[governance] Comments and Draft of HR caucus proposal to IGF

[William Drake]

Hi Meryem,

Thanks for sharing the interesting proposal.  Given that these are due in a
few hours, there's not much time to go back and forth on contents or to
undertake revisions if you were so inclined and clear them with HRC members.
So just a few quick comments for evolutionary consideration, I suppose.
I'll focus on the bits where my perspective is a bit different, rather than
giving you a lot of amens on those where we agree, like the task force idea
(I'd call it a working group, but whatever).

1.  I didn't have time to respond to the thread in which the idea first came
up, but I disagree with the restrictive view that IG is only important for
"issues that absolutely need central governance," meaning in your
formulation cases where the Internet wouldn't function or where information
society issues would oriented toward the sole interest of some parties.
Regarding the first part, governance of course takes lots of institutional
forms in response to lots of different functional and/or political
collective action problems.  "Central" governance is a very generic
architectural solution, and within this category there's a lot of variation
in terms of organizational settings (e.g. regimes and programs set in formal
international organizations vs those that are free standing), agreement
type, the strength and form of rules and commitments, mechanisms for
monitoring compliance and sanctioning noncompliance, decision making
procedures, and so on.  Which configuration is best for a given issue
depends on a bunch of parameters, so central governance is a pretty lumpy
construct to recommend.  Conversely, much of IG involves decentralized
coordination for which centralized forums and procedures are not necessary.
It seems odd to me to argue that actors should not engage in these
activities if they've found them to be useful in addressing particular
needs.  Regarding the second part, a)  there is plenty of demand for regimes
and programs that go beyond just making sure the net works, technically; and
b) situations where there's a risk of capture by powerful interests are
widespread, and indeed can arise in almost any example one might name.  This
seems to cut against the effort to limit the scope of governance, plus
there's the problem that actors will inevitably disagree on whether such
conditions may apply in any given instance.  As such, this strikes me as
somewhat nonoperationalizable guidance.

2.  I think it'd be helpful if you specified what aspects of infrastructure
access beyond interconnection charging you think fits your criteria.

3.  I have a little difficulty getting my head around your third
recommendation.  You speak of making sure that technical standardization
(often a rather decentralized process) for hardware and software do not
restrict access to education, culture and knowledge, and I take the point
with respect to DRM.  But then you talk about copyright weakening the UNESCO
Convention, which is not really a technical standards issue.  Some readers
may not be entirely clear on what exactly is the problem you propose the IGF
take up.

Just two cents FWIW...

Cheers,

Bill

> -----Original Message-----
> From: governance-bounces at lists.cpsr.org
> [mailto:governance-bounces at lists.cpsr.org]On Behalf Of Meryem Marzouki
> Sent: Friday, March 31, 2006 11:05 AM
> To: governance at lists.cpsr.org
> Subject: [governance] Comments and Draft of HR caucus proposal to IGF
>
>
> Hi all,
>
> Please find attached a draft proposal, still submitted for comments
> to the HR caucus. Some changes will probably occur before sending
> late today the proposal to IGF. Your comments are also welcome
> (Stephane Bortzmeyer will recognize his idea - and some of his words,
> with permission:) - of sticking to the basics: IGF should only
> discuss issues needing mandatory governance).
>
> I'm sorry to jump in the discussion so late - due to work overload -,
> but I would really like to draw your attention to the fact that one
> of the proposals circulated on this list ("internet content filtering
> and free expression", posted by Milton), may be _very_ dangerous and
> counterproductive, though well intentioned.
>
> I do share the idea that there is a need to develop 'ethical'
> guidelines for Internet companies, when there is no possibility to
> use legislation/public policy. In fact, I've even myself made this
> kind of recommendation at a workshop on racism and the internet
> organized by the OHCHR, as a followup to the Durban conference (see
> http://www-polytic.lip6.fr/article.php3?id_article=127 if
> interested). I entirely agree that this should be extended to
> companie that sells filtering software to non democratic governments
> (cf. the study conducted by the OpenNet Initiative, http://
> www.opennetinitiative.net/), in the framework of a new set of
> "Corporate social responsibility" rules (till now, CSR is rather
> applied to compliance with labor rights) that should be pushed with
> some friendly (on this issue) governments as a start.
>
> However, proposing this in the IGF framework will certainly open the
> way to a definition of "ethical content", "acceptable by all in the
> whole world" allowed on the Internet. Many people genuinely think
> that this would be a good idea, because of the problem of competence
> of jurisdiction, etc. Remember the Mahomet cartoons ? Ever thought of
> "harmful content for minors" ? Such proposal immediately lead to a
> list of "inappropriate content" that may be filtered for ethical
> reasons. And, believe it or not, such lists are not pushed only by
> governments.
>
> I think we should keep in mind that, while IGF mandate is rather
> centred on discussing and framing issues, with no actual decisive
> power, this forum will be considered as a place of negociation for
> governements, whether we like it or not. We should then be cautious
> when formulating our proposals.
>
> This is the reason why the HR caucus proposal doesn't include FoE as
> a theme by itself. It rather proposes to establish a task force on
> FoE, privacy and the rule of law (pls read it in the attached proposal).
>
> Best,
> Meryem
>
>


_______________________________________________
governance mailing list
governance at lists.cpsr.org
https://ssl.cpsr.org/mailman/listinfo/governance