[governance] present draft doesnt represent CS position

[Ralf Bendrath]

Parminder wrote:
(I will also reply to Avri further down in my mail)

> I agree there are no easy answer here. And the notion of legitimacy
> that you offer - of representation and of deliberation are fine, except
> that the legitimacy of 'deliberation' can extend to the many functions
> that CS normally performs but not to actual decisions on public policy
> which affect the lives of people in many ways. However the
> 'deliberation' function has many ways of exercising 'soft power' or
> power by influence on public policy. And we all know of the many ways
> there are of doing that. And we need to find ways to use this soft
> power more efficiently.
I mean deliberation instead of negotiation as a basis for _decision
making_, not just in the form of advocacy. One mechanism could be e.g. to
have a "board of trustees" who are nominated in their personal capacity,
not as representatives for specific cinstituencies, and who act as peers.
If you have a mix of CS, PS and Government people, you also include
representation. But as Avri has said, we don't seem to have consensus
here. It was just for presenting my notion of deliberation.

> But we cannot see legitimacy of 'deliberation' replacing that of 
> 'representation' though necessarily there should be a good and
> effective interface between two.
But represenation of what or whom? That is why I am pushing against the
old nation-states based system of representation. I am sceptical of (many)
governments. There are also other possible models for representation. The
ICANN elections tried to do this through regional directors, the CS Bureau
is composed of representatives (well...) of communities, not territorial
entities, the WSIS CS Content and Themes Group in the first phase was
composed of representatives of people who share an interest in same
issues, ... Why do we need to maintain territoriality as the basis for
representation here?
Another argument: The recent German elections were not won or lost over
the question of ICANN and WSIS, and I am sure this is the case everywhere
in the world where elections exist. This means: The few people in the
German government who deal with this can basically do what they want. They
are bureaucrats serving their own institutional interests, not even
political appointees. To whom are they accountable?

> 1.    we proceed from known ‘representation’ based governance systems 
> and improve systems of its accountability to its constituents
... or if we invent new ones.

> ICANN’s conception of who all are to be considered the stakeholders in
> IG (Internet user community) is not at all acceptable – every single
> person in the world is a stakeholder here. Everyone is impacted by
> Internet today – directly or indirectly, in the present or potentially.
Absolutely.

> I am only suggesting what the above referred (IG project, and Hans 
> Klein) academic papers suggest. To establish the rule of law
Agreed. Do we have consensus on this in the caucus, by the way?

> ·         ·       Since the nature and challenges of IG are of an 
> entirely new kind, this oversight body should be a new body created for
>  this purpose. 
Or created out of the existing bodies? Think of evolution or revolution as
you prefer.

> This IG public policy and oversight body must be
> anchored in the UN.
Why? This would again imply that it is based on the representational model
of the nation-state, because the UN is still an intergovernmental
institution, no matter if we get speaking slots at their conferences or
not. And it would include representation of no-one by a number of
dictators. BTW it also serves the US propaganda at the moment, which even
Kofi Annan has tried to fight back - that the UN wants to take over the
Internet.

> ·         ·       Freedom of expression, privacy, and such basic human
>  rights should form a part of the framework for making IG public policy
>  and oversight.
Not "should" - must! This is agreed upon international law!

On what Avri wrote:
> We have those who insist on no government external oversight, those who
> are willing to allow some government over sight as peers to other 
> stakeholders, and those who would hand full political oversight over to
> governments or inter-governmental organizations.
Let's see:

- "full political oversight over to governments"
That would be Parminder, but I think we are finding some common ground
already...

- "some government over sight as peers to other stakeholders"
I think many here (let's call them "the WGIG family" - LOL) would accept
that model. This is what I also could agree on, I think.
But I am still unsure, I think we need much more imagination here, and not
be confined by what we think the US can accept. This is not our job, leave
this to the EU diplomats. What about the visionary power of Civil Society?

- "no government external oversight"
That model is supported by McTim (and others?). This would be what we
political scientists call "privatized transnational governance", an
example being the International Olympic Committee. And this example also
does not leave me with too much trust in a model where the people who run
a system and earn money with it (the network operators) do their own
oversight. Unless there is a market solution for the root server, I can't
really do anything about their decisions as a normal user. And Parminder
is right: The people who are not online - "incommunicado", as they say in
Dutch ;-) - have to be represented, too.

Should we have a humming test? Or keep discussing until Sunday?

By the way: Do we talk about a narrow or broad understanding of public
policy issues here? I am only referring to the ICANN / root server issue.
In most of the other fields, governments have a large role already - look
at cybercrime etc.

Best, Ralf

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