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

[Parminder]

Hi Avri, 

 

First of all I thank you for taking a more lenient view of my email than
Jeannette did.

 

 I quite appreciate the reasons for your and other members' choice to get
involved with ICANN, most of which I know volunteer a good amount of time on
a social issue/activity they believe in. But I think it is not a very
presumptuous assessment to make that when some people are important members
of an organization there is a certain amount of consistency in their views -
or as I said - their viewpoints are on within a given range of opinions.  

 

Since you have stated your experience with WSIS and ICANN, I consider it
useful to state mine as well, in order to make my point. 

 

Around June this year, some friends from ICANN, also in the IG caucus,
suggested to me to consider nomination to ALAC. Around this time I had began
to realize that IG has important global governance implications, so I did
toy with the idea. And I did some research about ICANN, IG etc. And while I
appreciated all the good work ICANN does, I found the political positions
stated by ICANN on IG, including in the context of discussions at WSIS,
entirely un-acceptable from the point of view of how I looked at things. So
I chose not to go ahead with nomination process.   

 

So it is normal for me to expect that those who do join ICANN, even with
view of reforming it, have some general agreement with the position of ICANN
(at a political level). (There is a small possibility though that someone
actually joins for complete subversion of political views of ICANN from
within). So it was not so unfair on my part to take the view that those
actually associated with ICANN generally represent political views on IG
within a narrow range. And I had the confirmation from the fact that I have
studied some of these views, statements, discussions etc. 

 

Of course these people have the right to have this view, in which they
believe, and are volunteering time to advocate it. However, I cannot be
faulted in pointing out that there has been a lack of much diversity of
political views on IG among active members of the caucus, especially as I
pointed out - through important and relevant examples - when vastly
different views dominate the CS that have been involved more traditionally
in development issues but may not be at WSIS. 

 

And you got me wrong if you think I had exclusionary designs 

 

>>I do hope we don't down that exclusionary route, however, as once we start
excluding one type of person we might get carried away with the number of
people we want to exclude.>>

 

I begun my email by saying that I do not believe in putting stringent rules
for participation and representation in IG caucus. I don't understand why my
point for more inclusion is being interpreted as asking for exclusion. I was
only seeking more diversity of view... and insisting that if we do not get
it readily, though we know the view exists out there, we need to try and
reach out. And in this connection I can say that my organization in its WSIS
and Information Society advocacy has always tried to reach out to those
sections of development community in the South which has not engaged with
these debates till now. We have held WSIS seminars where we insisted to
invite mostly those who are important development actors but hitherto had
been reluctant to engage in WSIS and IS debates. 

 

I was trying to seek similar inclusion here, and for this purpose it was
important for me to comment on a certain narrowness of the range of
'dominant' positions in the IG caucus, especially when I have strong reasons
to believe that it does not represent the views of much of the global civil
society - certainly, the civil society from the South. 

 

Regards 

 

Parminder 

 

  _____  

From: Avri Doria [mailto:avri at psg.com] 
Sent: Sunday, November 06, 2005 9:31 PM
To: Parminder
Cc: 'WSIS Internet Governance Caucus'
Subject: Re: [governance] Present draft does not consider 'real oversight
options'

 

Hi,

 

I want to respond to this and offer, perhaps, a second point of view.

 

On 6 nov 2005, at 03.13, Parminder wrote:





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'...

 

I think once has to take a look at why people are involved with ICANN.  Most
of them have becomes involved since the start of the WSIS project.  Speaking
for myself, I am interested in bringing CS IG input into ICANN as opposed to
the other way around.  Before WSIS/WGIG, while I knew ICANN was there, I
never had an interest in getting involved.  On seeing how much there was to
be done, and on coming to a personal conclusion that one needs to work both
from the inside and the outside, I decided to get involved.

 

True I have to acknowledge that being invovled with ICANN does color my
viewpoint as I have to understand the viewpoint of others involved in ICANN,
but I do not believe it pollutes it or that it removes those who do engage
with ICANN from CS.    And I think you may some some in ICANN who agree with
the structure of your argument as they believe that no one involved in WSIS
CS can be trusted in ICANN as we are suspected of having anti ICANN views
that are dangerous to ICANN.

 

At lot of discussion has gone done, in CS, in WSIS /WGIG about replacing
ICANN.  The consensus, the global consensus, seems to be that this will not
happen, at least not in the near term.  that leave us with the option of
working to change ICANN or disengaging.  I consider both options valid, if
one is opposed to ICANN in its totality, they should oppose it.  but if one
believes that changes can be made and that those changes could improve
things for transparency, openness, multistakeholderism and for internet
users globally, then it makes sense to be engaged in both CS IG and ICANN.

 

Of course, if there is rough consensus in the IGC that membership in some
other organization disqualifies one from participation, then that will be
another story.  I do hope we don't down that exclusionary route, however, as
once we start excluding one type of person we might get carried away with
the number of people we want to exclude.

 

a.

 

 

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