[governance] Present draft does not consider 'real oversight options'

[Parminder]

Dear All, 

 

 I followed the discussions on media representation for the IG caucus with a
lot of interest. I personally am not for very stringent conditions for this
purpose - and I expect that any chosen person will recognize that she or he
can only represent the group's view and not their individual view. 

 

However, I am intrigued by the fact that while the discussion took a very
precautionary view of what may or may not be appropriate, beginning with a
discussion with 'whether being a WGIG member should be a disqualifier', or
having a 'government badge' is problematic, and later even issues such as
'whether being associated with the 'IG project' with some known viewpoints'
itself can cast a shadow on appropriateness for the position'...

 

..however, no one spoke of whether having a close relationship with/
position in ICANN can be considered problematic for this purpose.  

 

It is more surprising because WGIG was a more of a deliberating body and is
an expired body, while 

 

(1) ICANN is a major player in the present IG and of course an interested
party in the IG negotiations 

(2) ICANN on various points has stated its position on WSIS IG negotiations.


 

Hence one can expect anyone who is closely associated with ICANN to move
only within a given spectrum of positions on IG. 

 

 So, it makes me really wonder why association with ICANN did not even
figure in this discussion on caucus representative-ness. I think it is
because many take an ICANN or ICANN-like position, by default, as a CS
position on IG. This is very problematic. I want to insist that this is a
narrow view, which comes from keeping the discussions within a charmed
circle. It doesn't help to say . 'well the processes are open, why do not
other people with different viewpoints participate'... 

 

If we mean to view IG caucus as even somewhat representative of IG view of
CS at WSIS; and CS at WSIS as at least trying to be representative of the
wider global civil society, we need to actually reach out to many more
views. We need to know how civil society has looked at issues of 'privatized
governance' in global policy matters in areas outside IG. And IG is not an
isolated issue; it is connected to, and has implications for many other
issues, and it concerns the whole world and its governance.

 

In the last few months, my organization has been strongly involved in
advocacy on gender and Information society issues in the context of WSIS.
Just last week, grave concerns over moves towards 'private governance'
(including IG) and its implications on women's interests were raised at the
year's biggest meeting of feminist activists at the AWID conference at
Bangkok (2000 feminist participated over four days of deliberations), as
also at the Asia Pacific regional conference of Gender Caucus of WSIS, also
held at Bangkok. In fact we did not hear one voice in support of
'privatizing governance'. 

 

And all these participants are long standing civil society actors with close
connections laterally across the civil society community and with grassroots
movements. Do their views count? And let us not just blame them for not
being at WSIS and involved with IG list discussions.. That would be too
simplistic.

 

 ICANN is fond of speaking about the 'internet community' - and I had argued
in my last email that, today there is no specific Internet community -
everyone is (or needs to be) impacted by the internet - hence the world
community is the Internet community. We can not have representativeness
defined by who spends more hours on the keyboard on connected computers.
This description of the constituency of IG is not a peripheral issue, it is
THE issue here. But I find no one responding to my poser on this narrow
conception of 'internet community', (rather the very irrelevance of this
term in this context) which is at the basis of ICANN's claims of legitimacy.
(And we know that ICANN's processes are vastly inadequate even to call it
representative of its own conception of the internet community). 

 

 And with people associated with ICANN dominating the IG caucus, it can be
expected that the views that will emerge from the IG caucus will be on a
narrow band - articulating positions somewhere between status quo ICANN to a
reformed ICANN. The present draft only confirms this. And it is not at all
acceptable.

 

I will put forward comments on the specific language in the draft in another
email. Let me discuss here only the tactical/strategic issues implicated in
taking the position proposed by the present draft.

 

At present there are only three positions on the table - and negotiations
will take place around them. 

 

*         US position - status quo - with cosmetic tinkering to placate
opposition 

*         EU position -  beginning from the basic position that the
oversight functions with the US at present has to go, to an
inter-governmental system and building alternatives from this basic position
that ensure agreed basic objectives on IG - including full precautions
against ad-hoc interference in day-to-day functioning of IG 

*         EU+ positions - all positions which may want to go beyond EU
position. 

 

So the position as circulated in the draft, will only lend support to the US
position. US will be able to say that WSIS CS is also close to our position.
No one at the negotiations would seriously consider non-government actors
performing oversight functions on their own; since oversight is a very
political function (any political scientist will tell you this). 

 

 Many in the CS are apt to read 'Political' as 'bad' - NO, it is -
Political as ' management of contested interests between different groups
and sections' - and it is easy to depoliticize issues when one group has
shared interests and a world-view, and it then becomes convenient to take
that as the apolitical obvious position that suits all. 

 

 

Parminder 

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