[bestbits] Seoul Conference on Cyberspace 2013

Tue Sep 24 02:46:23 EDT 2013

Dear Parminder,

At least Budapest conference was not that closed. I know there was an effort
to bring range of stakeholders (including CSOs) to that event and in some
instances even funded by the Hungarian Government. Though, we could not
attend being committed elsewhere but we had at least two sessions with the
embassy to inform them of local issues. Some of the diplomats also went to
Budapest to attend.

We believe that undermining CSOs strengths and efforts (even among
ourselves) wont't help the cause at all. We believe IGF is important so are
many other spread out forums. Not necessarily all of us would have the
capacity and time to engage with each one of them but we appreciate the
efforts by all the colleagues especially CSOs and academia to keep the
struggle up. 

So can we all please pay some urgent attention to the appeal by Byoungil?
Byoungil, please count us in for any response based on your observations
that you plan to put forward on the openness, access and objectives of this
conference. It is all the more important to engage with this given its
importance.

Best wishes and regards

Shahzad

From:  parminder <parminder at itforchange.net>
Date:  Tuesday, September 24, 2013 9:51 AM
To:  "&lt,bestbits at lists.bestbits.net&gt
<mailto:bestbits at lists.bestbits.net&gt> ," <bestbits at lists.bestbits.net>
Subject:  Re: [bestbits] Seoul Conference on Cyberspace 2013

 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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