[bestbits] A simple question for JNC members

[David Cake]

	... what form of international governance do you think should be used for Internet governance issues, or any other issues for that matter?
Democracy seems to be the guiding principle here, and it seems clear you only consider direct or representative democratic principles valid, rather than the 'decisions are made by those who show up' nature of most MS fora. 

If that is the issue, then exiting multi-lateral fora, such as the ITU, which obviously allow equal voting from nations with extremely undemocratic political systems, such as China, KSA, etc. would seem to be very problematic. And that is before you consider issues such as whether even the way in which representatives are appointed even by democratic nations is truly democratic - often technical representatives may be employees of state or private enterprises, for example. And besides, these fora rely on consensus anyway, which seems to be undemocratic in JNC thinking unless we are effectively getting consensus of the entire populace. And multi-lateral institutions have a far worse record for excluding the general populace, excluding protest and activism, etc than multi-stakeholder ones do (indeed, the de facto position is that many MS institutions admit literally anyone, while most multi-lateral institutions by default exclude almost everyone, admitting only those authorised by their state). 

Multi-lateral negotiations between even between only democratic nations seem problematic too, as examples such as the TTPA, TTIP, etc are closed, secretive, and disliked and considered undemocratic by apparently everybody, including JNC members. It could, of course, be claimed that while those examples are bad, some theoretical better multi-lateral process restricted to democratic nations might be good - but unless some clear articulation of what this better process would, and how it could be realistically achieved, is made, this is just the 'no true Scotsman' fallacy - every example of negotiations between democratic nations that is closed, secretive, exclusionary, and undemocratic is somehow just an aberration that doesn't undermine the theory. 

So, is the JNC position only a critique of existing government forms, or is there an form of transnational governance that would actually satisfy the principles they espouse? Is this form of transnational governance an existing one, or is it something that exists only in theoretical terms? What is it? Could you describe examples of transnational governance fora that do, or could, satisfy, or come close to satisfying, JNC principles?

[and no, Michael, "I wrote about that on my blog somewhere" is not really a good answer to this question (or any other question)]

I ask from genuine interest. I certainly feel that current MS organisations are far from perfect, and could certainly do with improvement. But the JNC criticisms of MSism seem largely as if they would make things worse (e.g. the main criticism of MSism seems to be that commercial orgenisations participate, but this criticism directly applied to MS processes would seem to be call to make such processes exclusionary rather than open, which seems a terrible idea). In general, some JNC criticisms of MSIsm point out some areas in which I feel MSism could certainly be improved, such as how to genuinely broaden participation, but in as far as some of the principles seem contradictory, I'm sceptical as to whether any actual form of governance could satisfy them better than an improved version of MSism. 

Regards

David
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