[bestbits] Principles (warning - long)

[Jean-Christophe NOTHIAS I The Global Journal]

Hi David,

The bestbits subscribers awaken this morning  all felt that you had something to deliver. So many emails!! :-)  Personally, I welcome one long email, by opposition to chorizo's slices that sometimes make it hard to distinguish between facts, principles, assumptions, misleading characterizations, personal rant... I also welcome the fact that most of what you elaborate comes from an ICANN insider's reflection, in addition to fox, pigs, chicken... Old timers jokes about the natural asymmetry of life... For me, a good joke starts with a MS status-quoer who thinks he is the perfect example of a respectful dignitary of Participative Democracy thanks to his MS dogma (the next best step of Democracy). Of course, it is like pigs, fox and chicken, that story is just a joke for new comers with a fresh vision of what should be a fair and democratic way of governing the global and transnational Internet, by opposition to what it is today thanks to...

Will read you thoroughly.

JC
A proud JNC founder and member



Le 1 nov. 2014 à 11:21, David Cake a écrit :

> 	So, Michael Gurstein challenges MSism proponents to describe its principles (Michael and JNC having generally taken the opposite tack, having principles aplenty but a lot of vagueness on practical/operational detail as to how those principles might be made into a practical transnational organisation). 
> 	
> 	And I think it is worth doing to make a few points that I think clarify the debate. Sorry though, it is a long one. 
> 
> 	So, I will have a first pass at starting a discussion on the principles of MSism as we know it. These are just my thoughts, and I'm a relative latecomer to MS processes (having only been involved since 2009), and my experience is largely restricted to ICANN, so it is very likely that many of my assumptions are wrong
> 	
> 	The first is, that I think multi-stakeholder is a poor name for what we generally refer to as MS in the Internet governance context. Because having multiple stakeholders is an important characteristic, but certainly not the only, or perhaps primary, one. Multi-stakeholder of course serves well to highlight the difference between MS governance and multi-lateral forms (which really have only states as full participants, other stakeholders playing secondary roles), but calling ICANN, RIRs, etc multi-stakeholder obscures other significant factors, and so allows the confusion (notable in much JNC rhetoric) between open MS forms such as ICANN and closed forms such as WEF. 
> 	
> 	So, one principle of MS governance that I think most CS participants in MS would agree on is openness to participation. ICANN, IGF, etc are open to effectively anyone who wishes to participate. 
> 
> 	I would argue that this principle of openness is more important than multi-stakeholderism per se - MS governance fora with formal stakeholders (like ICANN) would be regarded by many as the descendants of fora like the IETF that have no formal multi-stakeholder commitments, but that simply allow participation by anyone, regardless of their stakeholder affiliation. And this distinguishes such fora sharply from fora like the WEF, which are not open, and are rather strongly gatekeepered. I, for one, feel that the MSism I support has far more in common with the IETF etc than with WEF, because the broad openness of the process is an important principle, essential for its legitimacy and proper functioning. And of course it is not just private sector fora like WEF that have strict gatekeeping on participation, it is also multi-lateral fora such as the ITU. Whether the gatekeeper is government or private sector, both restrict the ability of CS and the broader populace to participate in their processes. 
> 
> 	I note that while the JNC certainly wants to broaden participation, openness does not appear to be a principle - in fact, a large proportion of JNC rhetoric is specifically critical of the inclusion of commercial operators, so JNC would appear to be opposed to openness as a principle per se. 
> 
> 	There are, of course, barriers to entry such as time to master the sometimes dense jargon, language barriers to non-English speakers, and travel to physical meetings, but one principle I would hope that MS proponents and JNC members can agree on is that while these practical barriers are non-trivial to overcome, it should be a goal of all such organisations to mitigate these effects. ICANN, for example, does simultaneous translation of many sessions, offers remote participation for almost all sessions, etc. 
> 
> 	Transparency is another important principle. Those of us used to operating in environments such as ICANN, IETF, etc are used to a quite high degree of transparency in its day to day operation, and I certainly think this is a principle most of us would agree on. This broadens access to decision making by those who are not able to fully directly participate, and serves as a vital part of the accountability mechanisms - as a participant, any word I say is something I might be called on to justify, and the positions I advocate are very open to those I claim to represent (in my case, the members of the organisation I chair and represent). The vast majority of ICANN related meetings I participate in are recorded, transcribed, and made publicly available - some also translated into multiple languages. This level of transparency should be the norm. 
> 	And, of course, this is one of the contrasting distinctions with multli-lateral fora like the ITU, or multi-nation trade negotiations. The ITU is at least gradually changing from its culture of secrecy and restriction to a more open one, but this is a very recent and as yet fairly tentative change. And trade negotiations like TTTA and TTIP are becoming increasingly, obsessively, secretive and restricted, even between democratic nations - indeed, this secrecy is such that it clearly undermines democracy, for example in many nations elected legislators are not given access to treaty negotiation text. 
> 	Now, I am sure that JNC members are opposed to the excesses of non-transparency such as the TPPA, but it isn't clear to what extent this is a high priority for the JNC, considering some members past support for the ITU in its more closed era, etc. 
