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<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On Thursday 05 March 2015 10:13 PM,
Anriette Esterhuysen wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote cite="mid:54F887CA.9070004@apc.org" type="cite">
<pre wrap="">Dear Parminder
Did JNC include economic and social rights in the submission you made to
the UNESCO study? I mean beforehand.</pre>
</blockquote>
<br>
Anriette<br>
<br>
I dont remember seeing a call to comment on the study, though it is
possible I missed it. Was it circulated on these lists by those who
were closely associated with the event? I dont seem to be able to
find it.<br>
<br>
But then, JNC does not have the sole responsibility to do this. We
are entirely un-funded and overworked (with Internet Social Forum
for instance). Almost all JNC members active in IG space have no
funds. Even IT for Change has no IG funds for quite some time now. I
think the well funded groups closely following the event and working
on it have the responsibility. (BTW Anita got a sudden invite just a
week before the event to speak in the access session but we still
heard nothing about commenting on the report.) <br>
<br>
Not only economic, social and cultural rights are missing in the
outcome doc, as glaring is the fact that no connection of Internet
govenrance to UNESCO's core mandate of, and work in, community media
is made. It is widely predicted that soon much of community media
(like almost all broadcast) will shift to the Internet, and here we
have a foundational document on UNESCO's role in the IG space, and
not a single mention of community media! The ethics, principles and
even policy frameworks of community media have direct relevance to
IG. It is these kinds of normative angles that UNESCO should have
been bringing to IG, not just bolstering the US's global vision for
the Internet and its governance - with some token softening here and
there. Civil society should not bought into it.<br>
<br>
So, in fact, we from JNC had so little time after the draft hit us,
and with most of us not on the site, and little prior information of
where this was going, that we could just bring up only a few key
issues - like the need for 'democratic' there and 'social, eco and
cultural rights'. Certainly community media is another big angle
missing. So, is the spirit of the 'right to benefit from scientific
progress and its applications' (science being a core UNESCO mandate)
there being a full report of UN Rapporteur on Cultural Rights on
this particular right .... <br>
<br>
You say you were not the only civil society member of the committee.
In fact we dont even know who were on the committee, much less how
was it constituted, and what work it did. I think we have a right to
know. So much is made of need for transparency and
representativeness of multistakeholder processes when high-sounding
docs get written but little gets followed in practice. I know UN
orgs can be quite obtuse on such issues, but good to know what is
known to civil society insiders. At least on the civil society side,
we can be as transparent and as representative, and accountable, as
possible. (Well, the NetMundial document seeks this.)<br>
<br>
Also will be useful to know if there was any pre and onsite civil
society networking on what was going into the draft, where it all
begun, or so on. I did not see any sign on the lists, but perhaps
because they are public. Will be good to know. <br>
<br>
Lastly, this is no 'battle of words'. These are important
discussions, and if there are some political difference, and they
exist everywhere, there would be some amount of contention. That is
all what is happening. We, for instance, expect great accountability
from public servants; would we consider it fine if they begin to
call such kinds of questions and discussions as an avoidable 'battle
of words'. Why are them civil society people exempt for such things
- but of course within reasonable limits of what kind of time etc
can be given to it. <br>
<br>
Regards<br>
parminder<br>
<blockquote cite="mid:54F887CA.9070004@apc.org" type="cite">
<pre wrap="">
All I can say is that the addition of economic and social rights was
made the afternoon when the statement was being finalised. I argued that
it should be included but it was not. If there was more time I think
that it would have been easy to include the reference to the ESCR treaty
in the preamble, and in the text. But translators were demanding the
text and time was up.
There were other things too that were argued which took time. The people
who submitted content will know what made it and what did not.
Whether civil society organisations accept the statement is up to them.
I did not claim to represent civil society in this process. I was also
not the only civil society person on the committee. I truly did my best
to try and make sure the text accommodated strong concerns and spoke
with individuals from several governments and civil society
organisations - including JNC - in an effort to do so.
APC has always emphasised economic, social and cultural rights in
relation to the internet and will continue to do so.
The reason I said that adding 'democratic' was not an option was that on
the first day during the open discussion of the text Richard proposed
the text and several governments submitted comments to say that it is
non-negotiable for them and that if it was added they would dissociate
themselves with the document.
