[governance] Mandatory and non-mandatory governance (Was: China To Launch Alternate Country CodeDomains]

[David Allen]

At 9:25 PM -0500 3/4/06, Milton Mueller wrote:
>I found Bortzmeyer's creation of a distinction between things that do and do not need global governance to be important and useful.

Then there is some concurrence on the point (as noted in the portion now removed from below, for better focus).

We can take the point to some of its logical conclusions:  Rather than a long laundry list of issues - one of the outputs of WSIS / WGIG - we need to zero in on the meat.

More, rather than diplomatic circumlocutions - so that real differences never see the light of day - a new culture of direct talk needs to arise.  Of course that only works when the parties to the play genuinely respect each other and want genuinely to understand opposing views, not attack those with whom they disagree.  That is no small thing.

To say again:  That is no small thing.  Diplomatic relations must be retained - straight talk with mutual respect is just another way into that same objective.

Even more than that, usually the 'real differences' are hidden under layers of implicit assumptions, often invisible even to the holder of such views.  Then we need ways to get at those foundational differences - with civility.  That is a whole next task ...

>As I argued at the Geneva consultation, "multilingualism" is too broad a category to be useful for the IGForum; some of the issues in multilingualism are purely matters of local or regional development (such as developing new content in underserved scripts and langauges); others (such as IDNs) do involve global compatibility and coordination issues. It was somewhat disturbing that the recent news release from the UN about the creation of the Forum by Annan not only prematurely signaled that "multilingualism" would be a theme of the first forum, but seemed to emphasize exactly the wrong aspect of that issue.

Here's my take on it:

As just suggested, we will be served best by talking straight, about the things that matter most.  My clear estimate is that initial choices will not be a direct revisit of the beast that derailed WSIS - whatever we might wish, and indeed that in fact seems a wise choice to me.  Therefore a practical person would ask, what other way might get to the meat of it?

I see several possibilities.

Multilingualism - as defined in the portion now removed - quite directly goes to shared resources where there must be international coordination.  That of course is the (now agreed) promised land.  Hence in ML, properly defined, there is one possibility to do what IGF needs to do (as defined here).

I don't have a brief for ML.  I happen to be involved with it, so understand how it is directly in the line of fire; I also see how broad is its impact, regardless.  But it is only one option, to do what we need.

In (of course) my view we need to get at the several candidate topics that lead directly to the main opposed positions.

To say it clearly:  The purpose is to bridge differences and find common ground, among all parties to the work.  That especially includes governments, who are not party to the discussion here, at least in an explicit way so far.  To get differences on the table is only the first - necessary - step, in the quest to locate common ground.  With differences clearly laid out, the real work begins.

David
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