it is in our interest from the Pacific to make submissions. You can do this independently or together. If you are interested in working together to field submissions from the Pacific, whether you are governments, private sector or civil society, please note that you can do this independently through the information below.

Pasifika Nexus will be making submissions and we will be doing so through an open consultative process that allows input into the process. If you wish to work together in fielding these submissions, send me an email: sala@pasifikanexus.nu to confirm that you wish to work with me to develop submissions and we will proceed. Once finalized this will then be submitted.

*CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS*

The Submission forms for Brazil are now online. They can be accessed via http://content.netmundial.br/

These are generic guidelines. If there are further requests for clarification, we can consolidate our queries and channel them to our civil society representatives who can inform us. In the mean time, we had best get cracking at the type of content we would like for Brazil. *Deadline for content submission is March 1, 2014.*

Further and better details of the Content Submission is available on the link provided and also copied below for ease of reference and reading:

content submission form

Content submission is divided in two sections. Contributions are invited on Internet Governance Principles and The Roadmap for the Further Evolution of the Internet Governance Ecosystem.

Significant work has been done to develop statements on various Internet governance principles by a number of intergovernmental, civil society, technical and academic, and private sector organizations. To help guide your contributions we ask you to consider a non-exhaustive list of statements available on the NETmundial website.http://content.netmundial.br/internet-governance-principles/ It may be helpful if contributions make reference to specific documents and statements considered particularly appropriate to a set of universal principles and explain why.

Issue 1. Internet Governance Principles

The NETmundial meeting aims to identify a set of universal principles to be promoted as a global inspiration for the evolution of the Internet worldwide. Those principles should be viewed from the perspective of the Internet as a platform for social, economic and human development and a catalyzer to exercise human rights of all people of the world.

Issue 2. Roadmap for the Further Evolution of the Internet Governance Ecosystem

Roadmap for the Further Evolution of the Internet Governance Ecosystem There is a broad view about the need to continue evolving the Multistakeholder Internet Governance Ecosystem. The goals are to energize discussion and to achieve greater consensus of the community including a broader range of stakeholders to provide possible means for developing solutions to specific problems faced by governments/stakeholders. There are several ongoing initiatives trying to contribute with that objective. The meeting and related discussions will be an important milestone to support the developing multistakeholder consensus on important governance issues. It could serve as valuable inputs to other forums, seek for more clarification and pursue agreements for the way forward

In submitting your contributions, please consider the following questions as a guide:

- Issues' statement (what are the issues?) - Is there a forum or Internet Governance body that develops policy or technical outcomes involved in these issues? - If there is, how and why are these issues not being adequately dealt with by that forum or organization? - What are the possible responses to the challenges posed by these issues? - How will the possible responses proposed ensure the stability, resilience and efficiency and also comply with principles of equitable multistakeholder participation, accountability, transparency and predictability?

Further background materials may be made available, as required such materials will be linked from this page.

If you have questions about how to fill in the forms please contact the Executive Secretariat content@netmundial.br.

Deadline for the content submission is March 1st.