<div dir="ltr">On Tue, Sep 9, 2008 at 1:11 AM, Ian Peter <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:ian.peter@ianpeter.com">ian.peter@ianpeter.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><div class="gmail_quote"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
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<div><p><font color="navy" face="Arial" size="2"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: navy;">within the context of
the general request, which is to make rights a main theme for Cairo? (which doesn't seem to be
disputed)</span></font></p></div></div></blockquote><div><br>Hello Ian and Parminder,<br><br>I have one of Parminder's documents embedded in my blog and took a rapid look at it to find interesting alternatives to the theme of rights, and found that the document talks about Internet as Public Infrastructure. <br>
<br>There has been a lot of passion about this topic of "rights" but this topic is dangerous territory. Can we think of "Internet as Public Infrastructure" as the overwhelming theme of the IGF, Cairo?<br>
<br>The other themes that occurred to me are "Depoliticizing the Internet", again from Parminder's document, but this theme again is a double edged sword like the theme of "Rights" and would charge the IGF atmosphere with a lot of political debates. <br>
<br>One more theme could be the broad theme of "preserving the essential characteristics of the Internet in the process of unrestrained growth" or even simply "Internet for the next billion users- challenges in Governance"<br>
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<p><b><font face="Tahoma" size="2"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Tahoma; font-weight: bold;">From:</span></font></b><font face="Tahoma" size="2"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Tahoma;"> Sivasubramanian
Muthusamy [mailto:<a href="mailto:isolatedn@gmail.com" target="_blank">isolatedn@gmail.com</a>] <br>
<b><span style="font-weight: bold;">Sent:</span></b> 09 September 2008 04:35<br>
<b><span style="font-weight: bold;">To:</span></b> <a href="mailto:governance@lists.cpsr.org" target="_blank">governance@lists.cpsr.org</a>;
Tapani Tarvainen<div class="Ih2E3d"><br>
<b><span style="font-weight: bold;">Subject:</span></b> Re: [governance] Inputs
for synthesis paper</div></span></font></p>
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<p><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span></font></p>
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<p><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Hello Parminder and All,<div><div></div><div class="Wj3C7c"><br>
<br>
All the heat is about the connotations of the term "collective
rights". I tried to understand the distinction between individual right
and collective right and this is what I <a href="http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Olympus/5357/ihr6a.html" target="_blank">found:</a><br>
<br>
</div></div></span></font></p><div><div></div><div class="Wj3C7c"><i><font size="2"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-style: italic;">Individual
Rights apply to the generic individual without regard to his or her
identity.... These rights are determined with no knowledge of what our actual
economic standing, educational level, gender, or ethnic origin would be. Most
international and national formulations of human rights are drafted in such a
way as to apply to a generic individual.</span></font></i> </div></div><div><div></div><div class="Wj3C7c">
<p><i><font face="Times New Roman" size="2"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-style: italic;">Collective rights, however, do not start with the individual
but rather with a specific group. Individuals are defined by their membership
in that group, which thus differentiates them from others in society. Some
collectives are formed by choice (religious affiliation in the United States,
for example). Others are predetermined (the traditional understanding of
gender, for example). Collective rights begin with the premise that the group
has a claim to make. Historically, we can see numerous examples of group
treatment (generally negative). In the Roman Empire,
for example, Jews possessed the status of a <b><span style="font-weight: bold;">religio
licita</span></b>, and as such enjoyed specific rights as Jews--the right not
to work on the Sabbath, or to recognize the divinity of the Emperor. Such
rights were granted to the Jewish collective and thus to the individual Jew of
the Empire by virtue of being Jewish and thus distinct from Greeks or Syrians
or Celts in the Empire. The Ottoman Empire was
governed under the <b><span style="font-weight: bold;">millet</span></b> system,
by which each group in the Empire was defined via their religious community.
Thus, people living in the same town but belonging to different faiths had
different rights and obligations on account of their group membership. A vague
notion of collective rights also lay behind the concept of
extra-territoriality, that people, by virtue of their citizenship, in foreign
lands should be governed, not by local law, but by the laws of their
originating state. ---- from a Lecture of Dr. Nikolas K. Gvosdev, </span></font>Editor
of The National Interest and a Senior Fellow in Strategic Studies at The Nixon Center.</i></p>
<p><font face="Times New Roman" size="2"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">Internet
Governance Caucus can propose Collective Rights if we would like to see
different bandwidth plans for men and women, priority access for "backward
and "most backward" classes as invented in India, publishing space
discrimination between different </span></font>churches, and free DVD movies
for those who live in mountains.</p>
<p><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Sivasubramanian
Muthusamy.</span></font></p>
<p><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">India</span></font>.</p>
<p><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span></font></p>
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<p><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">On Mon, Sep 8, 2008 at 10:41 PM, Tapani Tarvainen <<a href="mailto:tapani.tarvainen@effi.org" target="_blank">tapani.tarvainen@effi.org</a>>
wrote:</span></font></p>
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<p style="margin-bottom: 12pt;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">On Mon, Sep 08, 2008 at
10:02:20PM +0530, Parminder (<a href="mailto:parminder@itforchange.net" target="_blank">parminder@itforchange.net</a>)
wrote:<br>
<br>
> 'Collective rights' is obviously an analytical category and not a right as<br>
> such. So when I speak of collective rights I am clearly meaning specific<br>
> rights like rights of indigenous people, linguistic rights, cultural
rights,<br>
> minority rights, right to development etc.<br>
<br>
> To say that one doesn't believe in collective rights one must be able to
say<br>
> that one doesn't believe in the above rights.</span></font></p>
</div>
<p><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">It does not follow if one does not agree that those rights are
collective.<br>
<br>
I suspect one or maybe the key problem here is that the term indeed<br>
carries different meanings, and people want to reject some of them.<br>
<br>
In particular, probably few (?) people would oppose collective<br>
rights as justification of individual rights - rights individuals<br>
would have because of their membership in a group.<br>
The opposition stems from the other meaning, where collective<br>
rights would justify depriving individuals of their rights.</span></font></p>
<div>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12pt;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><br>
> In fact I am fine if one is ready to accept a long list of all these
rights,<br>
> and not mention the terms negative, positive and collective rights. That<br>
> merely would mean one thinks all these rights, along with those that may
be<br>
> considered negative and positive rights are in the same category, and need<br>
> not be differentiated. I could in fact be happier with such a position.</span></font></p>
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<p><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">That might be a useful approach.<br>
<br>
--<br>
<font color="#888888"><span style="color: rgb(136, 136, 136);">Tapani Tarvainen</span></font></span></font></p>
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