The OECD finished up 2011 with an important step in international efforts to ensure the Internet remains an open platform that is secure and reliable, continuing to spur innovation, prosperity and job creation. The OECD adopted a Recommendation of the Council on Principles for Internet Policy Making.
The Recommendation was born at a U.S.-initiated high-level meeting earlier this year and is a major step in our efforts to ensure the Internet remains an open platform.
The Recommendation was developed through the OECD’s multilateral consensus-based process and is a successful follow-on to the U.S.-initiated June 28-29 High Level Meeting on the Internet Economy in which 34 OECD member countries, Egypt, the OECD Business and Industry Advisory Committee, and its Internet Technical Advisory Committee agreed through a Communiqué to the set of principles to guide Internet-related policy making.
This is an important deliverable on the U.S. open Internet agenda. In May, President Obama issued the U.S. International Strategy for Cyberspace, an agenda for safeguarding the single Internet. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has developed a groundbreaking Internet freedom agenda, a principled approach to preserving the freedom to connect — the freedoms of expression, association and assembly online — and to ensuring that the Internet can be a platform for commerce, debate, learning and innovation in the 21st century.
The stakes are high. According to McKinsey, over the past five years, the Internet has been responsible for 21 percent of the growth in mature economies and has created 2.6 jobs for every job it has displaced. Its power to generate innovation is rivaled only by its potential to help people realize their rights and democratic aspirations, as the Arab Spring demonstrated.
This platform, that produced more growth in its first 15 years than the Industrial Revolution did in its first 50, must not be balkanized. The United States plans to work with others to continue building consensus for these global norms.
It may not be the first holiday everyone thinks of in December, but today is UN International Anti-Corruption Day and this year it is worth celebrating as 2011 has been a banner year.
As Secretary Clinton said during her remarks at the 50th Anniversary of the OECD in May, “We all know that bribery interferes with trade, investment, and development. It distorts competitive conditions. It undermines good governance. It encourages even greater corruption. And of course, it is morally wrong and far too common.” Unfortunately foreign bribery continues to be rampant. The World Bank estimates that more than one trillion dollars in bribes are paid each year. That’s a staggering three percent of the world’s economy.
That is why the US pushed for the Anti-Bribery Convention, adopted by the OECD, to which 38 countries have now acceded. It’s why President Obama encouraged the G20 meeting in Pittsburgh in 2009 to address foreign bribery. And why I asked the OECD to make public enforcement activity(or lack thereof!).
2011 has seen progress at the OECD. Year end is a good time to take stock of some of these accomplishments. Here are a few of the highlights:
- In May, the Russian Federation, after approving a new law outlawing bribery of foreign officials, became a full participant in the OECD Working Group on Bribery.
- In November, the OECD also invited Colombia to join the Working Group on Bribery.
- In July, the new UK Bribery Act came into force.
- China, Thailand, Peru, Indonesia and India have participated in Working Group on Bribery meetings.
This is by no means an exhaustive list but shows that progress is possible. Looking to 2012 we hope to see both Russia and Colombia accede to the OECD Anti-Bribery Convention. We also look to be a partner with countries in the Middle East and North Africa region–where corruption played a major role in the frustrations leading up to the Arab Spring– to share our experiences on fighting bribery. We here at the U.S. Mission to the OECD are looking forward to another exciting year in the fight against corruption.
I wish you all a great Anti-Corruption Day and a happy and healthy holiday season!
Originally posted by Danny Weitzner and Karen Kornbluh on the blog for White House, Office of Science and Technology Policy
This week, at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development(OECD) High Level Meeting on the Internet Economy, we joined Tim Berners-Lee and Vint Cerf, along with representatives from business, civil society, and Internet technical communities from 34 countries to discuss how to preserve the openness of the Internet. Also present were policymakers who, over a decade ago, helped establish the Internet policy framework—elegant in its restraint—that enabled the open Internet to flourish with innovation and human connections beyond our wildest expectations.