I shared this with Richard so that he had advance warning. The only way
of changing that would probably have been to work with government
delegations and convince them to argue for it.
I don't want to get into a long battle of words beyond this. Of course
there are political issues at play that we need to be aware of and
address. It is your view that JNC are the only people who are doing so.
I know that others, including APC, are also addressing these issues, in
multiple forums and in multiple ways.
Anriette
On 05/03/2015 14:41, parminder wrote:
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre wrap="">Dear Anriette
Respectfully, there sure can be justifications and justifications, but
there are also some solid facts that we must contend with.
The first fact here is about 'social, economic and cultural rights':
First about its cardinal importance - I cant see the 'access' pillar of
UNESCO's interest in IG without a social, economic and cultural rights
framing, it becomes something very different without that framing, which
btw is what both telcos and MNCs like facebook and google want. So,
there is nothing innocent about it. There is a big global political
struggle about what 'access' means in normative terms. (Even telcos
cited the 'access' issue in their opposition to net neutrality!) In
fact, I see even privacy framed in soc and eco rights framing becuase of
the key economic value of data today, and certainly ethics. I can keep
writing on this subject, but I am sure you understand. You might
remember that the framing of communication rights basically arose from
this issue - that negative rights do not suffice to enable people's
communicative power and equity, we need positive rights as well. Whereby
communications rights were framed as against just an exclusive accent on
freedom of expression. And of course UNESCO was at the centre of those
political struggles. Everyone knows that the US has always been solidly
against the eco/soc/cultural rights side of communicative systems, and
in Paris they (again) won, with implicit or explicit support of civil
society groups among others. This is a fact, and we must face it.
We just need to contend with the fact that eco, soc and cultural rights
are not mentioned in the document, even when civil and political rights
are mentioned, as well as the corresponding covenant. As you say
elsewhere in your email, UN documents indeed have continuities of text,
earlier political struggles and so on. And so, the mistakes and loses of
this document will be taken forward. After WSIS, if was the first key IG
doc made in a UN body, and so the losses are huge.
In the circumstances, it is not just a matter of everyone being good and
nice to everyone one else here, there is a political struggle and in my
view a great political loss here. We need to know who always so well
remembers to put FoE and civil/ political rights and who forgets to put
economic and social rights, in framing communication/ information
issues. Who forgot in this particular case, and who ignored. You say,
the proposal to put eco and soc rights came in too late. We, as in JNC,
proposed when we saw the draft. We sure cannot propose earlier. But what
were the drafters doing - well perhaps they need to take more people who
are likely to remember this set of rights! These are real issues. These
cannot just be swept under the carpet because all of us should be nice
to all others of us. We need to know. And we need to be able to tell our
constituencies outside, to whom we are primarily responsible.
Also about the proposal to put this part coming in late, and drafters
wanting a short document, tell me how much time and space it takes to
put a comma at the end of preambular para beginning with "Further
recalled..... " and adding after ...Covenant on Civil and Political
rights just this - "....and the International Covenant on Social,
Economic and Cultural Rights". Especially when whole new points and
sentences have been added to the draft between the last plenary and the
final document! Did those present there as civil society even at that
stage when they discovered that soc and eco rights were missing really
take this issue up with full might? Did anyone there solidly back the
demand. I very much doubt - bec the proof is out there. Why did we not
fully put our foot down. After all we would only be asking what exists
in most UN doc on similar issues, and which was there prominently in the
WSIS documents.
I dont think we should put up excuses that the demand for putting in soc
and eco rights came in late, and UNESCO wanted a short doc, and so on.
This excuse is untenable, in a provable way as I show above. Other long
text were included, and much later.. If it is wrong, and an enormous
political loss, it is so, clearly and bluntly! We must accept it.
The second fact we must contend with is that some civil society people
there joined US and its allies to say 'democratic' has baggage, and all
possible references to 'democracy' were refused. And what I really find
somewhat shocking is that you are sympathetically explaining that view,
although in a most unconvincing manner. Dont you think multistakeholder
has baggage! Why did you not remove that term on the same logic. Do you
not know that there are parties that think even 'human rights' have
baggage. Would you accept such a logic? Who decides what has baggage?
