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Milton<br>
<br>
<font face="Times New Roman, Times, serif"><span
class="092245415-02042009"><font color="#0000ff" face="Arial" size="2">>Political
sovereignty for the Internet community is precisely what we seek. It
should, of course, be one in which the new global institution(s) are
accountable to a broad >segment of Internet society. But this is the
fundamental underlying drama of ICANN and its status vis a vis U.S.
government and other states.<br>
<br>
<font color="#000000"><big><font face="Times New Roman, Times, serif">I
do not understand the meaning of 'internet community' in this context
and therefore
cannot appreciate what you mean by political </font></big></font></font></span></font><font
color="#000000" face="Times New Roman, Times, serif"><big><span
class="092245415-02042009"><font size="2"><big>sovereignty </big></font></span></big></font><font
face="Times New Roman, Times, serif"><span class="092245415-02042009"><font
color="#0000ff" face="Arial" size="2"><font color="#000000"><big><font
face="Times New Roman, Times, serif">for it. For us, all people of the
world have legitimate and equal political interest in all key Internet
matters. Can you please explain why would you not just say 'global
community' instead. Any particular reason? Especially when we both
agreed that we are speaking here of not some narrow technical policy
issues, but important political matters, for instance FoE and 'access
to knowledge'. <br>
<br>
The political use of the term 'internet community', in the manner I
have seen it mostly used now-a-days, has become one part of a dangerous
attempt
to create an artificially new global reality, with a new basis for
constructing its constituents, *for the purpose of engineering* some
radical global
political redetermination that fly in the face of long revered precepts
of democracy, public interest, representation, social justice and
equity. In such attempts at global political redetermination lie the
principle congruity of neoliberal and the dominant information society
discourses.<br>
<br>
</font></big></font></font></span></font>
<div><font color="#0000ff" face="Arial" size="2"><span
class="092245415-02042009">>Seems we have a choice of three models.
1) Work in the general framework of private sector, civil society based
governance; 2) take an ITU/WIPO, >pure-intergovernmental approach;
3) take what might be called a competing hegemon approach, in which US
contends with EU, China, Russia, Brazil and India for >dominance,
and use IGOs (and ICANN) as tools when convenient and act unilaterally
when not. The latter two options are state-directed but the third
relies more on great >power deals than established institutional
frameworks. </span></font></div>
<div><font color="#0000ff" face="Arial" size="2"><span
class="092245415-02042009"></span></font> <font color="#0000ff"
face="Arial" size="2"><span class="092245415-02042009">>I'll take
1).<br>
<br>
<font color="#000000"><big><font face="Times New Roman, Times, serif">We
are strongly opposed to any private (meaning business, using standard
UN terminology) sector
leadership for any global governance model. I made this clear in my
previous email. We see important CS role in new global governance
models, but there is lot to be done and learnt in this area, and it is
really not easy to structure CS participation in any body with strong
policy roles. As mentioned in my email, we very much encourage and
participate in any innovations in this area (ex, IGF). In fact, WGIG
did propose
alternative global Internet policy institutional frameworks (see its
models 1, 3 and 4), which were worth a try, and certainly worth full
CS support. Unfortunately, much of the CS in the IG arena did not
support these alternatives and struck to supporting existing ICANNist
model. That was our best chance, and it is still our best chance. We
need to work towards real internationalization of the IG system, with
innovative models that have high civil society representation.
Significantly, more we delay in supporting and pushing for such new
possibilities, the global environment for acceptability of anything
other than a
simple UN kind inter-governmental model may only keep becoming worse. <br>
<br>
To sum our position, we prefer to work with democratically
representative bodies, using CS presence for 'deepening democracy' at
the global level, rather than acquiesce to corporate leadership of
global governance. (Milton, since I understand you wont want corporates
to have leading political role with regard to domestic issue inside the
US, why have different standards and definitions of democracy for your
country and for the outside?) <br>
<br>
We do realize that many governments are not
themselves democratic representatives of the people of their
countries, and in this context we should work hard for strengthening
the democratization
of national as well as global governance. The ruse of poor governance
for privatizing governance has been used for too long by some global
forces vis-a-vs developing countries for us not to understand this ploy
rather well. It has been one of the main planks of the 'Washington
consensus' policies. Interestingly UK's Prime Minister declared at the
recent G 20 London summit that the 'Washington consensus was over'.
