[bestbits] [governance] Internet - whether to regulate it or not

[parminder]

On Wednesday 01 October 2014 02:20 AM, Milton L Mueller wrote:
>
> Now, why, when the UN can adopt a Model law of e-commerce, can we not 
> discuss and possibly adopt a Model Law on IP based telecommunication  
> and net neutrality. Can anyone answer this simple and obvious question 
> for me? Please, I am serious.
>
> No one can answer this question because it is based on a false 
> premise.  But you provided your own answer anyway:
>
> >Because US tell us so. And so many of us are happy to take our
>
> > cues from the US, and its political and corporate allies. (Has it
>
> > anything to do with from where the money flows?)
>
> It is based on a false premise because:
>
> Here in the US of A, we are talking about nothing else but a new law 
> and/or regulation on net neutrality, it got 5 million public comments. 
> And the same federal regulatory agency, known as the FCC, has been 
> running a proceeding on the telephony-to-IP transition since January 
> https://apps.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/FCC-14-5A1.pdf
>

Milton,

Throughout this email, you seamlessly move between UN based 
international law making and US law making, which may get forced on the 
world bec of the US's economic and technical might, as if there isnt any 
real substantive difference between the two... I would have been very 
surprised by this if I did not know that you know exactly what you are 
doing - which makes it simply very disappointing. Please, US cannot be 
doing global governance, and to the extent it does it has to be simply 
lamented and resisted. This is true of any country (in fact, any actor) 
who exercises such the greatest and the most concentrated illegitimate 
power, and it just happens to be the US at the present with regard to 
the 'global Internet'. (If you contest this fact, I am ready to discuss it.)

In the circumstance, when I ask for global model laws in these other 
areas on the lines of the 1997 UN model law on e-com, your pointing to 
some law making exercises happening in the US bespeaks an US centric 
arrogance which is what I consider as very disappointing. I know you are 
a careful person, and you are doing this because, unfortunately, these 
global IG civil society forums allow you space to speak things which one 
cannot speak at almost any other civil society space, I mean, in any 
other area of CS work. In fact even with such views you are nominated to 
speak on the behalf of civil society at the IGF... Therefore, ones 
regrets are larger than just about what you say.

> The dialogue you say doesn’t exist is transnational. I was under the 
> impression that there were half a dozen workshops on net neutrality at 
> this year’s IGF. I believe that the topic was debated extensively, if 
> inconclusively, at Netmundial. The European Commission has also been 
> discussing and acting on it.
>

When did I say there is no global discussion on net neutrality ? ... As 
for the resistance to it and the resources thrown in for that sake I 
have historical details of how an NN debate and position forming got 
resisted on the IGC list as well in the MAG, for years, before it was 
finally taken up this year, and then what went into how the debate got 
shaped for the main session of the IGF and so on...

Yes, I know the European Commission as well as Council of Europe has 
been working on it, and I have participated especially in the latter's 
effort.

> The word “net neutrality” is an American term
>

Oh, I keep forgetting that. We all must remain eternally grateful for 
such mercies. What would we be without the US.

> and the current Presidential administration is on record as supporting 
> it. You probably learned the words “IP transition” from America, too.
>

Well, yes. How much ever may I like to, we are just not able to come off 
the colonial and post colonial yoke. Dont we still take everything of 
worth from the west? Perhaps you would next note that we are actually 
conversing in English that UK gave to the world..
>
> So explain to me again how the evil empire is preventing everyone from 
> talking about such laws or regulations??
>

Apart from US and its corporate allies being the chief instigators for 
filtering the debates at the IGF, that is not what I am talking about 
when I mention actual norms and larger policy making, even if just as 
model laws. You will agree that this cannot happen at the IGF, right. 
And of course US is the main party opposed to the UN taking up any norms 
or policy development work with regard to Internet related policies. Do 
you contest this statement.

