[bestbits] Roles and Responsibilities - CSTD working group on enhanced cooperation

[Norbert Bollow]

Rafik Dammak <rafik.dammak at gmail.com> wrote:

> > I am very much in favor of open multistakeholder processes with full
> > involvement of all interested parties, including the private sector,
> > for the development of policy proposals, including coordination of
> > proposals with the goal of minimizing problems when different
> > countries choose to adopt different public policy options.
> 
> good to hear that you are in support of multistaekholder process,

I quite generally support multistakeholder processes in any context of
governance as long as they're set up appropriately to not undermine or
endanger principles of democracy.

> that was not indicated in your first message.

Well there was a link to a quite detailed proposal which is all about
such processes. I'll admit though that this proposal I-D currently
suffers from the problem that it is so long that only relatively few
people will read it, and I still haven't gotten around to putting a
decent summary together.

> > interests of different stakeholder groups. These insights should
> > then be provided to national parliaments so that the choice between
> > different public policy possibilities, each justifiable and right
> > from some perspective, will be made in a democratic manner, on the
> > basis of the best possible information.
> >
> >
> again good to see your explanation for supporting the multistakeholder
> model with such level of details.

I don't think it accurate to say that there is a single, "the"
multistakeholder model. Just like there is no single "the" state based
model. For example, even though in 1848 (!) the system of the Swiss
parliament was modeled on the US system, the practical dynamics are
totally different.

> I responded to your when you were
> defending the state based model and giving privileges to governments
> even when you recognise the drawbacks.

I would consider the model which I'm proposing, which assigns a pivotal
role to national parliaments, to be a very much state based model. Even
if it is at the same time very much a multistakeholder process oriented
model.

> > In regard to your point about non-democratic states: They obviously
> > have a totally broken governance system. They obviously violate the
> > human rights of the people living there. But neither of those points
> > should be allowed to stop the people living in parts of the world
> > where the governments are to a significant degree democratic (like
> > is the case for me) from being allowed to insist that we value
> > democracy, and we don't want to lose it, even when the line between
> > Internet governance and traditional areas of governance is becoming
> > more and more blurred.
> so you don't propose any alternatives for those under authoritarian
> regimes and want to keep a system silencing them because it may work
> for you as swiss citizen ? how can this embed the democracy values
> you are defending?

I'm perfectly willing to provide any and all support to assist those
who are currently under authoritarian regimes as long as the support
that is asked is within the constraints of what I am able to provide,
and as long as providing this support would not undermine democracy
where it currently exists.

When we talk about authoritarian regimes, we talk about governments who
routinely violate the human rights of their citizens in various ways.
Will such regimes be impressed if everyone outside their country agrees
that states should have no special role in Internet governance? I think
not, no more than they are impressed by the UDHR and the various human
rights treaties. So in my view the proposed action (of denouncing the
Tunis Agenda assertion that states have a special role in regard to
public policy) would not only have (potentially, at least) dangerous
side effects on democracy where it exists, it would also be totally
ineffective at addressing the very real problems in the various
countries that are in fact totalitarian.

By contrast, I would support efforts aimed at spelling out what are and
what are not appropriate types of business deals with entities in such
countries. For example I would propose that providing uncensored(*)
Internet connectivity to such entities is always a positive thing to
do, even if you know that the ordinary people within the country will be
subjected to a "great firewall" kind of thing. By contrast, delivering
any software or consulting service where the primary purpose it to
improve such a "great firewall" should be a no-no, etc. I would go so
far to say that once it is reasonably clear what are from a moral and
human rights perspective the no-no, legislation which forbids
commercial activities of that type would be a good thing. Of course,
when I talk of legislation, I'm again suggesting that (democratic!)
states would take on a special role.

I don't know how much this kind of embargo would help the people in
totalitarian countries, but at least we wouldn't be guilty of
contributing to making the situation worse. Other measures might be
more effective. The idea of smuggling inspirational literature (e.g.
about the life and the ideas of such heroes as Mahatma Gandhi and
Nelson Mandela) into such countries, in paper form or electronic form,
comes to mind. More effective yet might be fixing the shortcomings in
regard to social justice shortcomings which we have in the practice of
our democratic states, for example in regard to how our "Western"
countries deal with the rest of the world: If we can rob the dictators
of the grains of truth which currently still exist in the excuses and
ideologies that they use to justify oppression, the likelihood of
collapse of those oppressive systems might be greatly increased.

Greetings,
Norbert

(*) With "uncensored" I mean here: Free from any kind of censorship of
communications content. There's of course nothing wrong with reasonable
network management practices such as discarding packets that are
malformed or whose source addresses are clearly forged.