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Kivuva's questions are excellent questions. However, the first missing
question is: "what is civil society?".<br><br>
Two responses among many others:<br><br>
1.
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_society">
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_society</a>.<br><br>
2. European law:<br><br>
* trade unions and employers organisations (social partners); <br>
* non-governmental organisations; <br>
* professional associations; <br>
* charities; <br>
* grass-roots organisations;<br>
* organisations that involve citizens in local and municipal life <br>
* with a particular contribution from churches and religious communities.
<br><br>
For a more precise definition of organized civil society,
<a href="http://www.eesc.europa.eu/resources/docs/actes_sco_en.pdf">
http://www.eesc.europa.eu/resources/docs/actes_sco_en.pdf<br><br>
</a><blockquote type=cite class=cite cite="">On 08/11/2013 09:13,
Salanieta T. Tamanikaiwaimaro wrote:<br>
<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite="">On Fri, Nov 8, 2013 at 8:18 PM,
Kivuva
<<a href="mailto:Kivuva@transworldafrica.com">
Kivuva@transworldafrica.com</a>> wrote: <br>
+1 Sala. If we are working for the common good of all, this is the way to
go. </blockquote><br>
Some Questions: <br>
1. How easy is it for the consolidated CS to reach a consensus? <br>
[Sala: This is a very good question. The reality is that no civil society
organisation can purport to represent the views of all civil society.
However the critical thing to note is that in this instance this is not
asking for consensus of views on substantive policy matters but are more
to do with administrative matters pertaining to selection of civil
society representatives. I am not sure how open they will feel about
consensus amongst civil society organisations on fielding names for
committees such as the MAG etc. But it's worth a shot.
]</blockquote><b><br>
</b>Correct. There is no such thing as "civil society
consolidation". There are many civil society points of view. This is
why one can only talk of CS witnesses, and why a Judge is necessary.
<br><br>
A working example is provided by the IETF. In the IETF's case, the
Judge's role is played by the Chair who assesses the existence of a rough
consensus among the participating stakeholders. <br><br>
In the Civil Society's case, the first problem that we face is to make
sure that all the stakes are considered. (1) The most motivated
voluntaries are usually committed to HRs. (2) The architectonical legal
principle of the digisphere is "code is law". This has two
consequences at least:
<ul>
<li>other legal and non-legal issues are dramatically not evoked enough.
<li>the law (and HR protection) proceeding from the way the code is
designed, hence from the way RFCs are written, hence from the values that
influence them, the debate is mostly inefficiently out of the loop since
only legal and organization concepts and no architectural issues are
discussed with some power to impose them.(CS society powers proceeds from
ethics, press-doxa-opinion, strikes, riots and revolutions – with no
budget for lobbying and/or social engineering, except when serving as
paid/compensated smoke-screen for other/allied interests).
</ul>The laws of the digital world are built through an Internet
standardization “constitutional” process that is documented by RFC 2026,
along a “constitutional” document which is RFC 3935 completed by
different texts including the fundamental RFC 6852 statement, and the
strategic Montevideo Statement on the Future of Internet Cooperation.
<br><br>
<b><i>(I provide all the information for convenience and reference - so
you have the real language).<br><br>
<br>
</i><u>I. RFC 3935 documents the mission of the main author of RFC
(IETF). <br><br>
</u></b>This document states:<br><br>
<dl>
<dd><i>"The mission of the IETF is to produce high quality, relevant
technical and engineering documents that influence the way people design,
use, and manage the Internet in such a way as to make the Internet work
better. These documents include protocol standards, best current
practices, and informational documents of various kinds.
<dd>"A very difficult issue in discussing the IETF's mission has
been the scope of the term "for the Internet". The
Internet is used for many things, many of which the IETF community has
neither interest nor competence in making standards for.
<dd>"The Internet isn't value-neutral, and neither is the
IETF. We want the Internet to be useful for communities that share
our commitment to openness and fairness. We embrace technical
concepts such as decentralized control, edge-user empowerment and sharing
of resources, because those concepts resonate with the core values of the
IETF community. These concepts have little to do with the
technology that's possible, and much to do with the technology that we
choose to create.
<dd>"At the same time, it is clear that many of the IETF-defined
technologies are useful not only for the Internet, but also for networks
that have no direct relation to the Internet itself.
<dd>"In attempting to resolve the question of the IETF's scope,
perhaps the fairest balance is struck by this formulation:
"protocols and practices for which secure and scalable
implementations are expected to have wide deployment and interoperation
on the Internet, or to form part of the infrastructure of the
Internet."
<dd>"In addition to this constraint, we are also constrained by the
principle of competence: Where we do not have, and cannot gather, the
competence needed to make technically sound standards, we should not
attempt to take the leadership."<br><br></i>
</dl>The CS has been helped in sharing in this process through the
IUCG@IETF. The interest of its members is quasi null.<br><br>
<br>
<b><u>II. RFC 6852 documents the underlying principle of the digital
legal process and states:<br><br></u></b>
<dl>
<dd><i>"On 29 August 2012, the leaders of the IEEE Standards
Association, the IAB, the IETF, the Internet Society, and the W3C signed
a statement affirming the importance of a jointly developed set of
principles establishing a modern paradigm for global, open
standards. These principles have become known as the
"OpenStand" principles.
<dd>"Over the past several decades, the global economy has realized
a huge bounty due to the Internet and the World Wide Web. These
could not have been possible without the innovations and standardization
of many underlying technologies. This standardization occurred with
great speed and effectiveness only because of key characteristics of a
modern global standards paradigm. The affirmation below
characterizes the principles that have led to this success as a means to
ensure acceptance of standards activities that adhere to the principles.
