[bestbits] A simple question for JNC members

[Norbert Bollow]

David,

  many thanks for this question, which I think is a good one for us to
create an official response to. I request a bit of patience, as such a
drafting process and the consensus process are going to take a couple
of days at least.

Greetings,
Norbert
co-convenor, Just Net Coalition (JNC) 


On Sun, 26 Oct 2014 16:54:57 +0800
David Cake <dave at difference.com.au> wrote:

> 	... 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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