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Dear Anja<br>
<br>
Thank you for this.<br>
<br>
I followed the meeting remotely (which was really hard as I could
not get the webcast but I could follow the transcript) and noticed
this similarity with the CIRP proposal and the IT For Change
proposal. <br>
<br>
Could it be differences between ministries?<br>
<br>
I have had a sense that in the case of India, similar to South
Africa, the ministry of foreign affairs agenda has not always been
fully cleared with, or co-developed with, the ministry of
communications.<br>
<br>
Ministries of foreign affairs usually try to plug in issue specific
matters into a broader foreign policy agenda. Sometimes this works
will for the line ministries, sometimes not.. or sometimes they are
just a but left out of the loop.<br>
<br>
But I think we should also allow for the fact that all governments,
including some of those most committed to multi-stakeholder
participation, should be watched carefully, not just those who
openly put a multi-lateral model on the table. Often governments pay
lip service to 'multi-stakeholder' models but they are quite
comfortable also working in multi-lateral frameworks and mashing
them up in their speeches and inputs without really concretising
what they mean by multi-stakeholder IG. <br>
<br>
That is why as CS we need to be really vigilant and demand very
clear commitments and mechanisms that allow us to be integrally part
of proposed solutions.<br>
<br>
Anriette<br>
<br>
<br>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 18/11/2013 10:22, Anja Kovacs wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote
cite="mid:CAJqNAHAWtmzUffYYoS3FVjx17cT24_YHsuX8KuinAW-ibqk=eQ@mail.gmail.com"
type="cite">
<div dir="ltr">Dear all,<br>
<div><br>
As I thought this would be of interest to many people on these
lists, I wanted to share a short blog post about the proposal
for EC India made to the WGEC (see below this message and
here: <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://internetdemocracy.in/2013/11/is-india-reviving-its-un-cirp-proposal/"
target="_blank">http://internetdemocracy.in/2013/11/is-india-reviving-its-un-cirp-proposal/</a>
)<br>
<br>
Over the past year, for various reasons, the earlier UN CIRP
proposal seemed to be off the table and Kapil Sibal, Minister
of Communications and Information Technology, in particular
had become increasingly vocal about his support for
multistakeholder models for Internet governance. However,
during the meeting of the WGEC earlier this month, the Indian
government again tabled a proposal for a multilateral Internet
policy to be established under the UN, very similar to the
earlier UN CIRP. <br>
<br>
Comments most welcome.<br>
<br>
</div>
<div>Best,<br>
Anja<br>
<br>
<h1 class=""> Is India reviving its proposal for a
multilateral UN body to take over the governance of
the Internet? </h1>
<h3 class=""> <span class="">by Anja Kovacs</span> </h3>
<div class="">
<p><em>Recent events at the UN CSTD Working Group on
Enhanced Cooperation give the strong impression that
this is indeed the case. </em></p>
<p>In a submission to the <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://unctad.org/en/Pages/CSTD/WGEC.aspx"
target="_blank">Working Group on Enhanced Cooperation
(WGEC)</a>, which met for the second time in Geneva last
week, the Indian government recommended the following:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The UN General Assembly could embark on creation of a
multilateral body for formulation of international
Internet-related public policies. The proposed body
should include all stakeholders and relevant
inter-governmental and international organisations in
advisory capacity within their respective roles as
identified in Tunis agenda and WGIG report. Such body
should also develop globally applicable principles on
public policy issues associated with the coordination
and management of critical Internet resources.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Despite the fact that stakeholders from India already
active within the field of Internet governance have
overwhelmingly disagreed with India’s earlier proposal to
establish a Committee for Internet-related Policies within
the UN (UN CIRP), this proposal thus seems to have been
revived.</p>
<p>Like the earlier one, the proposal that is currently on
the table is problematic for a number of reasons. It
clearly seeks to endorse governments as the primary
stakeholders in Internet governance, whose dominance needs
to be established at the expense of other stakeholders.
Irrespective of the issue under consideration, other
stakeholders will only be given an advisory role in
Internet governance. Moreover, they will only be allowed
to play the roles defined in the Tunis Agenda. That these
definitions - especially where the role of civil society
is concerned - are outmoded is something that has been
recognised widely. During last week’s WGEC meeting, India
acknowledged the debates around the role definitions of
the Tunis Agenda, but said nothing about how these debates
might affect its proposal.</p>
<p>Support for India’s proposal at the meeting of the
42-member WGEC only came from the government of Saudi
Arabia and from an Indian civil society representative.
The latter took with this a position quite radically
different from other Indian members of civil society
active in Internet governace, or indeed from most of
global civil society in this field, who believe that a
multistakeholder model for Internet governance is the way
forward.</p>
<p>Many, including the Internet Democracy Project, have
argued that there might at times be space for
multilateralism within this multistakeholder model. For
example, if a multistakeholder group comes to the
conclusion that the best way forward to protect the right
to privacy of all people in the Internet age is a new
treaty, then from that point onwards, governments would
take over as negotiating treaties is their job.</p>
<p>However, a crucial difference between such proposals and
the ones currently and previously made by the Indian
government is that in a multistakeholder model, broad
agreement among all stakeholders, including on the
modalities, is a prerequisite for any solution to go
forward. The India proposals, in contrast, presume the
necessity of government dominance in the policy process,
irrespective of the problem at hand, and thus requires
agreement only among governments. This not only means that
inputs by other stakeholders need not necessarily be given
due consideration, it also leaves the Internet policy
making process much more vulnerable to the vagaries of
global geopolitics.</p>
<p>The proposal by India that the new UN body would be
responsible also for developing globally applicable
principles on public policy issues associated with the
coordination and management of critical Internet resources
is particularly surprising in this regard. So far, the
coordination and management of critical Internet resources
lies overwhelmingly with bodies such as ICANN that, though
not without their flaws, are already multistakeholder in
their functioning. To think that principles that should
govern the work of these bodies can be formulated or
effectively applied without a central involvement of all
stakeholders already involved in these groups
(stakeholders who often have, it should be said,
conflicting views about the way forward) is obviously
deeply flawed.</p>
<p>The multistakeholder WGEC is charged with making
recommendations on how to fully implement the mandate of
enhanced cooperation contained in the Tunis Agenda.</p>
<p>India’s renewed proposal, in this context, to establish a
UN body that would privilege governments in the making of
international Internet-related public policy was made
without any domestic consultation, even if a
Multistakeholder Advisory Group had been established by
the government precisely for such purposes in August of
this year.</p>
<p>For many observers in India, it therefore came as
something of a surprise - even more so as Mr. Kapil Sibal,
Minister of Communications and Information Technology, has
repeatedly stressed over the past year (and as recently as
17 October) the importance of multistakeholderism for
effective Internet policy making, and his own commitment
to this model.</p>
</div>
<br>
</div>
<div><br clear="all">
<br>
-- <br>
Dr. Anja Kovacs<br>
The Internet Democracy Project<br>
<br>
+91 9899028053 | @anjakovacs<br>
<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.internetdemocracy.in/" target="_blank">www.internetdemocracy.in</a><br>
</div>
</div>
</blockquote>
<br>
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
------------------------------------------------------
anriette esterhuysen <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:anriette@apc.org">anriette@apc.org</a>
executive director, association for progressive communications
<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="http://www.apc.org">www.apc.org</a>
po box 29755, melville 2109
south africa
tel/fax +27 11 726 1692</pre>
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