[bestbits] substantive proposals for Brazil summit - IG governance

[genekimmelman at gmail.com]

Well said! 

-------- Original message --------
From: Ian Peter <ian.peter at ianpeter.com> 
Date: 02/02/2014  2:51 PM  (GMT-05:00) 
To: Andrew Puddephatt <Andrew at gp-digital.org>,Marilia Maciel <mariliamaciel at gmail.com> 
Cc: bestbits at lists.bestbits.net 
Subject: Re: [bestbits] substantive proposals for Brazil summit - IG governance 
 
I wonder if there is another agenda we need to address here.
 
The dominant models that exist in similar industries, and which I believe are the real battles going on in the world of internet governance, are between governmental control and industry self regulation (aka unregulated industry dominance.)  I think we need to address this and make clear that industry self-regulation with no governmental controls at all is not an appropriate pattern for internet development. Only in this context do I think can we have a decent conversation about multistakeholderism. 
 
Multistakeholderism is, to at least some parties, a wonderful mask to aid industry dominance with no governmental involvement whatsoever.  And here the dominant industry players often find willing supporters in the technical community. I think civil society needs to be clear that, if it supports multistakeholderism, it is not giving support to no governmental involvement at all or to unregulated industry dominance. I think this is a real debate we have to have.
 
And I think we need to be honest about the fact that not all stakeholders have equal power in this – civil society arguments do not carry the weight of the large internet corporations, and to pretend that ms-ism somehow changes this imbalance is either naive or deliberately misleading.
 
I mention this here because, by the looks of Brazil and the way the agenda is shaping up, we are going to talk about principles for governance, and this word multistakeholderism is going to be front and centre. I think we need to unwrap it a little and state clearly that the real issues going on are between governmental and industry control, neither of which of itself is of itself a satisfactory model.
 
That’s just some thoughts which I wonder if we could include here. Elsewhere I think we need to have the larger debate about the mask of ms-ism, but I think also in this paper we should at least mention the battle between governmental control and industry control and how ms-ism is being used as a diversion and cover-up for a more substantial issue.
 
Ian Peter
 
 
 
From: Andrew Puddephatt
Sent: Monday, February 03, 2014 1:52 AM
To: Marilia Maciel
Cc: bestbits at lists.bestbits.net
Subject: Re: [bestbits] substantive proposals for Brazil summit - IG governance
 
Thanks Marilia
 
I’m back online now and picking up on my 430 e-mails so apologies to those who are waiting for a response from me.
 
There are good reflections – my sense from them is that you have questions about a distributed governance model in that to may not be clear/purposeful enough to address the weaknesses in the current arrangements – is that a fair summary of what you’re saying?  Or am I over interpreting?
 
I think we shared your view that existing multi-stakeholderism has not provided corrections to imbalances of power – the real question is whether the move to a more state based system of governance would provide such a corrective or whether it would simply accelerate making the internet a geo-political battlefield (personally I suspect we are already there).  In looking for a more dispersed governance model we were looking for a way of facilitating the input of a range of public interest views to counter the growing voices calling for state sovereignty over the internet.  But I’d be the first to say that there are no perfect solutions in our current climate.
 
I’ve given the 6th as the deadline for final comments and I’l try and  process them after that and get back to people after that
 
Andrew
 
From: Marilia Maciel <mariliamaciel at gmail.com>
Date: Wednesday, 22 January 2014 22:18
To: andrew Puddephatt <andrew at gp-digital.org>
Cc: "<bestbits at lists. net>" <bestbits at lists.bestbits.net>
Subject: Re: [bestbits] substantive proposals for Brazil summit - IG governance
 
Hi Andrew and all,
 
After reading the document I was willing to send a more carefully written comment, but I believe it is better to share thoughts informally now than to hold back ideas. Sorry for the chaotic message.
 
First of all, this is a very good and useful document. You managed to give the summary a good flow and you provide both an overview of inputs from respondents and conclusions from the group who analyzed them (which are also useful btw). Some remarks I would initially have are the following.
 
- It is interesting that almost all respondents mentioned imbalances of power, insufficient diversity of voices and other similar things as "cases for governance reform". I think that one conclusion from that is that although we support the idea of multistakeholder participation, the way it has been "lived" and implemented is not what we wished for. This is important to emphasize, because some analysis that have been produced recently argue that non-gov actors were all univocally united around MS all along.  In fact, I think many actors in CS have been pointing out to these imbalances for a long time, so in order to improve multistaholderism, these demands for inclusion should be the main ones guiding the process of reform.
 
- It is not clear to me if MIPOC would produce outputs or just identify the more adequate spaces to deal with issues. I will assume the first option is correct...
 
- I think that some of the proposals of "distributed governance" that you mapped overlook some important points. If MIPC or MIPOC  produce recommendations and send them to other organizations:
a) would they be obliged to take this issue on their agenda?;
b) If they do take it, what is the weight of MIPC/MIPOC's advice? If there is no weight, would we be giving an additional incentive to, for instance, WIPO, to negotiate text about the Internet, in a context that the MS opinion on the subject would  not count in WIPO? What is the use of that, and how does this differentiate governance of the internet to traditional international regimes?
c)  Is there a procedure to make other organizations reply back to  MIPC/MIPOC to avoid at least that issues fall on def ears?
d) the distributed proposals are all based on a precondition: improving the IGF. That seems a frail model to me, if we dont know if there will be a renewal of the mandate or interest to continue the forum (let's not forget the drama before Bali).
e) Even if the IGF continues, the IGF needs resources. There is little chance to produce good, focused policy-oriented outcomes without a very, very boosted and dedicated staff and people who understand of methodologies to deal with large groups. Those who were also in the IGF improvements WG heard, like I did, that the IGF will not receive additional resources from the UN. The UN did not want to pay more and the business and the technical community were alligned against UN public funding, taking the issue out of the table. Are basing our model of improved governance on the existence of enough voluntary funding to the IGF?
f) The option to harbor the coordinating committee in CSTD was not sufficiently discussed in the document imo. Given the frailty of the IGF and the fact that outcomes from the coordinating body under CSTD could move up to ECOSOC and GA, I would look into that more carefully
 
- I don't understand why power grabs were a concern on the UN Committee model, but not so much on distributed models. Less clear processes are very prone to power grabs, even to more opaque (and harder to identify and fight) ones. With that in mind, I particularly emphasize the importance of your argument that self-forming MS processes are likely to disadvantage those without power and resources.
 
- The idea of a UN committee model does not seem to exclude the possibility to create ad-hoc MS working groups as necessary, so maybe the argument that it would not have expertise to deal with the diversity of internet issues could be more carefully explained.
 
That is all for a start. Just sharing some initial thoughts and hoping we can continue the discussions.
Thanks again for the good start
Marília
 
 
 
 
 


On Wed, Jan 22, 2014 at 6:25 AM, Andrew Puddephatt <Andrew at gp-digital.org> wrote:
Hi everyone
 
From: Marianne Franklin <m.i.franklin at gold.ac.uk>
Date: Thursday, 16 January 2014 15:57
To: andrew Puddephatt <andrew at gp-digital.org>, "parminder at itforchange.net" <
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