SV: AW: [governance] .xxx. igc and igf
Kicki Nordström
kicki.nordstrom at srfriks.org
Wed Apr 18 15:07:33 EDT 2007
Dear John,
This is also my understanding! I wonder, after having read so many different opinions and also some irony and personal attacks to different experiences, that I think this is more of a need for a learning process about the UN system and how to relate to the global influence outside the UN body, both from NGO's and the private sector!
Yours
Kicki
Kicki Nordström
Synskadades Riksförbund (SRF)
World Blind Union (WBU)
122 88 Enskede
Sweden
Tel: +46 (0)8 399 000
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E-mail: kicki.nordstrom at srfriks.org
kicki.nordstrom at telia.com (private)
-----Ursprungligt meddelande-----
Från: John Mathiason [mailto:jrmathia at maxwell.syr.edu]
Skickat: den 18 april 2007 16:33
Till: "Kleinwächter, Wolfgang"
Kopia: governance at lists.cpsr.org; DRAKE William
Ämne: Re: AW: [governance] .xxx. igc and igf
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
>>>>
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