AW: [governance] .xxx. igc and igf

[John Mathiason]

Wolfgang,

I'll deal with this in some detail in the paper (thanks for raising  
the issues).  Here is the short answer: until the world somehow  
repeals the Treaty of Westphalia (this is a metaphor, of course) all  
international conventions are formally negotiated by States, signed  
and ratified by them, and then implemented by them.  Having said  
that, in almost all recent negotiations non-State actors have played  
a significant role in shaping the content of the agreements.  (A good  
recent example is the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with  
Disabilities, where disability NGOs were extremely influential.)

A state can sign a convention and in so doing accept, morally, the  
obligations contained therein, but it is only legally bound if it  
ratifies (or accedes to) the convention.  One reason the Framework  
Convention has been used as a means is that it does not require  
binding agreements on many of the details that would be compulsory  
for States party and this makes signature and ratification easier for  
States that can only ratify a convention when their national laws  
already conform to the obligations of the Convention.

One thought: any Convention on the Internet that is non-universal  
probably won't be effective.  That is why it should be a UN Convention.

Other comments on issues that our paper should address, such as those  
raised by Wolfgang (and Adam in his e-mail on the Aarhus Convention)  
are urgently solicited.

Regards,

John
On Apr 18, 2007, at 9:44, Kleinwächter, Wolfgang wrote:

> John,
>
> can you explain me exactly who would negotiate and who would sign  
> the "Framework Convention" or however you title such a documented  
> arrangement?
>
> Would it be a convention under the Vienna Law of Treaty Convention?  
> Would it go through a national ratification procedure? How non- 
> governmental actors would be included into negotiations? How these  
> non-governmental actors, if they would be included, would join such  
> a convention? Just by signing? What about accountability?
>
> Content of a FC is important, but here the formalities are even  
> more important.
>
> Best wishes
>
> wolfgang
>
>
> ________________________________
>
> Von: John Mathiason [mailto:jrmathia at maxwell.syr.edu]
> Gesendet: Mi 18.04.2007 15:39
> An: governance at lists.cpsr.org; DRAKE William
> Betreff: Re: [governance] .xxx. igc and igf
>
>
>
> Bill,
>
> Any Framework Convention on Internet Governance would have to cover
> all of the major policy areas that need some agreement in order to
> ensure the orderly development of the Internet and clearly would have
> to go beyond core resources, but the core resources would have to be
> dealt with as a key issue.  The scope of an FC would be subject to
> negotiation but, to anticipate one of the criteria to apply, should
> deal with issues where existing regimes overlap or conflict.
>
> Best,
>
> John
> On Apr 18, 2007, at 9:26, DRAKE William wrote:
>
>> Hi John,
>>
>> Great, look forward to it, it will be helpful to the discussion.
>> In the meanwhile, maybe you could help me and Mawaki out here and
>> indicate whether this would be intended to address just the
>> governance of core resources, or IG more generally?
>>
>> Cheers,
>>
>> Bill
>>
>> John Mathiason wrote:
>>> Bill,
>>> An interesting challenge, which deserves to be taken up.  There
>>> are  now enough ideas out there to try to put together a more
>>> complete  analysis of what a Framework Convention on Internet
>>> Governance might  look like.  In addition to the Climate Change
>>> Convention (UNFCCC), we  now have the WHO Tobacco convention
>>> (http://www.who.int/tobacco/ framework/en/) which is a framework
>>> convention in that it specifies  principles (tobacco is bad) and
>>> norms (public policy should address  demand) but leaves many of
>>> the details to further negotiation. Both  provide interesting
>>> precedents on which to draw.  It being the end-of- semester in the
>>> groves of academia, the revised paper may take a  couple of weeks,
>>> but we (IGP) will plan to have it ready before the  next IGF
>>> consultations on 23 May.
>>> Best,
>>> John
>>> On Apr 18, 2007, at 3:48, William Drake wrote:
>>>> Hi Mawaki,
>>>>
>>>> On 4/18/07 5:36 AM, "Mawaki Chango" <ki_chango at yahoo.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> First, I was bit confused when I read Bill's message below; it
>>>>> sounds as if an FC (or let call it an "international agrement"
>>>>> of some sort though "international" sounds more modern than
>>>>> postmoder ;)) was intended to take care of all things IG. To my
>>>>> understanding, this is intended to define and give a legal basis
>>>>> to the norms and rules, the mechanisms and processes, in sum,
>>>>> the legitimate authority to deal with relevant public policy
>>>>> issues pertaining to the others numerous issues of IG. And so
>>>>> far, there is no assumption on the nature or form of such
>>>>> authority, except that most of us seems to agree that it
>>>>> shouldn't be another intergovernmental kind of org. That could
>>>>> as well be a concentrated, scalable, multi-level structure where
>>>>> governments may get to make final decisions (again, only on
>>>>> public policy) but not without accepting external inputs
>>>>> (technical community, academia, CS, etc.)
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Your understanding seems a lot more narrowly focused than what
>>>> John  proposed
>>>> in his paper three years ago, which to my knowledge is IGP's
>>>> only  written
>>>> statement on the matter.  And that was just a four page concept
>>>> paper, more
>>>> of a teaser than an elaborated proposal.  Absent further
>>>> specification, it's
>>>> natural that people will differently imagine what it is intended
>>>> to  entail,
>>>> and differently react to the recurrent suggestion that it could
>>>> be The
>>>> Solution.  That's why I suggested yesterday to Milton that you
>>>> guys  take the
>>>> next step and spell it out.  Otherwise we'll just go around and
>>>> around
>>>> talking past each other.
>>>>
>>>> On your formulation, much of IG broadly defined already has
>>>> clear  legal
>>>> bases to its norms and rules, and it's not obvious how a FC
>>>> would  relate to
>>>> and further clarify the disparate bits of national and
>>>> international law
>>>> underlying the shared rule systems pertaining to IPR, e-commerce
>>>> and trade,
>>>> security, consumer protection, and so on.  I'm guessing that you
>>>> actually
>>>> mean IG as popularly defined pre-WSIS, i.e. just core resources,
>>>> and that
>>>> this is why you found my comment confusing.  There are legal
>>>> bases  there too
>>>> but to the extent they're unclear or problematic I guess the
>>>> idea  is to
>>>> change them.  Fine, but then maybe you should call it an FC on the
>>>> governance of core resources to avoid further misunderstanding.
>>>> And spell
>>>> out what it might look like so people have something concrete to
>>>> react to,
>>>> rather than trying to imagine what you all have in mind.
>>>>
>>>> Cheers,
>>>>
>>>> Bill
>>>>
>> ____________________________________________________________
>> 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
>
> ____________________________________________________________
> 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
>
>

____________________________________________________________
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