[governance] Caucus Statement: another proposal

[William Drake]

Hello,

Ok, here's yet another text we can chomp on.  Sorry to have been slow, my
brain's fuzzy per usual and I had to help my wife with something.

A few comments:

1. I tried to make it shorter than Parminder¹s original but failed, the
below is two pages.  There¹s a lot that needs saying, and as is this only
makes three points, which I believe is all that can be digested.  If
necessary, we could probably find some pulp to squeeze out.
2. I think we needed a little prolegomenon on the caucus itself, since not
everyone who will be in Athens will know of us, or that we have been
involved in developing and have supported this thing in various ways prior
(which gives a little edge to the expression of concern).
3. I looked at some of the contributions sent to the list today and tried to
pick up their main points without going into the sort of discursive bits
about how we feel, criticisms of intentions/actions, or use of ³we request²
type language.  Just state the position, stop, was my thought.  I don¹t know
whether one could easily merge files between the different versions that
have been floated, but if none seems relatively more suitable as a whole
than we could try. 
4. My main point would be that we should harp on the fact that they agreed a
mandate, so I repeat that several times on purpose.  It¹s our main tool
methinks.

Best,

Bill
---------

Statement of the civil society Internet Governance Caucus to the Internet
Governance Forum in Athens, 31 October ­ 2 November 2006
 
 The Internet Governance Caucus comprises a diverse range of individual and
organizational civil society actors who are committed to the promotion of
global public interest objectives in Internet governance decision-making.
The caucus was created in early 2003 and played a leading role on Internet
governance issues for the broad civil society coalition that participated in
World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) process. Some of its members
were early proponents of an Internet Governance Forum (IGF) and active
participants in the Working Group on Internet Governance (WGIG), which
formally proposed the IGF¹s creation in the summer of 2005.  The caucus
strongly supported the WGIG¹s proposal, as well as the consequent mandate
given to the IGF by the November 2005 Tunis Agenda on the Information
Society.
 
The Caucus remains firmly committed to the IGF and very much wants it to
realize its full potential.  However, we are concerned by the seemingly
growing possibility that the IGF will fall well short of fulfilling the
mandate established in the Tunis Agenda.  We recognize that the IGF is still
in its infancy, but do not believe it is premature to raise this concern
now.  To the contrary, we hope that by doing so we can help to stimulate a
much-needed open, inclusive, and constructive dialogue about the IGF¹s
mission and modalities.
 
There are many issues concerning the IGF that merit urgent attention, but we
wish to highlight our views on three in particular:
 
1.  The IGF must have the will and capacity to fulfill its agreed mandate.
The Tunis Agenda specifies that the IGF should, inter alia, facilitate
discourse between bodies dealing with different cross-cutting international
public policies and issues that do not fall within the scope of any existing
body; interface with appropriate inter-governmental organizations and other
institutions on matters under their purview; facilitate the exchange of
information and best practices, and in this regard make full use of the
expertise of the academic, scientific and technical communities; strengthen
and enhance the engagement of stakeholders in existing and/or future
Internet governance mechanisms, particularly those from developing
countries; identify emerging issues, bring them to the attention of the
relevant bodies and the general public, and, where appropriate, make
recommendations; contribute to capacity building for Internet governance in
developing countries; and promote and assess, on an ongoing basis, the
embodiment of WSIS principles [e.g. transparency, multistakeholder
participation, and a development orientation] in Internet governance
processes. [emphasis added]   Here we would draw particular attention to the
potential utility of formulating non-binding recommendations, and of
assessing and promoting the implementation of ³good governance² principles
and best practices by the diverse public and private sector institutions and
collaborations involved in Internet governance.
 
These are all critically important, value-adding functions that cannot be
performed by any other Internet governance mechanism.  But while governments
and other stakeholders agreed on them in Tunis, we have not seen any
indication since then that the IGF actually will have the capacity to
undertake them.  Clearly, an annual conference alone simply cannot do the
job.  We therefore would welcome an opportunity to discuss with other
participants how they believe the IGF could develop the capacity to fulfill
these and other elements of its mandate.  If instead that mandate is no
longer considered to be operative, we would like to understand how and why
this has been decided.
 
2.  The annual IGF conferences should be programmed and conducted in an open
manner.
Members of the IGF¹s Advisory Group (AG) should be appointed for one year
and then replaced by new members who will program the following year¹s
conference.  The AG¹s composition should reflect a fair balance between the
major stakeholder groupings, which should be able to select their own
representatives.  Participation by diverse constituencies from the
developing counties should be made a priority, and resources should be
allocated to support this objective.  The AG¹s decision-making procedures
should be transparent, accountable, and timely.  As for the conference
itself, it should be a place where, as the WGIG recommended, ³any
stakeholder could bring up any Internet governance issue² and have an
opportunity to initiate partnerships on related initiatives with other
interested parties. While we recognize the constraints of a large group
setting, the IGF should strive to maximize opportunities for fully
participatory, bottom-up, peer-level multistakeholder dialogue.
 
3.  The IGF should facilitate the formation of issue-oriented groupings
alongside the annual conferences.
Here we endorse the views expressed by the Multistakeholder Modalities
Working Group in its February 2006 statement to the IGF secretariat.  The
IGF should establish transparent procedures for the formation and
recognition of any dynamic coalitions or  informal working groups
stakeholders may wish to organize on relevant topics.   All stakeholders
should be able to create such groups on a bottom-up basis.  Any such groups
should be open to all stakeholders that may wish to participate,
transparent, and based primarily on virtual collaboration.  They could
engage in a range of activities, e.g. inclusive dialogue, monitoring and
analysis of trends, conducting studies, and developing recommendations for
action.  The IGF also should define transparent procedures under which such
groups could present any results of their activities for consideration in
the annual meetings.  These steps would strengthen the engagement of
stakeholders from around the world in the work of the IGF, and could
significantly increase the IGF¹s capacity to fulfil the mandate it was
given.
 
Once again we express our strong support for the IGF and for the mandate it
was given by governments and other stakeholders, and we stand ready to work
with colleagues from all sectors to make the Tunis Agenda¹s vision a
reality.
 
 


*******************************************************
William J. Drake  drake at hei.unige.ch
Director, Project on the Information
  Revolution and Global Governance/PSIO
  Graduate Institute for International Studies
  Geneva, Switzerland
http://www.cpsr.org/Members/wdrake
*******************************************************



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