[bestbits] IG on the 24th HRC session

Sat Oct 5 07:51:57 EDT 2013

On Wednesday 02 October 2013 07:35 PM, Valeria Betancourt wrote:
> Dear all,
>
> A brief response from Bytes for All, Pakistan and APC on the 
> intervention by Pakistan at the HRC24.
> http://www.apc.org/en/node/18573

Hi Valeria

You rightly observed in your earlier email that this is the first time a 
set of countries have raised the NSA surveillance issue in the HRC. (And 
APC has long advocated that HRC is the right place for many if not most 
global IG issues.) In the circumstances, such a harsh response to the 
concerned statement against NSA snooping is quite surprising.

Well, as an aside, one can be opportunistic  on the occasion of such 
pious statements to point towards the domestic HR record of the 
complaining countries. Fair enough... (Although we fail to say such 
things when US makes pious statement in favour of multistakeholderism, 
transparency etc, not immediately pointing to TPP, ACTA, and other 
venues of global IG in which US is such a key player, and their entire 
lack of transparency or MSism. We should just be consistent. At Baku, 
for instance, several civil society actors sat on numerous panels where 
US mouthed things about MSism, transparency etc, without murmuring a 
word about US' record in other IG spaces, and at home. Why this partial 
treatment to the US?).

What I find quite surprising is the concern expressed in the APC 
statement against the call for "/development of an international 
mechanism in the context of ‘Enhanced cooperation’ within the WSIS Tunis 
Agenda can be a concrete way forward/", when APC had joined others to 
roundly applaud President of Brazil's recent UN statement which inter 
alia calls for "establishment of a civilian multilateral framework for 
the governance and use of the Internet".

If there is any essential difference between the two calls, I missed it, 
and am happy to be enlightened.

The APC statement decries - "The imposition of a new global internet 
policy framework determined and agreed by governments – and therefore 
being a top down and central mechanism – contradicts the bottom-up 
multi-stakeholder principles of policy making, as well as the end to end 
principles of internet architecture that are essential to a free and 
open internet. "

Well, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is a framework 
determined and agreed by governments.... Whereas, all proposals for a 
new global IG framework do seem to come with much much more 
participative avenues then were available when UDHR came about....

APC statement says " creating a new UN body to focus on internet policy 
will not be sustainable, or effective. The internet touches on so many 
issues that no single policy space could ever effectively deal with them 
all."

Wonder then what is  the logic of creating a single policy-participation 
space (which btw now wants to be much more than that) for global IG in 
the form of IGF..... How is it that the logic that works for creating an 
integral single Internet policy space like the IGF fails for other 
levels of Internet policy making processes... I could not understand 
this. Would like a clarification. Also, any effort to develop a new 
Internet policy space is to look at issues that do not have a home at 
present (clearly recognised in the Tunis agenda and the recent BestBits 
statement on EC) and to coordinated Internet-relevant work of other 
agencies. No one is proposing that any issue that but touches the 
Internet (today, most issues do) should be withdrawn from all relevant 
agencies and given to the proposed new body. This is a complete mis- 
representation of any such proposal from any developing country.

And then, the recommendation is "Bytes for All, Pakistan and APC believe 
that a distributed governance with concrete and effective 
multi-stakeholder mechanisms of participation in decision making is a 
way with great potential for strengthening an open and free internet."

This recommendation will be useful if we knew what exactly is the 
referred distributed governance system. And before we get on to this 
discussion can we please agree to discuss technical/ logical governance 
issues (ICANN plus system) as different from larger social, economic, 
political and cultural public policy issues, as was agreed by the 
BestBits statement on Enhanced Cooperation to which APC signed....

I really have nothing to say about the distributed systems of technical 
governance - meaning ICANN plus system. Lets accept it as it is. Lets 
talk about other global IG issues, the present HRC statement also being 
in such a regard.

My main question in that respect is; what does APC/ Bytes consider as a 
distributed governance system in terms of these larger public policy 
issues pertaining to the global governance of the Internet? Is APC 
proposing a new system(s) of this kind - in which case we will like to 
know what does it look like?

Or is APC pointing to some existing systems? Is is about the OECD, TPP, 
ACTA, Cyberspace conference series, etc, kind of global IG systems that 
it calls as a distributed system? If not, which ones?

If we knew more about the preferred model of distributed governance of 
the Internet recommended by APC/Bytes, we will be able to discuss it 
here. (But, no ICANN here please, we already agreed to agree on that 
system, as it is, and for the tasks it accomplishes.)

Thanks.

parminder

>
> Best,
>
> Valeria
>
>
> On 20/09/2013, at 14:07, William Drake wrote:
>
>> Hi Robert
>>
>> You didn't see the text circulated here the other day proposing an 
>> intergovernmental declaration on harmony?
>>
>> Apparently it was quickly withdrawn (there may be an interesting 
>> story here) and there will now be a meeting summary doc instead.
>>
>> Bill
>>
>> On Sep 20, 2013, at 7:35 PM, Robert Guerra <rguerra at privaterra.org> 
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Interesting Indonesia joined pack of like minded countries. Will be 
>>> interesting if they try to advance a document or statement at the 
>>> high level meeting in Bali.
>>>
>>> Robert
>>> -- 
>>> R. Guerra
>>> Phone/Cell: +1 202-905-2081
>>> Twitter: twitter.com/netfreedom
>>> Email: rguerra at privaterra.org
>>>
>>> On 2013-09-20, at 11:39 AM, Valeria Betancourt wrote:
>>>
>>>> Dear all,
>>>>
>>>> Sharing this information with you all.
>>>>
>>>> Pakistan, speaking on behalf of Cuba, Venezuela, Zimbabwe, Uganda, 
>>>> Ecuador, Russia, Indonesia, Bolivia, Iran, and China, highlighted 
>>>> at HRC24 the need to protect the right to privacy as an essential 
>>>> element of free expression, citing the International Covenant on 
>>>> Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and La Rue’s report. The 
>>>> statement explicitly criticized the role of major international 
>>>> internet and telecommunication technology companies in violating 
>>>> privacy. It also explicitly made the links between the allegations 
>>>> of mass state surveillance and the need for reforming global 
>>>> internet governance. To quote the statement directly:
>>>>
>>>> "The existing mechanisms like the Internet Governance Forum 
>>>> established under paragraph 72 of the World Summit on Information 
>>>> Society- Tunis Agenda have not been able to deliver the desired 
>>>> results. A strategic rethinking of the global internet governance 
>>>> mechanism is inevitable. Further development of an international 
>>>> mechanism in the context of ‘Enhanced cooperation’ within the WSIS 
>>>> Tunis Agenda can be a concrete way forward. However we will need to 
>>>> be sincere in our efforts to ensure a transparent, free, fair and 
>>>> respectful international intergovernmental mechanism of internet 
>>>> governance and one that also ensures the right to privacy."
>>>>
>>>> The full intervention by Pakistan is available at 
>>>> http://www.apc.org/en/system/files/HRC24_Pakistan_20130919.pdf
>>>>
>>>> Best,
>>>>
>>>> Valeria
>>>
>>
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