> 
> 	It is, of course, worth noting that at times considerations such as individual privacy and security must occasionally demand processes that are less transparent (such as maintaining the privacy of individuals involved in selection processes etc), but the principle is that privacy should be a default. 
> 
> 	It is also worth noting that these two principles, openness and transparency, are closely tied. Admitting stakeholders with a strong interest in the outcome of proceedings (such as commercial operators) is acceptable (to me, anyway) if they must act in a transparent, on the record, manner, advocating the value of their ideas openly, rather than privately lobbying for them. History has shown very strongly that a process that is both closed and secret is very amenable to indirect involvement of commercial operators via lobbying. and that even when it is not so secret, but closed to permit only government participation, this still happens. And of course democratic nations are, if anything, often even more susceptible to private lobbying than non-democratic ones. It is also the case that if effectively anyone is able to participate in decision making, then opposing transparency is somewhat of a losing proposition anyway (anyone who wants to know can participate), but it is still important to commit to it as a positive value. 
> 
> 	And, of course, there is the principe of a commitment to consensus decision making. This is an essential principle of MSism to me. A commitment to consensus is a strong mechanism to encourage broad consideration of a wide range of viewpoints and criticisms. Policy that emerges from MS processes is certainly not perfect, but *absolutely terrible* policy seldom makes it through the process, which does not seem to be the case for IG related policy (or most policy, really) that makes it through elected legislatures.
> It is also worth noting that there are a great many subtleties in the exact definition of consensus used (ICANN identifies at least 5 within its processes, and there are several more  being used in the IG space), and some may be more practical or desirable than others. 
> 
> 	And the JNC seems relatively hostile to consensus, noting that commercial entities have significant ability to hold back policy that they dislike, etc. and advocating strongly for majority voting mechanisms. The JNC would seem to strongly advocate majoritarianism over consensus - and while JNC rhetoric does support the rights of minorities, it is unclear what, if any, mechanisms would be used to prevent popular policies that attract but a majority vote but are unfavourable to minorities, or if this is considered desirable. 
> 	
> 	It is also notable that the use of a voting mechanism requires identifying who gets to vote, and working out a voting mechanisms, and this is a non-trivial problem - and may perhaps be the origins of the disdain for voting in the IG space. The IETF does not vote in large part because there is no membership of the IETF, or limits to who is involved in its processes, so there is no obvious way to determine who is eligible to vote. The JNC is strong on advocacy of voting as a principle, but I have yet to see an explanation of how the considerable difficulties of determining franchise would be dealt with. I am certainly among those who feel that the UN/ITU '1 state 1 vote' system, extending as it does equal votes to states of widely varying size, and often wildly undemocratic themselves, does not really bear any significant connection to the principle of democracy. It would certainly be helpful if the JNC would make it clear whether they feel this sort of multi-lateral voting mechanisms satisfies their commitment to democracy as a principle or not. 
> 
> 	So, there we are, three suggested principles for CS support of MS processes. 
> The TL:DR summary - 
> Openness. Anyone who wishes to participate should be able to, without gatekeeping and minimising barriers to participation. 
> Transparency. Meetings and decision making processes should be public and open to all who wish to participate by default. And 
> Commitment to consensus. Not all issues may be resolvable by consensus, other mechanisms may be required where irreconcilable differences occur. But consensus processes should be pursued where possible, and are to be preferred to majority voting procedures. 
> 
> And my impression is that the JNC position:
> - does not favour full openness, wishing to broaden participation but prevent commercial entities from full participation. 
> - favours transparency, but does not have as strong a commitment to this principle as MSism advocates. 
> - favours majority voting (either direct or representative democracy) over consensus based processes. 
> I am not trying to 'straw man' the JNC here - I'd love to be told that, for example, those JNC members who previously were OK with ITU restrictions on document sharing are now willing to commit to a position of strong advocacy for ITU transparency, or if some JNC members favour voting only in cases where consensus decision making has clearly failed, etc. But I think it is worth trying to highlight why those, like myself, who favour MSism are not simply 'hostile to democracy', as Michael would like to paint us, but are rather committed to a set of positive principles that is quite different to a simple embrace of any process with multiple stakeholders, and disagreement with JNC positions is based on a commitment to those broader principles. 
> 
> I'd also like to make it clear that, of course, advocacy of MS fora in principle does not mean that we do not have strong criticisms of them in actuality. I think ICANN, for example, has good rules on transparency - but its lack of good accountability structures means that it can fail on transparency at crucial points. And I believe that, while ICANN does try hard to be inclusive of those who cannot attend physical meetings, it could do a lot more and must constantly review its processes to see if they can be improved. Working out where there is general consensus on principles for improvement of existing fora would be useful. 
> 
> Regards
> 
> David

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