<html>
<head>
<meta content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1"
http-equiv="Content-Type">
</head>
<body bgcolor="#FFFFFF" text="#000000">
On 10/30/2011 03:20 AM, Milton L Mueller wrote:
<blockquote
cite="mid:855077AC3D7A7147A7570370CA01ECD202CA4D@SUEX10-mbx-10.ad.syr.edu"
type="cite">
People in civil society, such as Jeremy, who rightly see some of
the hypocrisy underlying defenses of the status quo but who fail
to see the far more serious threat of destroying the more open,
organically Developed Internet Institutions (ODII) by
sovereignty-based intergovernmental hierarchies are deeply out of
touch with political reality on a global basis, or are letting
their anger get the better of them and losing perspective
completely. We do not have to choose between the status quo and
the UN (an earlier, kruftier status quo). Everyone needs to write
that on the chalkboard 50 times.</blockquote>
<br>
In fact my attitude to this proposal is informed very strongly by
political reality. You might recall that the IGC's original response
to WGIG's IGF proposal was that the the IGF should be situated
outside of the United Nations, too. If it had been, would it even
still exist now? Yet the IGF is not the earlier, kruftier version
of the UN that the IGC perhaps feared when advocating that it be
situated outside the UN.<br>
<br>
For the last few years I have taken heat for my idea that the IGF,
if it is to be able to make recommendations as its mandate requires,
should before allow governments (and the other stakeholder groups
too) a power of veto over those recommendations before they are
issued. That position, and my response to the CIRP proposal,* are
influenced strongly by the same political realities.<br>
<br>
I am not one of those social democrats of whom you speak, who
believe that intergovernmental organisations represent the will of
the people (in fact, I don't even know any such social democrats).
But I do accept that "enhanced cooperation" was never going to be
just the IGF on steroids: it was always going to be government-led.
As such, situating it in the UN is not preferable, merely
inevitable.<br>
<br>
The UN is, doubtless, as corrupt as the United States Congress or
the Chinese Community Party. But to its credit, it does play such
plutocracies and dictatorships against each other, resulting in the
curbing of their worst excesses. Consider for example, how much
worse the WIPO Copyright Treaties or ACTA would have been, if the
United States, EU and Japan had been able to draft these on their
own.<br>
<br>
So even if the CIRP was purely intergovernmental, we might still
expect that its policies may be "somewhat less bad than the status
quo". But because of its multi-stakeholder character, we can hope
for much more: that civil society will finally have a and positive
real impact on policies such as those that are being developed right
now, outside of any transnational multi-stakeholder framework, that
are destroying the Internet as we know it.<br>
<br>
* <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://jere.my/l/1t">http://jere.my/l/1t</a><br>
<br>
<div class="moz-signature">-- <br>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12pt;"><strong><span style="color:
black;">Dr Jeremy Malcolm<br>
Project Coordinator</span></strong><span style="font-size:
10pt; color: black;"> <br>
</span><span style="font-size: 9pt; color: black;">Consumers
International</span><span style="font-size: 9pt; color:
#333333;"><br>
</span><span style="font-size: 9pt; color: gray;">Kuala Lumpur
Office for Asia-Pacific and the Middle East<br>
Lot 5-1 Wisma WIM, 7 Jalan Abang Haji Openg, TTDI, 60000 Kuala
Lumpur, Malaysia<br>
Tel: +60 3 7726 1599</span></p>
<span style="font-size: 9pt; color: navy;"><span
style="text-decoration: underline;"></span></span>Consumers
International (CI) is the world federation of consumer groups
that, working together with its members, serves as the only
independent and authoritative global voice for consumers. With
over 220 member organisations in 115 countries, we are building a
powerful international movement to help protect and empower
consumers everywhere. <br>
<a href="http://www.consumersinternational.org/">www.consumersinternational.org</a><br>
<a href="http://twitter.com/Consumers_Int">Twitter @Consumers_Int</a><br>
<p><span style="font-size: 10pt; color: black;"><br>
</span><span style="font-size: 8pt; color: #999999;">Read our <a
href="http://www.consumersinternational.org/email-confidentiality"
target="_blank"> <span style="color: #999999;">email
confidentiality notice</span></a>. Don't print this email
unless necessary.</span></p>
</div>
</body>
</html>