[bestbits] Seoul Conference on Cyberspace 2013

Tue Sep 24 05:21:28 EDT 2013

On Tuesday 24 September 2013 12:16 PM, Shahzad Ahmad wrote:
> Dear Parminder,
>
> At least Budapest conference was not that closed.

Dear Shahzad,

If you are happy with the level and processes of openness of this cyber 
conference series, I am happy for your happiness. In fact, I would not 
bother critiquing mere conferences. People have the a right to hold 
whatever conference they wish to hold and call whomever they wish to 
call.... the human right to free association...

My critique, as I mentioned, was in a specific context, whereby this 
particular series of cyber conferences, purport to have much more 
political weight than any normal conference, and are held with somewhat 
clear basic political objectives. One that I harped upon is; to expose 
and tout policy frameworks and principles that were earlier developed by 
rich countries, in rather inter-gov manners, for limited co-optation 
among other countries.... I simply do not like this model of global 
governance, and 
this_is_the_principal_model_of_global_governance_of_the_Internet_today. 
Is it only to the extent that this particular series of cyber 
conferences are emerging as an important link in this problematic model 
of global governance that I have some issues about the forthcoming Seoul 
Conference.

Again, it is in this specific background alone that I  find it non 
participative, non inclusive etc. If I remember right, when the Budapest 
conference happened, Wolfgang had similarly criticised the attempt of 
some countries to take some of the most important and impactful Internet 
governance discussions to such closed spaces, instead of other spaces 
where participation is so much more open, like the IGF.

Now if you have no problem with this particular model of global 
governance of the Internet, which is today the dominant one, that it is 
fine with me. In that case you would obviously not find my critique 
appealing. For just a conference I dont care how they arrange it, 
neither I am entitled to do so,

> 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.

That is the problem. Why should developing country have to go to discuss 
global IG issues in meetings that are designed and tightly controlled by 
a few Northern countires... Why should such discussions, and the outcome 
documents (as these cyber conferences do produce), not happen at neutral 
publicly funded venues, like that if the UN.... That is the question. 
The countries that promote this series of conferences actually say in UN 
venues that there indeed aren;t enough coherent set of policy issues 
that require specific treatment under names like that of cyberspace, 
global IG and so on.... And they oppose any proposal to do similar 
convening in UN kind of neutral venues...

parminder

>
> 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 
> <mailto: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 
> <mailto: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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