[governance] present draft doesnt represent CS position

[Ralf Bendrath]

Parminder wrote:

> The position that is being proposed is that the public
> policy functions now with the US government be taken from it, and then 
> ICANN becomes the global public policy making body for all functions of 
> IG without any external political oversight. 
Good point, and thanks for pushing this debate, Parminder.

(...)
> There seems to be some romanticism in some parts of the CS that real 
> global governance decisions should actually be taken by bodies where 
> civil society representatives sit as voting members. 
It is not romanticism, it is the the way ICANN currently works.
Governments in the GAC are only advising. (Leaving aside the oversight of
the USG, but we want to get rid of that one anyway.)

> This is absurd.
Don't be too harsh here, see below.

> CS has to have greater and greater interfaces with global (and national) 
> governance systems in a way that it can advise, input proposals, extract 
> accountablity etc, but to think that we should actually take up decision 
> making responsibilities is politically naïve, and raises questions about 
> our legitimacy.
This is exactly the 1 Million Euro question: What is legitimate?
- The UN system, where the Chinese government representing 1.5 billion
people has as many votes as Iceland with 300,000?
- The UN system, where many governments are not representing anyone,
because they never got properly elected?
- A private system, where in the end, the board can do as it likes?
- A multistakeholder system, where nobody knows who can be held
accountable in the end?
- A direct global election system, as ICANN tried in 2000?
- what else?

There are basically two notions of legitimacy here. One is based on
representation (more or less the intergovernmental model), and here we can
not win, of course. The other one is based on deliberation, where the open
exchange of arguments counts, and this is where we do much better than any
government. So what is absurd and what not is depending on the perspective.

As Bertrand, Wolfgang and others have pointed out many times, WSIS and
especially the IG issue offer a great chance to come up with a new global
governance model that goes beyond the system of nation-states. I of course
have no answer here, but I think at least oversight should be done in a
mix between the intergovernmental system of the UN and the
multistakeholder approach of WGIG. I know this is not enough, but it gives
a general idea.

A question in return: What exactly are you suggesting? (Maybe I've missed
it if you have answered this already)

Best, Ralf

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