[governance] Re: Four legs good, two legs bad

[l.d.misek-falkoff]

Greetings, and
A note responding to  rich posts full of key considerations on Internet
governance.

The description of just how things work in the real world (paraphrase) is
very helpful.

It also springs the thought that maybe there is something different here.

As far as persons in communication regarding government decisions and other
activities by governments in their various branches that affect individuals,
in *CyberPrehistoric* times those in on the 'conversation' comprised in
network terms not so many connected nodes, and in matrix terms, a pretty
sparse one. Whereas, by contrast, is it not the case that the network of all
those interconnecting now including with governments  by computer today (*
'internetworking*)' is immense and one wonders if it thereby represents a
real enduring (we may hope) 'change in kind'.

So that those involved in real-terms and real-time really (a, b, c ...n) do
need to,  and have a right to, and are prepared and able to,  have more
"say."  In human rights terms exemplified by the Disability Rights
Convention* now going to the U.N. General Assembly for adoption (and also
after great labor of heart and mind intensely especially as regards Access)
"Nothing About Us Without Us" is not just a rallying cry of consumers but a
mindful multi-stakeholder tenet based on investment and insight.

Thoughts on the posts.  And sending very best wishes, LDMF.
Linda D. Misek-Falkoff.

* International Convention on the Rights of Persons With Disabilities *.


On 12/11/06, Patrick Vande Walle <patrick at vande-walle.eu> wrote:
>
> Veni Markovski wrote, On 09/12/2006 13:54:
>
> > since you talk about models, and governments being
> > good, why not give us an example of governments that have solved the
> > problems with the IG? But solved with full participation of all multi
> > stakeholders, through bottom-up processes, in the interest of all
> > society, and with keeping privacy protected.
>
> Veni, I will take a different view here. The best bottom-up process I
> know is called elections. In democracies, this is how you agree or
> disagree with your government's policies. Democratic governments have
> processes in place to consult with their stakeholders. This is at the
> national level.
>
> Once you go to the international level, it has been widely accepted for
> several centuries that the interests of the citizens are represented by
> their government (even the non-democratic ones). This is called
> diplomacy. International trade agreements and international laws are
> negotiated between governments. I still fail to understand the rationale
> on why the Internet should be treated any different way than, say,
> bananas, meat or steel exports. AFAIK, the steel industry does not set
> the its own international rules. The Internet industry does.
>
> Let's take the WTO as an example of international negotiations. There
> are industry or civil society lobbyists informing the governments'
> representatives. This is fair and can actually contribute to take into
> account the side effects of envisioned agreements. At the end of the
> day, though, it will be the governments that will decide, not the
> industry or civil society.
>
> IG does not get a lot of attention from governments because it is a
> detail in the world economy. How many heads of states or ministers were
> at the IGF ? Just compare this with the number of heads of state
> attending WTO negotiation rounds.
>
> IG being a detail for govs, they may indeed wish to delegate the
> management of the Internet to private sector led organizations, because
> they have no time to delve into the details themselves. However, they
> need to trust these orgs. This includes mechanisms for fair and equal
> representation of all stakeholders, regardless of their business
> interest in the process. We are not there yet.
>
> Patrick
> ____________________________________________________________
> You received this message as a subscriber on the list:
>     governance at lists.cpsr.org
> To be removed from the list, send any message to:
>     governance-unsubscribe at lists.cpsr.org
>
> For all list information and functions, see:
>     http://lists.cpsr.org/lists/info/governance
>



-- 
Dr. Linda D. Misek-Falkoff (Ph.D., J.D.)
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.igcaucus.org/pipermail/governance/attachments/20061211/e23b976d/attachment.htm>
-------------- next part --------------
An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed...
Name: message-footer.txt
URL: <http://lists.igcaucus.org/pipermail/governance/attachments/20061211/e23b976d/attachment.txt>