<dd>"We embrace a modern paradigm for standards where the economics
of global markets, fueled by technological advancements, drive global
deployment of standards regardless of their formal status.<br><br>
<dd>"In this paradigm standards support interoperability, foster
global competition, are developed through an open participatory process,
and are voluntarily adopted globally. These voluntary standards
serve as building blocks for products and services targeted at meeting
the meeds of the market and consumer, thereby driving innovation.
Innovation in turn contributes to the creation of new markets and the
growth and expansion of existing markets."
<dd>"Participation in the modern paradigm demands:
<dd>1. <b>Cooperation</b>. Respectful cooperation between standards
organizations, whereby each respects the autonomy, integrity, processes,
and intellectual property rules of the others."
<dd>2. <b>Adherence to principles</b>. Adherence to the five
fundamental principles of standards development:"<br><br>
<dl>
<dd>* <b>Due process</b>. Decisions are made with equity and
fairness among participants. No one party dominates or guides
standards development. Standards processes are transparent and
opportunities exist to appeal decisions. Processes for periodic
standards review and updating are well defined.
<dd>* <b>Broad consensus</b>. Processes allow for all views to be
considered and addressed, such that agreement can be found across a range
of interests.
<dd>* <b>Transparency</b>. Standards organizations provide advance
public notice of proposed standards development activities, the scope of
work to be undertaken, and conditions for participation. Easily
accessible records of decisions and the materials used in reaching those
decisions are provided. Public comment periods are provided before
final standards approval and adoption.
<dd>* <b>Balance</b>. Standards activities are not exclusively
dominated by any particular person, company or interest group.
<dd>* <b>Openness.</b> Standards processes are open to all
interested and informed parties.<br><br>
</dl>
<dd>3. <b>Collective empowermen</b>t. Commitment by affirming
standards organizations and their participants to collective empowerment
by striving for standards that:
<dd> are chosen and defined based on technical merit, as judged by
the contributed expertise of each participant;
<dd> provide global interoperability, scalability, stability, and
resiliency;
<dd> enable global competition;
<dd> serve as building blocks for further innovation; and
<dd> contribute to the creation of global communities, benefiting
humanity.
<dd>4. <b>Availability</b>. Standards specifications are made
accessible to all for implementation and deployment. Affirming
standards organizations have defined procedures to develop specifications
that can be implemented under fair terms. Given market diversity,
fair terms may vary from royalty-free to fair, reasonable, and
non-discriminatory terms (FRAND).
<dd>5. <b>Voluntary adoption</b>. Standards are voluntarily adopted
and success is determined by the market."</i> <br><br>
</dl><b>III. The Montevideo Statement on the Future of Internet
Cooperation<br><br>
</b>Self-selected, by adherence to the OpenStand statement, leaders of
organizations that are responsible for the coordination of an
"Internet technical infrastructure globally have met in Montevideo,
Uruguay to consider the current issues affecting the future of [the sole]
internet".<br><br>
They acknowledged that the Internet and the World Wide Web have been”<i>
built and governed in the public interest through unique mechanisms for
global multistakeholder Internet cooperation</i>", and
"<i>discussed the clear need to continually strengthen and evolve
these mechanisms, in truly substantial ways, to be able to address
emerging issues faced by stakeholders in the Internet</i>".
Qualifying their monopoly (that permits the pervasive monitoring and
surveillance that concerns them) as a global coherence they warn
Governments against a full internet architectural protective empowerment
of the Internet architecture at a national level as being a
"fragmentation" of the network of networks. This does not make
sense unless it is totally biaised.<br><br>
"<i>They identified the need for ongoing effort to address Internet
Governance [resulting] challenges, and agreed to catalyze community-wide
efforts towards the evolution of global multistakeholder Internet
cooperation. They called for accelerating the globalization of ICANN and
IANA functions, towards an environment in which all stakeholders,
including all governments, participate on an equal footing </i>[with them
and telcos]".<br><br>
<br>
<b><u>Comment<br><br>
</u></b>This may be acceptable to private sector stakeholders who are
interested in the sharing the "<b>huge bounty</b>" and revenues
from global community markets (the leading one being the US Cyber Command
procurement), possibly saleable to Govs, not acceptable for civil society
members interested in having innovation made neutraly and on an equal
footing available to all. <br><br>
There are no other fundamental incompatibility however to the
consideration of pragmatic enhanced cooperation than the ICANN
monopolistic design. Moreover than, from what one may gather the seeked
"ICANN and IANA globalization" is to increase that monopoly in
removing it from USG control. In such a case the resulting "I*
$ociety" would become sovereign.<br><br>
This cannot be as "collective empowerment" has always
translated (the key of the internet success so far?) in Dave Clarke's
formula: "<i>We reject kings, presidents and voting. We believe in
rough consensus and running code</i>".<br><br>
<br>
<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite="">
<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite="">2. Do all CS groupings represent
the same interests?</blockquote>[Sala: They clearly don't and would be
governed by their respective articles or objectives as we are governed by
the Charter, However, because we share more common features than other
stakeholder groups, it makes sense to have cohesive collaborative
framework for things like:-<br>
1) MS Selection processes;<br>
2)Joint Initiatives - Advocacy on mutual issues and priority
areas</blockquote><br>
We are talking punctual lobbying here. "Wholization" (the whole
is more than the sum of its parts) applies.<br>
jfc<br><br>
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