Lets use this opportunity to move beyond its (more rabid) sister
'Californian consensus' (the ICANN+ model) towards some real globally
democratic arrangements, rather than wait for a crisis, as the London
Summit did. <br>
</font></big></font></span></font></div>
<div><font color="#0000ff" face="Arial" size="2"><span
class="092245415-02042009"></span></font> <br>
</div>
Parminder <br>
<font face="Times New Roman, Times, serif"><span
class="092245415-02042009"><font color="#0000ff" face="Arial" size="2"><font
color="#000000"><big><font face="Times New Roman, Times, serif"><br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
</font></big></font></font></span></font>Milton L Mueller wrote:
<blockquote
cite="mid:75822E125BCB994F8446858C4B19F0D76BEA10DB@SUEX07-MBX-04.ad.syr.edu"
type="cite">
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<div dir="ltr" align="left"> </div>
<div dir="ltr" align="left"><span class="092245415-02042009"><font
color="#0000ff" face="Arial" size="2">Parminder:</font></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" align="left"><span class="092245415-02042009"><font
color="#0000ff" face="Arial" size="2">Thanks very much for
this long-overdue but welcome and well-considered explanation. We have
indeed felt exasperated at times by the lack of engagement by IGC/IGF
civil society. It has always seemed to me that ICANN repeatedly
raises political issues and struggles that, in the IGF context, attract
a great deal of activity but have very little impact relative to the
ICANN venue. And while it wasn't hard to surmise that some of the logic
you developed below underlay the hesitation to get involved, it is
better to have an open dialogue about this.</font></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" align="left"><span class="092245415-02042009"> </span></div>
<div><span class="092245415-02042009"></span><font face="Arial"><font
color="#0000ff"><font size="2">A<span class="092245415-02042009"> few
specific responses and questions below: </span></font></font></font><br>
</div>
<blockquote dir="ltr"
style="border-left: 2px solid rgb(0, 0, 255); padding-left: 5px; margin-left: 5px; margin-right: 0px;">
<div><font face="Times New Roman, Times, serif">Either ICANN, and
its GNSO, is merely doing 'relatively' mundane, though often important,
administrative tasks in managing some critical Internet resources,
meaning tasks that do not have much political implication, or ICANN
indeed does tasks with significant political implications. <span
class="092245415-02042009"><font color="#0000ff" face="Arial" size="2"> </font></span></font></div>
<div><font color="#0000ff" face="Arial" size="2"><span
class="092245415-02042009"></span></font> </div>
<div><font color="#0000ff" face="Arial" size="2"><span
class="092245415-02042009">It is the latter, obviously. </span></font></div>
<div><font color="#0000ff" face="Arial" size="2"><span
class="092245415-02042009"></span></font> </div>
<div><font face="Times New Roman, Times, serif">However, in case
ICANN/ GNSO does work with important political implications we simply
do not agree with much of its constitutive logic - for instance, of
equality/</font><font face="Times New Roman, Times, serif">balance</font><font
face="Times New Roman, Times, serif"> between demand and supply side
of the 'domain name' marketplace, or even between other commercial and
non-commercial parties. We also do not agree to its basic criterion for
legitimate interest/ representation that requires one to at least be a
domain registrant. We do not think that is the point - for instance
even in the KTCN campaign of NCUC on the FoE issue.<span
class="092245415-02042009"><font color="#0000ff" face="Arial" size="2"> </font></span></font></div>
<div><font color="#0000ff" face="Arial" size="2"><span
class="092245415-02042009"></span></font> </div>
<div><font face="Times New Roman, Times, serif"><span
class="092245415-02042009"><font color="#0000ff" face="Arial" size="2">For
those who are weak on the acronyms, KTCN = keep the core neutral, FoE =
freedom of expression. I do not see how the KTCN campaign had anything
to do with whether one was a domain registrant or not, but perhaps I
miss your point.</font> </span> <br>
<br>
Such 'user' based and stakeholder based global governance systems
disproportionately favoring organized private sector (US-ians may read,
business sector) - to counter whose power is a central governance issue
at the global level - are exactly the wrong models of global governance
to promote. Such models are poised to </font><font
face="Times New Roman, Times, serif">overall </font><font
face="Times New Roman, Times, serif">do much greater damage than good
to the global public interest. They are especially dangerous when they
seek political sovereignty, which we are afraid much of these minor
structural adjustments are aimed at consolidating. </font><font
face="Times New Roman, Times, serif">To the extent that </font><font
face="Times New Roman, Times, serif">there is a certain complicity in
the ICANN arena i</font><font face="Times New Roman, Times, serif">n
this regard</font><font face="Times New Roman, Times, serif"> -
including of some of the involved civil society actors - we</font><font
face="Times New Roman, Times, serif"> must strongly disassociate
ourselves from supporting any such implications of the present, or any
other, proposal for structural changes in the ICANN.<span
class="092245415-02042009"><font color="#0000ff" face="Arial" size="2"> </font></span></font></div>
<div><font color="#0000ff" face="Arial" size="2"><span
class="092245415-02042009"></span></font> </div>
<div><font face="Times New Roman, Times, serif"><span
class="092245415-02042009"><font color="#0000ff" face="Arial" size="2">Political
sovereignty for the Internet community is precisely what we seek. It
should, of course, be one in which the new global institution(s) are
accountable to a broad segment of Internet society. But this is the
fundamental underlying drama of ICANN and its status vis a vis U.S.
