[bestbits] Fwd: [governance] update on NMI

Fri Jul 3 02:02:13 EDT 2015

Forwarding with permission.

-------- Forwarded Message --------
Subject: 	[governance] update on NMI
Date: 	Fri, 3 Jul 2015 09:29:01 +1000
From: 	Ian Peter <ian.peter at ianpeter.com>
Reply-To: 	governance at lists.igcaucus.org, Ian Peter
<ian.peter at ianpeter.com>
To: 	governance at lists.igcaucus.org

This is an update and some personal reflections  on the NetMundial
Initiative, which held its first full Coordination Council meeting  on
June 30 in Sao Paulo. As posted recently by Marilia, the communique
document can be found at
https://www.netmundial.org/blog/secretariat/s%C3%A3o-paulo-communiqu%C3%A9-inaugural-council-meeting
and summarises most of the discussions. So below are some more personal
comments.

Please feel free to copy to other lists.

The meeting was held in the same room as the original NetMundial
conference which many of us attended (but partitioned to create a
smaller room). In addition to the Council members, seats were available
for observers as well as remote participation. The meeting was hosted
and very well organised by CGI.br

One feature of the meeting was the speeches by 2 high profile Chinese
delegates attending for the first time (Lu Wei, Chinese Minister for
Cyberspace, and Jack Ma, head of Alibaba). I would imagine transcripts
as well as other documents will be available soon at www.netmundial
.org, but some memories are

Lu Wei definitely mentioned support for multistakeholderism, but China
watchers might also want to check the transcript or recording for
nuances of meaning here – he also mentioned sovereignty of course. This
seems to a change of some sort for China to mention support for
multistakeholderism, but I would imagine their interpretation of what
this means might be somewhere within the wide range of interpretations
 already existing. But what I do read into this is an acknowledgement by
China that it will work with the rest of the world in addressing
internet issues. As always, the devil will be in the detail.

 Lu Wei ( and Jack Ma if my memory serves me correctly) used the phrase
of the internet being “for the development of humankind” This particular
phrase had a history dating back to the early 1980s and the Macbride
Report of UNESCO (Many Voices One World) referring to pre-Internet new
media – out of which the NWICO debates emerged.  I was personally
pleased to hear the phrase used in this context.

There was an interesting discussion on human rights and internet
governance between Lu Wei and Eileen Donahoe and Anriette Esterhuysen.

Jack Ma gave a very interesting speech as well, referring to development
and engagement of youth in particular.

It appears that both China and Jack Ma on behalf of Alibaba have
indicated strong support at this stage for the initiative.

Fadi Chehade in his opening remarks produced some interesting
diagrammatic interpretations of the state of internet governance – these
are also available from www.netmundial.org. He also mentioned the role
of Edward Snowden as a catalyst for the original NMI conference in Sao
Paulo – remarks which I later took on board a little more extensively to
thank Edward Snowden for his contribution and to note that, although
there have since been a few small measures here and there to improve the
pervasive nature of mass surveillance, there was still a lot of
improvement needed in this area.

The meeting adopted a few procedural documents – including strong
support for consensus decision making. It also, through a fairly messy
process hastily arranged, put in place 5 co-chairs – Jack Ma, Fadi
Chehade, Virgilio Almeida, Eileen Donahoe, and Marilia Maciel.

There was a lot of internal obsessive detail which we could discuss if
people want to, but basically the intiative is still pretty new and raw
and learning from its mistakes. Much of the meeting was devoted to
internal process.

There were also some pretty interesting side discussions – I (and others
as well) deliberately  raised the internet.org issue, particularly to
feel out policy makers from industry and governments. While there were
divided opinions, there were certainly a lot of people who hadn’t
thought about it yet who need to, and some surprisingly strong
opposition to the initiative from some industry players. I think the
discussions were valuable, with some people having very scant knowledge
of the issues which are being raised and likely to look into them further.

Otherwise – my general impression is that NMI is getting some structure,
and maybe some extra avenues of financial support as well . The terms of
the inaugural council will run out in June 2016, and it is hard to know
what will happen after that, if anything. The loss of product champion
Fadi Chehade is likely to be a factor as well.

That’s my initial reactions. I realise that many within civil society
have strong (and in many cases appropriate) reservations about this
initiative. But at the same time, I am glad that as these discussions
continue civil society does have some presence in the discussions and
the capacity to influence events via those who are participating.

Ian Peter

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