After intensive conversations, the OECD issued a communique of fundamental principles , highlighting commitments to:
- Promote and protect the global free flow of information
- Promote the open, distributed, and interconnected nature of the Internet
- Co-operate in multi-stakeholder policy development processes
- Ensure transparency, fair process, and accountability
- Strengthen consistency and effectiveness in privacy protection
- Maximize individual empowerment
- Promote creativity and innovation
- Limit Internet intermediary liability
Illustrated by the release of the President’s International Strategy for Cyberspace in May, Internet openness is an Obama Administration priority. As the President told a group of students in China, “I can tell you that in the United States, the fact that we have free Internet—or unrestricted Internet access—is a source of strength, and I think should be encouraged …. the more freely information flows, the stronger the society becomes….” Secretary of State Hillary Clinton launched an Internet Freedom agenda and in February challenged other countries to “join us in the bet we have made… that an open Internet will lead to stronger, more prosperous countries.”
In sharp contrast, last month Iran announced plans to disconnect Iranian Internet services from the rest of the world. There are calls for greater governmental and inter-governmental, top-down, one-size-fits-all control over the Internet. If these trends continue, they risk balkanizing the Internet—with high costs in both economic opportunity and the realization of human rights. According to McKinsey, the Internet has generated as much growth over the past 15 years as the Industrial Revolution generated in 50 years. In the past five years, the Internet has been responsible for 21% of the growth in mature economies and has created 2.6 jobs for every 1 job it has displaced.
But the Internet is not just a generator of today’s jobs; it is the biggest innovation incubator in the world, with a global reach never before achieved in human history.
That’s why these principles should be embraced by governments and other stakeholders. They were developed through an extensive, transparent, multi-stakeholder process. Although there was broad support from the government, technical, and business communities, the civil society groups participating in the process were not able to support the final text due primarily to concerns about specific provisions on online copyright questions. We will continue to seek common ground with them on how these principles are interpreted and implemented.
In another fifteen years, those of us who gathered together at the OECD will look back and be proud of what we did—just as those who set the original framework for the Internet are justifiably proud.
Karen Kornbluh is U.S. Ambassador to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development
Danny Weitzner is Deputy Chief Technology Officer for Internet Policy
US Chairs OECD’s 50th Anniversary Ministerial
The US chairmanship of the OECD’s 50th Anniversary Ministerial was a great success. The all-star cast featured Secretary Clinton, French PM Fillon, Japanese PM Kan, and EC President Barosso, and we used the opportunity to accomplish something all too rare – transitioning a post-war international organization into what the new Vision Statement calls a “global policy network” – much more focused on development and engaging in partnerships with new economic powers to spread high standards.
Secretary Clinton focused Ministers on New Paradigms for Development, creating momentum leading into the high-level forum on aid effectiveness in Busan, Korea in November which will now shift the international development architecture to more closely parallel the Administration’s development strategy.
A major moment: Russian Minister for Economic Development Elvira Nabiullina, representing the Russian Federation, accepted the OECD’s invitation to join the Working Group on Bribery in recognition of Russia’s new anti-bribery law – enacted to further Russia’s bid to join the OECD. Russia subjected itself to peer review by other countries in developing the anti-bribery legislation and will now subject itself to additional analysis and peer reviews on topics from corporate governance to environmental law to gain OECD entrance.
Austan Goolsbee chaired the opening session on Growth, Jobs, Innovation and Skills and Ron Kirk chaired the last session on Trade and Jobs. Bob Hormats unveiled a “competitive neutrality” agenda, and Rich Trumpka who serves as OECD Trade Union Advisory Committee President joined Charlie Heeter of the Business Industry Advisory Committee for the adoption of the update to the Multinational Enterprises Guidelines. These guidelines include a new human rights chapter, the incorporation of guidance on due diligence in supply chain relationships, and a new recommendation on Internet freedom.
We pushed the envelope a little more by marking the first milestone in the new US-initiated Women’s Economic Opportunity Initiative, and gaining commitments from the UN, World Bank, ILO and OECD for a joint plan to develop cross-country indicators of gender equity for Busan. The Koreans responded by pledging to elevate gender at the development summit. Further, we’re piloting the gender initiative with a Women’s Business Forum for the MENA region, an initiative I co-chair with the Jordanian Ambassador to France. Cherie Blair presented a gender award to the MENA project, and we kicked-off a public-private collaborative on private equity in the region.
Next Up: the big OECD meeting on the Internet Economy, also initiated by the US, at the end of the month.