[governance] Dynamic Coalition working methods

[Jeremy Malcolm]

Ralf Bendrath wrote:
> Jeremy Malcolm wrote:
>> Not really, my concern is more that the informality of the coalitions 
>> makes them unaccountable to the IGF at large.
> First of all, the IGF at large is accountable to nobody. It is at the
> moment an "open house", as Niton Desai said, it can't (yet?) make
> decisions, and its composition is more or less random. So why should any 
> dynamic coalition be accountable to the IGF?

Briefly, because he IGF now is not all that it has the potential to be; 
it has the potential to be a multi-stakeholder governance network which 
*does* make non-binding decisions, and it is to *that* IGF that it is 
more important that dynamic coalitions will eventually be accountable.

So the only criteria by which I would suggest that dynamic coalitions 
could be assessed by the IGF are those that the latter *already* 
possesses - basically, open membership and (potentially) 
multi-stakeholder composition; I agree with you that there's not much 
else.  But I also agree with you that "accountable" is a challenging 
word, and "recognised" less so - so thanks for offering that suggestion.

Also, as I have just said in response to someone else's off-list 
comment, it is possible to go far without being binding.  Even in 
orthodox international law, so-called "soft law" which includes codes, 
resolutions, declarations, model laws and standards, exists which is non 
binding but has normative force.  Outside the conventional understanding 
of international law, transnational private law has consensual force 
only - which as Vittorio observed during his comments in the Way Forward 
session, is exactly how Internet governance worked before governments 
came along.

>> (b) allowing the output of an accredited dynamic coalition to be put to
>>  the IGF at large to be considered and, potentially, ratified and 
>> adopted by consensus (through some also yet undefined process).
> It will only be "adopted" or "ratified" by a more formal forum, e.g. a 
> WSIS-follow-up summit in 2010. Forget about anything else in the first 
> years. And if you push too hard here, we will just fend off governments 
> willing to work with us.

In case you misunderstand what I am expecting here, I certainly do not 
imagine a formal act of international law-making.  The effect of a 
consensus of the IGF being formed around a particular proposal would be 
that its views would be published as something like a recommendation or 
best practice document.  Compare the OECD's publication of an Anti-Spam 
Toolkit.

Also bear in mind that there is only ever the potential that a small 
subset of the output of the dynamic coalitions would be put forward for 
the IGF, and a much smaller subset ever reach consensus.

>> I'm considering where to take things from here, but I'm open to 
>> suggestions.  I would be happy to draft a list of criteria, develop a 
>> rough consensus on it here and on the plenary at intgovforum.org mailing 
>> list, 
> Is that list populated yet? Especially: Is there a significant number of 
> government reps? We can come up with anything we like at the moment, but 
> the biggest problem seems to be the participation of governments. Don't 
> overwhelm them.

It's not very much populated yet, because the Secretariat declined to 
publicise it which is why I had to stand up on the last day and do so 
myself.  Please, do encourage anyone you know (particular from 
government and the private sector!) to join it, otherwise those who are 
not participating in a dynamic coalition will have no interactive means 
of keeping in touch between IGF meetings.

As I observed in the latest post at igfwatch.org, I'm no more concerned 
that we will scare governments off, as that they will scare the rest of 
us off but not listening to us and rendering this whole process pointless.

-- 
Jeremy Malcolm LLB (Hons) B Com
Internet and Open Source lawyer, IT consultant, actor
host -t NAPTR 1.0.8.0.3.1.2.9.8.1.6.e164.org|awk -F! '{print $3}'
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