[bestbits] Seoul Conference on Cyberspace 2013

[parminder]

Hi Byoungil

I may be wrong but I have a somewhat different perspective on this 
Conference on Cyberspace...

This Seoul conference is one of a series that started with London Cyber 
conference and then went to Budapest, now coming to Seoul....

One, it is not inclusive (multistakeholder etc) not at all because of 
any China/ Russia factor, but because that is how it always has been. 
That is how it was designed, and I can assure you that China and Russia 
were not among the chief designers.

Secondly, it is not an unimportant conference or site of global IG; it 
is a very important one.

This is how it is.... OECD, UN Security Council and such spaces are 
where big boys play and decide things; IGF et all are for the show, a 
largely managed show for kids, for all those who would otherwise make 
noises - yes, you got it, a large pat of it, civil society.....

Now, having developed the basic frameworks/ principles. this series of 
cyber conferences is where part co-optation is sought from the outside - 
from some more powerful countries outside the 'inner club' , may be one 
or two very power non-gov actor too.... But still a strictly controlled 
space (as you found out) , of selective co-optation. In these spaces, 
the wannabes, euphemistically called emerging economies, are allowed a 
peek in, only if they behave they could be included into bilateral and 
pluri-lateral arrangements. Here, the policy frameworks and principles 
developed in deep secret closed spaces are sought to be aired a bit, 
with an attempt to expand their legitimacy. (You will find out as you 
see the conference outcome documents.)

Of course, there is no business here of the pesky civil society kinds . 
They are too powerless, and perhaps naive, to even be offered an 
co-optation.... They have their agreed play space at the IGF where, in 
less than 2 weeks after this key global IG meeting, multistakeholderism 
will again be celebrated by the same parties holding this conference as 
strictly for 'adults only'.

Do excuse my ironic tone, but I have been earlier trying to say in plain 
words that we should focus on real sites of global IG, at least as much 
as we do on our few favourite ones. Incidentally, these latter sites 
seem to be also the ones that the most dominant global IG powers would 
want civil society to be stay bogged down with.

parminder


On Monday 23 September 2013 09:00 PM, Byoung-il Oh wrote:
> Hi,
>
> As you may know, Seoul Conference on Cyberspace 2013 will be held in 
> Seoul on Oct. 17-18.
> http://www.seoulcyber2013.kr/en/main/main.do
>
> Last May, I had met the chief officer of Preparatory Secretariat of 
> the conference to inquire to him the progress of the conference. At 
> that time, the detailed agenda and panelists had not been fixed yet. 
> In the meeting, I inquired what would the output of the conference and 
> how civil society could participate in the process. The answer was 
> that they expected to produce chair's summary plus as the output, but 
> needed more discussion on what could be the 'plus'.
> As a preparatory process, they told several pre-workshop would be 
> held. http://www.seoulcyber2013.kr/en/event/workshop.html
>
> However, they didn't give definite answer to the question of how the 
> result of pre-workshop would be linked to the output of the 
> conference, how civil society could participate in the process and 
> give opinions to draft the output.
>
> After the meeting, I felt that this conference would not be for making 
> concrete policy through substantial discussions of multi-stakeholders, 
> but just cosmetic diplomatic events. Actually, the Preparatory 
> Secretariat is operated under the Ministry of Foreign Affiars, not 
> Telecommunication authority.
>
> In the meeting, the chief officer told that he himself thought much of 
> the value of open and multi-stakeholder process, but they had to 
> consider the position of the countries (China, Russia etc) which don't 
> like multistakeholderism.
>
> After that, we, the coaliton of civil society in Korea, invited a 
> staff of Preparatory Secretariat as a panel in our public forum last 
> June, but we couldn't hear nothing new from him.
>
> Recently, I checked its homepage and found with surprise that anyone 
> from civil society could not invited as a panel. 
> http://www.seoulcyber2013.kr/en/program/speakers_1.html
> Moreover, I found that they even restricted the participation of the 
> public. It was a closed conference! When I tried to register in the 
> conference, I had to request PIN first in the 
> http://register.seoulcyber2013.kr/, but I couldn't receive a PIN. So I 
> called to the secretariat and ask why. They said that PIN would be 
> given to the invited person. In the case of who were not invited, 
> preparatory secretariat will examine the person who requested to 
> particiapte and dicide whether to allow participation or not. I have 
> no idea this was the conventional practice in the former cyberspace 
> conference.
>
> And, I wonder how do you think about cyberspace conference, the 
> importance of the conference in the context of global internet 
> governance.
>
> Best Regards,
> Oh Byoungil
>
> -- 
> <http://www.jinbo.net/support/>

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