Summary of ways to participate in Best Bits

[parminder]

On Wednesday 17 October 2012 09:23 AM, Jeremy Malcolm wrote:
> snip

> Actually it was one year ago, at the last IGF, that some of us on this 
> list first committed to produce such a set of civil society 
> principles, and to do so by this year's IGF. 

Jeremy, I agree such talk, and also real efforts, have been around for a 
long time. And that we must strive to take it forward. My impression 
about such principles, however, has always been that we are aiming at 
substantive principles that may also include some procedural issues. I 
have been a long-standing supporter of such efforts. In fact at the 
IGFs, it was the presenation of Brazilian ""/Principles/ for the 
Governance and use of the /Internet/" that triggered a kind of rough 
consensus for working towards such principles, which rough consensus, if 
I remember right, was captured in Nitin Desai's and perhaps also IGF 
chair's closing remarks at IGF-5. So, let us be clear about it. We are 
talking about substantive principles related to Internet and Internet 
governance and not just a list of procedural issues.

In this regard I will like to have the Internet Rights and Principles 
document of the IRP dynamic coalition, plus the Brazilian Internet 
principles document, as the starting texts. We need to move beyond 
paying lip service to inclusiveness and voices from the South. the IRP 
document have had relatively better (though still very less) inclusion 
of voices from developing countires, and Brazilian doc is of course a 
(really) multistakeholder effort from a developing country.

I would also like to help in anchoring the Internet principles line of 
activity, if it is going to take place.

parminder

> So it didn't start off in a rush, though it may have ended up rather 
> that way.  But by starting from what is already there (whether it be 
> the IRP principles as you prefer, or the APC/CoE document as Wolfgang 
> does, or even the Declaration of Internet Freedom as some others may - 
> nothing is yet set in stone), there is still no reason for the outcome 
> to be a rush job.
>
>> We cant selectively chose some principles that buttress certain 
>> governance orders and not other kinds. We will need to go really 
>> deep, and go the whole hog.
>
> That would be nice.  But the raison d'être of Best Bits is to bring 
> together a more diverse group (at least in terms of civil society 
> participants) than any of those that have collaborated on any of the 
> existing individual documents referenced, and none of those have gone 
> the whole hog to your satisfaction.  So this is a point tending 
> against the document being completely comprehensive, because it would 
> weaken support for it too much.  It's not a new dilemma, but remains a 
> real one.
>
> Balancing this (and an equally deliberate choice in designing this 
> event), there will be no Best Bits declaration - there will be a 
> document *at *Best Bits that individual groups can sign on to, but 
> nobody will be "forced" to do so.  This is factor that will allow us 
> to produce stronger documents than we otherwise might, because we will 
> only need to reach a rough consensus, not a full one.  Anyone who 
> isn't comfortable with a document can easily pull out from it.
>
> -- 
>
> *Dr Jeremy Malcolm
> Senior Policy Officer
> Consumers International | the global campaigning voice for consumers*
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