[bestbits] Seoul Conference on Cyberspace 2013n

Tue Sep 24 14:37:50 EDT 2013

Interesting that they/you have included ISOC as "civil society". Could you
explain why?

M

From: bestbits-request at lists.bestbits.net
[mailto:bestbits-request at lists.bestbits.net] On Behalf Of Byoung-il Oh
Sent: Tuesday, September 24, 2013 2:46 AM
To: bestbits at lists.bestbits.net
Subject: Re: [bestbits] Seoul Conference on Cyberspace 2013

Thanks Anja Kovacs, 

I checked it to the secretariat. As Anja said, at least 3 people from civil
society would be invited, Anja Kovacs, someone from CDT and ISOC. 

The speaker list of the homepage has not been updated yet. They will update
it as soon as they got the personal information from speakers. 

I'm sorry for causing misunderstanding about CS panels. 

Best, 

Oh byoungil 

2013/9/24 Anja Kovacs <anja at internetdemocracy.in>

Dear all,

I'm unfortunately not able to respond at length right now, but thought I
should at least mention that I've been invited as a speaker (and accepted),
and I know at least three other people from CS will be attending as well. I
don't have any info on other CS speakers.

Best,
Anja

On Sep 24, 2013 12:16 PM, "Shahzad Ahmad" <shahzad at bytesforall.pk> wrote:

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 <mailto:bestbits at lists.bestbits.net&gt>
&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 

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