[bestbits] IGF plus

Mon Aug 26 21:42:01 EDT 2013

My apologies if I'm going over ground that has already been sewn and
harvested (I've been dealing with other matters for the last 3 months or so)
but the issue of MSism really needs to start with a basic legitimacy of the
constituting of the various stakeholder elements. how these interact to my
mind (as covered in the items you point to below) is I think, a secondary
issue.

The current status appears to be something like all actual "stakeholders"
are welcome (until they aren't), everyone can be a stakeholder(until they
can't--for reasons of cost, voice, status, knowledge, skill etc.),
"legitimate" stakeholder groups can simply, by showing up, obtain legitimacy
without having to subscribe to any type of formal internal process
(transparent, accountable etc.?) for the determination of the nature of the
"stake" that they are "holding"/pursuing and so on, "legitimate
stakeholders" q.v. are welcome but there are no effective means to
facilitate participation of other (new, non-existing stakeholders (or to
legitimize non-currently legitimized stakeholders. etc.etc.

In my blogpost of some time ago, I talked about MSism vs. democracy
<http://gurstein.wordpress.com/2013/03/20/multistakeholderism-vs-democracy-m
y-adventures-in-stakeholderland/>  and I don't see that we/anyone has made
any progress in this area in the interim.  I'm ready to agree that there are
significant limitations with the use of representative democracy in the IG
area but I am concerned that we may be too ready to jump on the MS bandwagon
without having a very clear idea of what it means not only to us but to any
of the other MS parties.

And to respond to Andrew's question, I think the place to start is at the
beginning--by insisting on/initiating some basic discussions on what is
meant by MSism in the various forums where it is being invoked and working
towards some sort of formalization (even if it is the formalization of the
informal) in these processes at least to the extent of making them visible
and thus subject to discussion and clarification. I'm thinking that the
various workshops addressing this at the IGF will begin the process but I
think we i.e. BB/CS has the responsibility/opportunity to be thinking of
where this might go post IGF as for example into a declaration on what we
mean by MSism and how we recognize MS processes which we believe are
legitimate from a CS perspective.

BTW, to be clear, I'm raising this not to attempt to fork other discussions
but rather to suggest that unless there is clarity and agreement on these
fundamentals it is hard to accept the legitimacy of anything that follows
from these i.e. MS processes.

M

From: Jeremy Malcolm [mailto:jeremy at ciroap.org] 
Sent: Monday, August 26, 2013 4:56 PM
To: michael gurstein
Cc: 'Andrew Puddephatt'; bestbits at lists.bestbits.net
Subject: Re: [bestbits] IGF plus

On 26/08/2013, at 3:36 PM, michael gurstein <gurstein at gmail.com> wrote:

I think before we start thinking about an IGF+ we need to be thinking about
getting some kind of "formalization" (democratization etc.) in the MS
processes that are at the core of the IGF etc. Until experiences like mine
with the selection process for the ECWG are worked through and some
determination is made as to what constitutes a "stakeholder" group  and
under what sort of governance/transparency/accountability structures those
operate within I think it is seriously premature to be thinking about an IGF
that is capable of working through to Soft Law or whatever.  This isn't to
say that we should be working in that direction but just to say that if the
fundamentals aren't taken care of, everything that follows is suspect.

I agree with everything bar the prefatory "before we start thinking about an
IGF+" - as indeed as soon as we start to think about an IGF+, we are led
inevitably to the reinforcement and formalisation of the IGF's
governance/transparency/accountability structures.

We have collectively begun to explore the IGF+ with the "IGF
multistakeholder opinions" statement that many of us signed at
http://bestbits.net/igf-opinions/.  So that's a good starting point.

I continue to stand by the slightly more elaborate "Multistakeholder
Internet Policy Council" proposal that I developed for the CSTD Working
Group on Enhanced Cooperation.  See the thread "Comparison of five current
civil society options" in the EC list for more on this (21 July and
following, or I can repost here).

For more detail still (largely consistent with the above, though with some
differences in nomenclature), there's the paper "Appraising the Success of
the Internet Governance Forum" that I wrote for the Internet Governance
Project some (five!) years ago now, which is available from both
<http://igfwatch.org> http://igfwatch.org and
<http://www.internetgovernance.org> http://www.internetgovernance.org.

-- 

Dr Jeremy Malcolm
Senior Policy Officer
Consumers International | the global campaigning voice for consumers
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