[bestbits] [governance] Remarks at UNESCO Closing Ceremony of "Connecting the Dots Conference"

[Norbert Bollow]

On Thu, 5 Mar 2015 02:27:14 +0100
Jeremy Malcolm <jmalcolm at eff.org> wrote:

> On Mar 4, 2015, at 7:54 PM, Michael Gurstein <gurstein at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> > 
> > Perhaps we could have an explanation from Jeremy and others on the
> > drafting committee as to when and how "democracy" and "social and
> > economic rights' became unacceptable terms in a document meant to
> > have global significance?
> 
> 
> With pleasure.  This is why:
> 
> http://igfwatch.org/discussion-board/unesco-resists-jncs-attempt-to-turn-democracy-against-ordinary-internet-users

I would like to hereby state clearly that what Jeremy claims is JNC's
view of "democratic multi-stakeholderism" is not an actual position of
JNC.

For JNC, "democratic" simply means: democratic.

We insist that just like governance at national levels must be
democratic (which has been internationally accepted as a human right,
even if there are countries where this is not currently implemented
satisfactorily), any and all global governance must also be democratic.

JNC's foundational document, the Delhi Declaration, states this as
follows:

   Globally, there is a severe democratic deficit with regard to
   Internet governance. It is urgently required to establish
   appropriate platforms and mechanisms for global governance of the
   Internet that are democratic and participative.

We are opposed to any kind of system in which multistakeholderism is
implemented in a way that is not democratic.

We are *not* opposed to participative mechanisms for global governance
of the Internet. In fact we explicitly demand, in our foundational
document, mechanisms for global governance of the Internet which are
democratic *and* participative.

This demand has nothing whatsoever to do with what Jeremy claims is our
goal, which he describes as “limited type of government-led
rulemaking”. That would clearly *not* be participative.

We insist that Internet governance must be democratic *and*
participative.

Is that so hard to understand???


The above-mentioned post of Jeremy also links, twice, to an earlier
blog post of his, and he claims that he has there "revealed ... the
agenda of the Just Net Coalition". That post happens to be quite full of
factually false assertions. I have now published my response (which had
previously been communicated in a non-public manner) at

http://justnetcoalition.org/reply-jeremy-malcolm

Greetings,
Norbert
co-convenor, Just Net Coalition
http://JustNetCoalition.org