Does this also bespeaks a certain composition of civil society that was
more actively present and involved there. So, should we now start
considering 'democratic' as a likely problematic term. Great progress we
are making! First one needed to fight to get democratic into the
NetMundial document in just one place when multistakeholder is there in
about 30 places. And then comes the meeting at UNESCO - an hallowed UN
body - and here we are told that well in fact 'democratic' is
problematic and has baggage and so let it be completely out.
I dont understand you logic that in Tunis Agenda democratic is always
mentioned with multilateral and therefore is means multilateral . I
thought if a word is mentioned along with another one, it can be taken
that it means something different. At places, all three democratic,
multilateral and multistakeholder are mentioned together in TA. Does
that mean that each of these then is a code word for the other. This is
a very weak and unsustainable logic.
Meanwhile, you know that it is not as you say 'the editing group did
consider it seriously'. When Anita proposed putting 'democratic
dialogue' in a different place, in 5.1, such apparently was the depth of
antipathy to the term 'democratic' that the group quietly included
'public dialogue' not touching the word 'democratic' even here, in a
largely 'innocent' usage. (This in fact was a good opportunity to
assuage those who were demanding the inclusion of the 'democratic term -
a democratic dialogue certainly cannot mean multilateral, or does it ?
But the fact that even this opportunity was not taken shows how solidly
the forces against democracy were entrenched. I simply do not know what
civil society persons on the inside were doing.) This really makes one
extremely alarmed, to see such studious exclusion of the word
'democratic'. It is from this alarm that our extreme concern at what
happened in Paris is pouring out. And you want us to simply accept it as
if nothing happened and move on.
BTW, when you say,"It is a pity that 'democratic was not added, but it
was never really an option' , I do not fully understand. Why you say 'it
was never really an option'. That itself is alarming. Have we reached
such a stage that use of the term 'democratic' is no longer really an
option for global normative texts of IG'. JNC has an analysis of what
is happening here, and we have held it for a long time, with pretty
accurate predictive value, as we see things unfolding like what happened
in Paris. We are not ready to be happy to move on. We intend to dig in
and fight. Social, economic and cultural rights must be restored as key
normative values for the communicative sphere of which the Internet is
today a central element. And governance in all areas, including the
Internet, will be democratic - that must be made clear. We will decry
any effort or move which goes against these, and if needed the actors
responsible. This is a political struggle, not a cocktail party.
There is more, but later.
And I do thank you for your report below.
parminder
On Thursday 05 March 2015 04:05 PM, Anriette Esterhuysen wrote:
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre wrap="">Dear all
Just an explanation and some context.
I was on the 'coordinating committee' of the event. Our role was to
review comments on the draft statement and support the chair and
secretariat in compiling drafts.
The final UNESCO outcome document did include the vast majority of
text/proposals submitted by civil society beforehand and onsite.
This includes text submitted by Richard Hill on behalf of JNC (Richard
made several editorial suggestions which improved the text) and text
from Anita Gurumurthy from IT for Change (which greatly improved
weakened language on gender in the pre-final draft).
The text on 'social and economic rights' were not excluded for any
reason other than it came during the final session and the Secretariat
were trying to keep the document short and linked directly to the Study.
It was decided to elaborate on the links to broader rights, and to
UNESCO needing to work with other rights bodies, in the final study
report rather than in the outcome statement.
Again, not ideal from my perspective, but that was the outcome of the
discussion.
It is a pity that 'democratic' was not added, but it was never really an
option. I personally, and APC, support linking democratic to
multistakeholder and we were happy that this happened in the NETmundial
statement. And reading Norbert's text below (thanks for that Norbert) I
would like to find a way to make sure that the meaning of democratic
However, in the UN IG context there is a very particular angle to why
"democratic multistakeholder" is so contentious. In the Tunis Agenda the
word "democratic" is directly linked with the word "multilateral" -
every time it occurs. This means that people/governments who feel that
'multilateral' can be used to diminish the recognition given to the
importance of multistakeholder participation, and take the debate back
intergovernmental oversight of IG, will not agree to having 'democratic'
in front of multistakeholder.
In the context of these UN type negotiations it will be code for
reinserting multilateral (in the meaning of 'among governments') into
the text.
At the NETmundial we had to fight for 'democratic multistakeholder', but
because it is a 'new' text we succeeded.
