Wolfgang Kleinwächter

Gender Male
Age
Region Europe
Languages
Nationality Germany
Residence Denmark
Nominated by Izumi Aizu
Endorsed by IAMCR Task Force for WSIS
Also indicated as alternate/extra nomination by the Internet Governance Caucus

Endorsing statement

With regards to Internet Governance, Wolfgang Kleinwächter has been a prominent expert for years, both as an outstanding academic and as a committed civil society member. He has followed the WSIS process from the very beginning. He has co-founded and co-chaired the WSIS Civil Society Internet Governance Caucus and he is a member of the Civil Society bureau of WSIS. During the prepcoms he has been an active moderator and at the Summit he has been a speaker in the Official High Level Round Tables.

He has written extensively about Internet Governance in leading journals (Telecommunication Policy, Info, Development, Gazette, Loyola Law Review, Journal of International Communication, etc.). He has just recently published a book on WSIS, available at
http://www.heise-medien.de/presseinfo.php?
hmg_content=tp/04/08_17_a&hmg_layer=41

Over the years Wolfgang Kleinwachter has developed a special knowledge on ICANN, one of the major actors in the Internet governance process. He has followed ICANN from the early beginning and was a member of the Membership Advisory Committee and founded the ICANN-Studienkreis. He was a speaker in recent regional meetings dealing specifically with Internet Governance and WSIS, ICANN (Roma, March 2004), ITU (Geneva, March 2004) and UNICTTF (New York, April 2004).

Wolfgang Kleinwachter also has expertise in international high level conferences and the kind of negotiations that they entail. He has worked in numerous UN conferences (UNESCO, ITU, UN, WIPO); he was member of the Programme Committee of INET 2002 and within IAMCR (a worldwide NGO with consultative status within the UN), he was chair of the Law Section from 1988 to 1998 and re-elected in this position in 2004 for another 4 years.

Wolfgang Kleinwachter stands for an Internet which is open for all, promotes human rights and sustainable development ; he strongly believes in a governance model of bottom-up policy development and multistakeholderism. He also never fails to put Internet Governance in the broader context of Information Society issues, raised by WSIS, especially education, research, public domain, cultural diversity, enabling environments, ...

Most importantly from the point of view of the IAMCR taskforce and in the interest of the WSIS process, Wolfgang Kleinwachter has an outstanding personality, which makes him a reliable resource person. He has made himself available many times in the first phase of WSIS for informed comments on-line and off-line. On the various lists of Civil Society, he has shared and disseminated information to all constituencies and has devoted his full attention to the process indefatigably. He also has been able to solve disputes among members of our groups and has worked towards the establishment of negotiated consensus.

Added to his expertise, these last two qualities seem to us key criteria for the choice of any delegate of civil society: the capacity to serve as a relay and an interface to the rest of our constituencies at large; the capacity to bring our majority voice to the negotiation table with the nation-states. Wolfgang Kleinwachter has proven it over and over again and he, no doubt, will continue to do so for the benefit of us all.

Wolfgang Kleinwachter's CV is available at
http://imv.au.dk/~wolfgang/ic/wolfgang.html