[bestbits] Re: [governance] MIPOC

[John Curran]

On Nov 7, 2013, at 3:49 AM, Kleinwächter, Wolfgang <wolfgang.kleinwaechter at medienkomm.uni-halle.de> wrote:

> to differentiate between politcal and technical issues is as impossibel as it was in 2004 when we started the discussion in the WGIG. Each public policy Internet issue has a technical dimension and each technical day to day operation has political implications. One reason, why the EU proposal for a "new cooperation model" failed was that the EU was unable to explain where "the level of principle" ends and the "day to day operation" starts. As we have seen in the last 8 years - in particuar with regard to the new gTLD progrmm - you can not separate those issues. The introduction of new gTLDs is primarly a technical issues (and belongs to the day to day operation) but - ask GAC members - it is seen by governments as a highly politcal issue. Similar things can be said around IPv& or the new security protocols discussed now by the IETF in Vancouver. With other words, there is no alternative to a bottom up enhanced communiciation, coordination and collaboration by all involved stakeholders (and this includes early engagement by governments on an equal footing taking into accunt that different stakeholders have different but shared responsibiilities).
> 
> For all this no new mechanisms are needed. The 70 UN member states which still ignore GAC, should reconsider its "empty chair policy".
> 
> However what is missing - in my eyes - is something like a clearing house which identifies the public policy dimension of (new) issues under discussion and helps to find the right procedure to manage those problems on an case by case basis. This could by done via a "Multistakeholder Internet Policy Council" (MIPOC) on top of the IGF. The IGF has a MAG but the MAG is just a programme committtee to prepare the annual IGF meetings. It does not discuss policy issues. 
> ...

Wolfgang - 
 
   I've been staring at the above paragraphs for several days, and have come to
   the conclusion that I agree in the abstract but not with some of the specifics...
 
   I _do_ agree that "there is no alternative to a bottom up enhanced communication, 
   coordination and collaboration by all involved stakeholders (and this includes 
   early engagement by governments on an equal footing taking into account that 
   different stakeholders have different but shared responsibilities)"  Furthermore,
   I believe that an Internet policy matter "clearing house", or (as Lee suggests, 
   staff capacity to provide that capability) might also be quite helpful, although
   the details of such may prove vexing.  (Jeremy's proposal is also an intriguing
   start here...)

   The area of less agreement would be in ability to distinguish Internet public policy 
   issues from Internet day-to-day operational issues, particularly when it comes to 
   judging these issues with respect to the existing Internet registry systems...   
   It is simply not possible for all issues to be considered as a political matter,
   otherwise every item of Internet operations of "critical Internet resources" would 
   be also a potential public policy issue, and the Internet would quickly bog down 
   with thousands of routine administrative tasks on hold, pending being cleared of 
   political implications...

   For example, the development of a schedule of DNS reserved names definitely has
   public policy implications, but once it has been established, then it allows 
   registry operations to proceed without having to send each and every individual 
   registration request within each subdomain to a body of public policy experts to 
   individually review and approve.  Similarly, policies for IP address management
   are developed in each of the regions (and there are indeed public policy aspects 
   to IP address policies); the subsequent implementation and routine operations per 
   those policies should not be a political matter (so long as there is fidelity in
   implementation and execution to the developed policies.)

   The actual boundary I refer to is not "political vs technical"; it's the policy 
   development (which needs to consider both technical and public policy aspects) 
   vs routine, day-to-day administrative and operational tasks (which must function
   independently but with fidelity to the developed policies)   This does not in any 
   way detract from your keen observation regarding the need for "bottom up enhanced 
   communication, coordination and collaboration"; I just want to make sure we don't
   lose the distinction of policy development vs policy implementation and execution.

Thanks for the thoughtful response!
/John

Disclaimers:  My views alone.  Luckily, discussion of Internet cooperation matters 
              is a routine administrative task for me, otherwise these email would
              be held pending approval via a more formal development process...