Canada Supports U.S. and Western Bloc In Rejection Of UN Telecommunication Treaty

By: Talha Bhatti  |   December 15th, 2012   |   News, O Canada

Canada joined some Western countries including the United States in rejecting a UN telecommunications treaty. The issue became contentious when another bloc of countries including Iran and China added some language in the agreement that has been looked as promoting government control of the web. The conference was taking place in Dubai, UAE and featured 193 nations meeting to revise the global telecom codes which have needed an upgrade to take into account the many changes brought about by the internet.

 

Two factions found themselves at logger heads at the conference. The United States led a Western bloc that did not want any UN sanctioned rules on the world wide web. They believe that this would cause more restrictions from authoritative regimes and hamper e-commerce. An opposition which consists of China, Russia, the Gulf countries, Arab states and African nations wanted the UN to give governments rights to control the internet and address the dominance of Western countries.

 

The issues seem to be more about the language being used to define the internet as a means of business and communications and their effect on society. Ambassador Terry Kramer, head of the U.S. delegation, called it a “crossroads over the collective view of the Internet.”

 

The conference had already gone through 10 days of negotiations and most of the clauses in the treaty had been agreed upon after being made less restrictive. However, after the non-western countries got wording into the agreement about government access to the internet, the U.S. and its supporters were not please. They believe that this was a way to get UN support for government suppression of internet freedom.

 

The US and other western countries then claimed that they could not back the revised treaty of the UN’s International Telecommunications Union (ITU) because of this.

 

Kramer said that, “Internet policy should not be determined by member states, but by citizens, communities and broader society … the private sector and civil society. That has not happened here.”

 

Canada’s industry minister, Christian Paradis, also spoke about the matter and said that, “Our government will continue to support an open and accessible Internet that facilitates economic development and prosperity.”

 

Source: Globe and Mail