<html><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; ">Hi Bertrand<div><br><div><div>On Jul 16, 2009, at 1:22 PM, Bertrand de La Chapelle wrote:</div><br><blockquote type="cite"><br>1) The title of the thread (should the IGF <u>negotiate</u> recommendations ?) goes beyond what the Tunis Agenda says ("make" recommendations). I do not think anybody in the IGC wants to go backwards on the Tunis document : the capacity of IGF to produce recommendations is in the text and it is important. What the reluctant people mean is that "negotiations" as a way to produce recommendations is the wrong way to go. The experience of those of us who participated this year in meetings like CSTD and ITU WTPF shows the danger of reverting to traditional ways of intergovernmental negotiations. <br></blockquote><div><br></div>Right, CSTD and WTPF really make the point. So I said negotiate for a reason. It is extremely difficult to imagine how the IGF per se could "make" recs without it becoming a negotiation, that's just how governments operate, it's in their DNA. I can't think of a single IGO-based process in which governments sit as peers with other actors and collaborate on texts without clear differentiations in "respective roles and responsibilities," i.e. nongovernmentals can weigh in but then the governments agree the text. Can you? (Even in ICANN this doesn't happen; Milton's proposed disbanding GAC and having governmentals just blend into supporting orgs, but I'd be shocked if they went for that.)</div><div><br></div><div>Which is not to say it is absolutely impossible. In some standards and security groups there's peer-level MS cooperation. So, as I said before, it would depend very much on the modalities etc, which are unknowns, and dialogue would be needed to see whether a palatable model could be arrived at. But insofar as most of the governments that have been calling for recs are hardly friends of CS, and indeed would like to go back to WSIS procedures if anything, it's hard to be optimistic.</div><div><br></div><div><blockquote type="cite"> <br>2) During the Hyderabad meeting last year, an interesting distinction was made between "recommendations <u>by</u> the IGF" and "recommendations <u>at</u> the IGF". This would mean that groups of actors, including Dynamic Coalitions for instance but also ad hoc gatherings after a workshop, could take the opportunity of an IGF meeting to prepare recommendations that they would make public at the IGF and invite other actors to join. This is a truly multi-stakeholder and bottom-up approach.<br></blockquote><div><br></div>Right, and a number of us supported that. And there was Wolfgang's related proposal for "messages from the IGF." But do you think the governments calling for recs would be satisfied with that, really? I'd be rather surprised, to put it mildly. </div><div><blockquote type="cite"><br><div style="margin-left: 40px;">Q6 Tunis Agenda 72g mandates the IGF to make recommendations "where appropriate". This dimension of the IGF mandate should not be forgotten, but this does not necessarily mean traditional resolution drafting. The IGC believes that it is important in that respect for the outcomes of workshops and main sessions, and of the IGFs in general, to be presented in more tangible, concise and result-oriented formats. IGF participants should also be encouraged to engage in concrete cooperations as a result of their interaction in the IGF or in the Dynamic Coalitions and to present their concrete recommendations at the IGF, that would be posted on the IGF web site. <br> </div></blockquote></div><br></div><div>I would be fine with that. Or with a formulation that combines this with my suggestion of a call for open, inclusive, and probing multistakeholder dialogue on whether adopting recommendations at the IGF level could be appropriate.</div><div><br></div><div>Finally, just for the record,</div><div><br></div><blockquote type="cite"><div>On Jul 16, 2009, at 11:17 AM, Jeremy Malcolm wrote:</div><blockquote type="cite"><div><font class="Apple-style-span" color="#000000"><br></font>Also, it's not even accurate to say that "IGF stakeholders have been divided as to whether the requirement of appropriateness ever has been or could be met". In fact they haven't addressed their minds to this point at all. I don't recall anyone ever saying, "Well yes the IGF could make recommendations, except for this requirement of appropriateness". They haven't even gotten to that point - rather they have harped on the fact that the IGF has no mechanism to produce recommendations, and implying that no such mechanism is possible without destroying the IGF as we know it.</div></blockquote></blockquote><div><br></div>I don't know who you talked to in Tunis or during the preparatory process Jeremy, but there were definitely governments and major nongovernmental stakeholders that absolutely did not want a commitment to do recommendations, period. "Where appropriate" provided a way out that could be presented as consistent with the mandate. If they had read the TA as you do, they would not have agreed to it in Tunis, and there might not be an IGF. <div><div><div><div><br></div><div>Bill<br><div> </div></div></div></div></div></body></html>