government and other states.</font></span><br>
<br>
On the other hand, we can understand and accept user/ stakeholder
models for relatively low-level technical policy tasks, which are
politically accountable to globally legitimate entities (sorry, but US
government is not). <span class="092245415-02042009"><font
color="#0000ff" face="Arial" size="2"> </font></span></font></div>
<div><font color="#0000ff" face="Arial" size="2"><span
class="092245415-02042009"></span></font> </div>
<div><font color="#0000ff" face="Arial" size="2"><span
class="092245415-02042009">Who is? </span></font></div>
<div><font color="#0000ff" face="Arial" size="2"><span
class="092245415-02042009">Seems we have a choice of three models. 1)
Work in the general framework of private sector, civil society based
governance; 2) take an ITU/WIPO, pure-intergovernmental approach; 3)
take what might be called a competing hegemon approach, in which US
contends with EU, China, Russia, Brazil and India for dominance, and
use IGOs (and ICANN) as tools when convenient and act unilaterally when
not. The latter two options are state-directed but the third relies
more on great power deals than established institutional frameworks. </span></font></div>
<div><font color="#0000ff" face="Arial" size="2"><span
class="092245415-02042009"></span></font> </div>
<div><font color="#0000ff" face="Arial" size="2"><span
class="092245415-02042009">I'll take 1).</span></font></div>
<div><font color="#0000ff" face="Arial" size="2"><span
class="092245415-02042009"></span></font> </div>
<div><font face="Times New Roman, Times, serif">All such
governance innovations - out-of-the-box, subversive, whatever - that
look like they are especially pushing forward marginalized interests
attract our strong interest. All 'innovations' that further entrench
dominant interests -whether economic, political, geo-political, class
- are correspondingly received with strong political opposition. <span
class="092245415-02042009"><font color="#0000ff" face="Arial" size="2"> </font></span></font></div>
<div><font color="#0000ff" face="Arial" size="2"><span
class="092245415-02042009"></span></font> </div>
<div><font face="Times New Roman, Times, serif"><span
class="092245415-02042009"><font color="#0000ff" face="Arial" size="2">Understand
this well. If you want to know why IGP verges on the status
of "radioactive" within ICANN/US/DoC circles it's because of this. But
I suspect our concept of what kind of policies best overcome
marginalization may differ. </font></span></font></div>
<div><font face="Times New Roman, Times, serif"><span
class="092245415-02042009"></span></font> </div>
<div><font face="Times New Roman, Times, serif"><span
class="092245415-02042009"><font color="#0000ff" face="Arial" size="2">Setting
that aside, I see based on your final comments below that you at least
partly realize why the NCSG charter should be supported in this case.
To spell it out more clearly, the reason NCSG is being targeted by
ICANN staff as something to be fragmented and manipulated is precisely
because NCUC has been completely independent of staff control and
dominance (unlike ALAC and the RALOs) and because the policies it has
advocated have seemed "oppositional" and challenging to some of those
"dominant interests."</font></span><br>
<br>
</font><font face="Times New Roman, Times, serif">We will like to
see the NCSG 6.0 charter developed by the NCUC adopted by the ICANN
instead of the alternative one, and especially agree that its direct
instead of constituency based election of council members is a much
better process. It is better because it has a higher chance of
representing global public interest, each candidate having to muster a
much wider support. <span class="092245415-02042009"><font
color="#0000ff" face="Arial" size="2"> </font></span></font></div>
<div><font color="#0000ff" face="Arial" size="2"><span
class="092245415-02042009"></span></font> </div>
<div><font face="Times New Roman, Times, serif"><span
class="092245415-02042009"><font color="#0000ff" face="Arial" size="2">Thanks!
When it comes to the bottom line, I am happy to see that you "get it."</font></span><br>
<br>
</font><font face="Arial" size="2"><span
style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial;"><O:P></O:P></span></font></div>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
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