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

Thu Mar 5 08:00:15 EST 2015

Hello Anriette, all

I roughly followed the event remotely and your summary about this
particular issue has been very much enlightening and useful. One thing i
think the different "factions" in civil society should has to appreciate is
that there can't be one side always right and another side always wrong. So
if there is a disagreement on an aspect, i think we should always remember
that there were agreements on many other (as Anriette has rightly indicated
in her mail).

Regards

On Thu, Mar 5, 2015 at 11:35 AM, Anriette Esterhuysen <anriette at apc.org>
wrote:

> Dear all
>
> Just an explanation and some context.
>
> I was on the 'coordinating committee' of the event. Our role was to
> review comments on the draft statement and support the chair and
> secretariat in compiling drafts.
>
> The final UNESCO outcome document did include the vast majority of
> text/proposals submitted by civil society beforehand and onsite.
>
> This includes text submitted by Richard Hill on behalf of JNC (Richard
> made several editorial suggestions which improved the text) and text
> from Anita Gurumurthy from IT for Change (which greatly improved
> weakened language on gender in the pre-final draft).
>
> The text on 'social and economic rights' were not excluded for any
> reason other than it came during the final session and the Secretariat
> were trying to keep the document short and linked directly to the Study.
> It was decided to elaborate on the links to broader rights, and to
> UNESCO needing to work with other rights bodies, in the final study
> report rather than in the outcome statement.
>
> Again, not ideal from my perspective, but that was the outcome of the
> discussion.
>
> It is a pity that 'democratic' was not added, but it was never really an
> option. I personally, and APC, support linking democratic to
> multistakeholder and we were happy that this happened in the NETmundial
> statement. And reading Norbert's text below (thanks for that Norbert) I
> would like to find a way to make sure that the meaning of democratic
> However, in the UN IG context there is a very particular angle to why
> "democratic multistakeholder" is so contentious. In the Tunis Agenda the
> word "democratic" is directly linked with the word "multilateral" -
> every time it occurs. This means that people/governments who feel that
> 'multilateral' can be used to diminish the recognition given to the
> importance of multistakeholder participation, and take the debate back
> intergovernmental oversight of IG, will not agree to having 'democratic'
> in front of multistakeholder.
>
> In the context of these UN type negotiations it will be code for
> reinserting multilateral (in the meaning of 'among governments') into
> the text.
>
> At the NETmundial we had to fight for 'democratic multistakeholder', but
> because it is a 'new' text we succeeded.
>
> The thing with documents that come out of the UN system is that they are
> full of invisible 'hyperlinks' to previous documents and political
> struggles that play themselves out in multiple spaces.
>
> I actually looked for a quote from the Tunis Agenda that we could insert
> (at Richard's suggestion) to see if I could find a reference to
> democratic that is not linked to 'multilateral' but I could not find
> this quote, and I showed this to Richard and warned him that
> unfortunately 'democratic' will most likely not be included.
>
> I can confirm that the editing group did consider this seriously, but
> that the number of objections to this text were far greater than the
> number of requests for putting it in.
>
> This is simply in the nature of consensus texts that are negotiated in
> this way.
>
> There was also much stronger text on anonymity and encryption as
> fundamental enablers of online privacy and freedom of expression in the
> early draft. But it had to be toned down on the insistence of the
> government of Brazil as the Brazilian constitution states that anonymity
> is illegitimate.
>
> Civil society never succeeds in getting everything it wants in documents
> we negotiate with governments. We have to evaluate the gains vs. the
> losses.
>
> In my view the gains in this document outweighs the losses. Supporting
> it means that we have  UN agency who has a presence in the global south
> who will put issues that are important to us on its agenda, which will,
> I hope, create the opportunity for more people from civil society,
> particularly from developing countries, to learn, participate and
> influence internet-related debates with policy-makers.
>
> Michael, as for your tone, and your allegations. I don't really know
> what to say about them. They are false, they are destructive and they
> demean not only the work of the civil society organisations or
> individuals you name, but also the work - and what I believe to be the
> values - of the Just Net Coalition.
>
> Anriette
>
>
>
> On 05/03/2015 11:46, Norbert Bollow wrote:
> > 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
> >
> >
> >
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*Seun Ojedeji,Federal University Oye-Ekitiweb:      http://www.fuoye.edu.ng
<http://www.fuoye.edu.ng> Mobile: +2348035233535**alt email:
<http://goog_1872880453>seun.ojedeji at fuoye.edu.ng
<seun.ojedeji at fuoye.edu.ng>*

The key to understanding is humility - my view !
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