Sri Lankan lawyer elected to Internet Regulatory Body
In a move that would enhance Sri Lanka’s image in the internet governance arena, a Sri Lankan based Attorney, Jayantha Fernando, has been unanimously elected as Vice Chairman of the ICANN Government Advisory Committee (GAC). The other two elected vice Chairs, besides Mr. Jayantha Fernando, the first Sri Lanka to be appointed to this prestigious position, are Ms. Diagne Maimouna Diop of Senegal and Ms. Heather Dryden of Canada. The election became effective at the recently concluded Nairobi meeting.
Mr. Fernando ‘s name was proposed by the ICANN-GAC Chair, Ambassador Janis Karklins of Latvia and the nomination received support from 33 countries across all continents including US, UK, India, Malaysia, Tanzania, Sudan and Brazil”.
The US based Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) was created in 1998. ICANN's present mission is "to coordinate the global Internet's systems of unique identifiers, and to ensure the stability and security of the global Internet.
ICANN receives input from Governments through the Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC). In particular, the GAC plays a key role in ICANN's activities and policies as they relate to the concerns of governments, particularly in matters where there is an interaction between ICANN's policies and national laws or international agreements. Fernando’s election comes in the wake of the US Department of Commerce entering into an Affirmation of Commitments (AOC) with ICANN in September 2009. The AOC commits ICANN to remain as a multi-stake holder private sector driven global organization and subject to several reviews in relation to its performance, as well as transparency and accountability obligations.
Previously Jayantha served in the ICANN Nominating Committee (including one term as Vice Chair), tasked with the selection of board directors and all senior positions within ICANN and thus became the first Sri Lankan to hold a leadership position within the internet regulatory body. Fernando holds a specialised LLM in IT and Communications Law from the University of London, completed on a prestigious British Chevening Scholarship and currently works as Director/ Legal Advisor of the ICT Agency of Sri Lanka (ICTA). He was a member of the counterpart steering committee for the design of World Bank funded e-Sri Lanka Development project, which led to the establishment of ICTA in 2003.
He played the key role in the formulation of many of the IT related legislations in Sri Lanka, more specifically the Electronic Transactions Act No. 19 of 2006 and the Computer Crimes Act of 2007. Fernando has over 14 years local and international experience in ICT law covering a wide gamut of areas including ICT policy and legal reforms, internet resource management as well as negotiating and drafting IT and Telecom contracts for the procurement of large IT systems for the Government and the private sector (both local and overseas). He is a visiting lecturer at the Sri Lanka Law College besides the Law Faculty of the University of Colombo and the Dept. of Computer Science and Engineering of the University of Moratuwa.
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