The thing with documents that come out of the UN system is that they are
full of invisible 'hyperlinks' to previous documents and political
struggles that play themselves out in multiple spaces.
I actually looked for a quote from the Tunis Agenda that we could insert
(at Richard's suggestion) to see if I could find a reference to
democratic that is not linked to 'multilateral' but I could not find
this quote, and I showed this to Richard and warned him that
unfortunately 'democratic' will most likely not be included.
I can confirm that the editing group did consider this seriously, but
that the number of objections to this text were far greater than the
number of requests for putting it in.
This is simply in the nature of consensus texts that are negotiated in
this way.
There was also much stronger text on anonymity and encryption as
fundamental enablers of online privacy and freedom of expression in the
early draft. But it had to be toned down on the insistence of the
government of Brazil as the Brazilian constitution states that anonymity
is illegitimate.
Civil society never succeeds in getting everything it wants in documents
we negotiate with governments. We have to evaluate the gains vs. the
losses.
In my view the gains in this document outweighs the losses. Supporting
it means that we have UN agency who has a presence in the global south
who will put issues that are important to us on its agenda, which will,
I hope, create the opportunity for more people from civil society,
particularly from developing countries, to learn, participate and
influence internet-related debates with policy-makers.
Michael, as for your tone, and your allegations. I don't really know
what to say about them. They are false, they are destructive and they
demean not only the work of the civil society organisations or
individuals you name, but also the work - and what I believe to be the
values - of the Just Net Coalition.
Anriette
On 05/03/2015 11:46, Norbert Bollow wrote:
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre wrap="">On Thu, 5 Mar 2015 02:27:14 +0100
Jeremy Malcolm <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:jmalcolm@eff.org"><jmalcolm@eff.org></a> wrote:
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre wrap="">On Mar 4, 2015, at 7:54 PM, Michael Gurstein <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:gurstein@gmail.com"><gurstein@gmail.com></a>
wrote:
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre wrap="">
Perhaps we could have an explanation from Jeremy and others on the
drafting committee as to when and how "democracy" and "social and
economic rights' became unacceptable terms in a document meant to
have global significance?
</pre>
</blockquote>
<pre wrap="">
With pleasure. This is why:
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://igfwatch.org/discussion-board/unesco-resists-jncs-attempt-to-turn-democracy-against-ordinary-internet-users">http://igfwatch.org/discussion-board/unesco-resists-jncs-attempt-to-turn-democracy-against-ordinary-internet-users</a>
</pre>
</blockquote>
<pre wrap="">
I would like to hereby state clearly that what Jeremy claims is JNC's
view of "democratic multi-stakeholderism" is not an actual position of
JNC.
For JNC, "democratic" simply means: democratic.
We insist that just like governance at national levels must be
democratic (which has been internationally accepted as a human right,
even if there are countries where this is not currently implemented
satisfactorily), any and all global governance must also be democratic.
JNC's foundational document, the Delhi Declaration, states this as
follows:
Globally, there is a severe democratic deficit with regard to
Internet governance. It is urgently required to establish
appropriate platforms and mechanisms for global governance of the
Internet that are democratic and participative.
We are opposed to any kind of system in which multistakeholderism is
implemented in a way that is not democratic.
We are *not* opposed to participative mechanisms for global governance
of the Internet. In fact we explicitly demand, in our foundational
document, mechanisms for global governance of the Internet which are
democratic *and* participative.
This demand has nothing whatsoever to do with what Jeremy claims is our
goal, which he describes as “limited type of government-led
rulemaking”. That would clearly *not* be participative.
We insist that Internet governance must be democratic *and*
participative.
Is that so hard to understand???
The above-mentioned post of Jeremy also links, twice, to an earlier
blog post of his, and he claims that he has there "revealed ... the
agenda of the Just Net Coalition". That post happens to be quite full of
factually false assertions. I have now published my response (which had
previously been communicated in a non-public manner) at
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://justnetcoalition.org/reply-jeremy-malcolm">http://justnetcoalition.org/reply-jeremy-malcolm</a>
Greetings,
Norbert
co-convenor, Just Net Coalition
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://JustNetCoalition.org">http://JustNetCoalition.org</a>
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<pre wrap="">
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