[governance] Caucus statement: para 73c

[Jeremy Shtern]

Hi Bill,

Thanks to you, Parminder and everyone who has taken the time to 
contribute to drafting this statement. I think it makes an important 
point and restricts itself relatively well to arguing it.

I would add one complaint to the laundry list below about the steadily 
widening gap between the WSIS principles for the forum and its realization:

Para 73 c of the "Tunis Agenda for the Information Society" reads:

"... IGF meetings, in principle, may be held in parallel with major 
relevant UN conferences, /inter alia/, to use logistical support."

Unless there is something UN going on in parallel this year in Athens, 
or next year in Rio that I am unaware of (very possible), this 'may' 
seems to be turning into a 'will not'. I think the absence of the 
ability to draw on existing logistical support ties in to some of the 
stuff we are already raising in this declaration about the problems of 
capacity for participation.

Just a thought,

Thanks again for pulling this together,

See you this weekend.

Jeremy

William Drake wrote:
> 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 Parminder’s original but failed,
>       the below is two pages. There’s 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 “we request” type language. Just
>       state the position, stop, was my thought. I don’t 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.
>       It’s 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 IGF’s 
> creation in the summer of 2005. The caucus strongly supported the 
> WGIG’s 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 IGF’s 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 “good governance” 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 IGF’s Advisory Group (AG) should be appointed for one 
> year and then replaced by new members who will program the following 
> year’s conference. The AG’s 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 AG’s 
> decision-making procedures should be transparent, accountable, and 
> timely. As for the conference itself, it should be a place where, as 
> the WGIG recommended, “any stakeholder could bring up any Internet 
> governance issue” 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 IGF’s 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 
> Agenda’s 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
> *******************************************************
>
>
____________________________________________________________
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