Fwd: [bestbits] Seoul Conference on Cyberspace 2013

[Byoung-il Oh]

Thanks parminder for your opinion.

2013/9/24 parminder <parminder at itforchange.net>

>  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.
>
>
I know. The mention of China/Russia was not my word, but the excuse of
Participatory Secretariat for not so inclusive of civil society. The chief
office of Preparatory Secretariat told that they were cooperating with UK,
US and Hungary for designing the conference, though there were not any
official organizing committee.


> Secondly, it is not an unimportant conference or site of global IG; it is
> a very important one.
>
>
I see. I'd like to hear more about their thoughts from Best Bits members.
And if we think it is very important, I wonder why Best Bits has no action
about it, at least publishing statement.

Best ,
Oh Byoungil


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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