[governance] Caucus Statement: another proposal [Revision]

[William Drake]

Hi,

On process,  Parminder suggests we follow the 'silence is assent' model,
Ralf notes that due to other commitments that applies to him, but Avri says
this approach has led to trouble in the past (actually, my recollection is
that almost all of the relatively few instances of objections to caucus
statements involved cases where we had to say something on short notice in a
PrepCom etc in reaction to the flow of the negotiations that had not been
vetted at all, which is a different problem).   In general, 'you snooze you
lose' is obviously a bad way to do things, but I guess the question is
whether it can be acceptable in highly constrained situations like this one,
with just four days to the IGF, people starting to travel, text being on the
table for a number of days, and various people feeling that we really ought
to say something.  Since we don't have a coordinators to call rough
consensus it's not obvious how to resolve this, but clearly to reach a
comfort level on either doing it or not doing it we need to at least have
more people weighing in either way; it doesn't actually take that much time
to type yes or no....

On substance, in the event that we somehow decide to go forward, below is a
tweaking that tries to respond to the views expressed that it seemed like an
ex ante protest.  I wish there'd been some specific examples given of this,
as I have trouble reading it that way since I wasn't of that mind when I
drafted it and all three points it makes had been raised a number of times
by various people without contention.   But whatever, I tried to identify
any bits that might conceivably seem protesty and rectify:

1. "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."  Deleted 'seemingly growing' and replaced 'will' with 'could'.

2.  "There are many issues concerning the IGF that merit urgent attention,
but we wish to highlight our views on three in particular:" Deleted first
clause.

3.  "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." Deleted, in case non-binding recommendations and
good governance are somehow too divisive to emphasize.

4.  "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." Replaced with,

"But while governments and other stakeholders agreed on them in Tunis, they
also cannot be performed by annual conferences that largely consist of
presentations by invited speakers.  We therefore would welcome an
opportunity for open dialogue with other participants on how the IGF could
fulfill these and other elements of its mandate."

The rest remains the same, I can't find anything in it that can be read as a
protest, it's simply recommendations---fairly anodyne ones in my view.  If
someone else can, please say what, specifically, should be changed how.

Revised text below.

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 possibility
that the IGF cuuld 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.
 
We wish to highlight our views on three issues 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]
 
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, they also cannot be
performed by annual conferences that largely consist of presentations by
invited speakers.  We therefore would welcome an opportunity for open
dialogue with other participants on how the IGF could fulfill these and
other elements of its mandate.
 
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.
 
 
 






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