> I am serious, or at least as serious as one can be when dealing with 
> outlandish accusations.
>
> Is the basis of your political appeal now a shopworn anti-Americanism, 
> rather than a policy agenda that actually makes things better?
>

The US rules the global Internet, politically and economically . Any 
civil society actor whose chief aim is a better distribution of power 
(that at least is what civil society used to be) would naturally make 
the US as its chief target. But obvious. It is those who continually 
support the US's political and economic power on the Internet who must 
explain themselves.
>
> Keep in mind that “model laws” developed by the UN are significant 
> only insofar as they are adopted by national governments.
>

Yes .
>
> Which means, they have limited relevance when it comes to global 
> Internet governance issues.
>

Yes, indeed global governance needs more than model laws. That is just 
one part of what UN can do - I mean develop model laws as it did for 
e-com, but global Internet policies have to also be made by democratic 
global gov bodies. Meanwhile, there does exist a connection between the 
two. Harmonized national laws go a long way in effective global 
governance of the Internet. If you see the proposed function of the CIRP 
proposed by India in 2011, one of the key functions indeed is to 
harmonise national laws in this area, to the extent possible. If you 
have not heard of what harmonising national laws mean, just ask your 
government about trade and IP areas and what its consistent global 
efforts are in this regard.

> As a thought experiment, ask yourself which has had more influence and 
> importance to the future of the Internet: the UNCITRAL model e 
> commerce law? 
> http://www.uncitral.org/uncitral/en/uncitral_texts/electronic_commerce/1996Model.html
>

The India's IT Act, which is the default Internet law in India at 
present, mentions the UNCITRAL model e-com in its preamble, and 
presumably takes a lot from it.

> Or the Clinton administration’s Framework for Global Electronic 
> Commerce, which provided the rationale for ICANN? 
> http://clinton4.nara.gov/WH/New/Commerce/
>

Yes, this one certainly had a much greater impact on the global 
Internet. But this is an illegitimate impact. I dont know why cant you 
distinguish between legitimate political/ legal / policy impact and 
illegitimate ones. You seem to be proposing that the power behind a law/ 
policy is the main consideration, and not its legitimacy. To take the 
colonial example again, the world still is suffering the years of bad 
work that colonial masters did, including having drawn arbitrary geo 
political boundaries (west asia being one key example). The still 
current and powerful impact of those acts do not make them legitimate in 
the first place, same for the Clinton Administration's Framework for 
Global Electronic Commerce.

> If the latter proved more influential, is it because the evil empire 
> stopped everyone from talking about the topic and used Jedi mind 
> tricks to force it down our throats? Or was it because a globalized 
> approach proved to be more practical and suitable to the growth of the 
> internet than a fragmented, nation-based approach?
>

Yes, a political philosophy and policy framework was simply forced down 
everyone's throat along with a technology that was indeed very alluring 
and useful. That is exactly what happened, as I did say in a recent 
email to Barry on the IGC list.

> If the neoliberal telecom competition and deregulation policies won 
> out in the 1980s and 1990s, was it because of US power, or was it 
> because the policies were fantastically successful at stimulating the 
> growth and penetration of the Internet and information and telecom 
> services and equipment, more so than the 70 years of national monopoly 
> that preceded it, and thus were imitated by country after country?
>

They were successful because the state owned telco infrastructure model 
was outdated. It was rightly replaced.  But this is not the only lesson 
from history we have. We know the role of regulations in making 
telephony mainstream in the US, and then is triggering the software 
revolution... I am sure you need not be re taught that bit of history. 
In the same manner we know the positive role of global policy frameworks 
and regulation in many areas. Therefore, there have to be free market 
forces, and there have to be regulations. The problem is that the US, 
and you, seem to only want the former and not the latter. Unbounded 
markets without regulation (other than US enforced one over the whole 
world).  That is a recipe for disaster.

parminder
>
> These might be more “serious” and productive questions for people on 
> this list to answer
>
> Milton L Mueller
>
> Laura J. and L. Douglas Meredith Professor
>
> Syracuse University School of Information Studies
>
> http://faculty.ischool.syr.edu/mueller/
>
> Internet Governance Project
>
> http://internetgovernance.org <http://internetgovernance.org/>
>

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