[governance] Proposal for the 23rd May IGF consultationand advisory group meeting please

William Drake drake at hei.unige.ch
Fri Apr 27 02:33:54 EDT 2007


Hi Parminder,

On 4/26/07 6:56 PM, "Parminder" <parminder at itforchange.net> wrote:

>> Sorry, I'm still not following.  On what specific issues & institutions
>> within that more general space are these pressing and unresolved
>> questions people should fly to Rio to address: "do we need it, who does
>> it and what is it"?
> 
> Bill, I have discussed in an earlier email that we need to take a position
> somewhere in between 'access and openness' kind of issues, and asking for a
> plenary exclusively on too narrow a topic/position like 'enhanced
> cooperation' (is this, or such, your intention?). I have also mentioned
> that, in my view, this may not be the stage for giving fully fleshed out
> plenary proposals (there is no call for it) but to propose generally the
> themes we may want to be taken up. In this session we can and should of
> course discuss EC among other things. Details can be worked out later.

Given the variety and length of conversations here in recent weeks, I don't
think you can realistically expect anyone to remember everything you said at
some point along the way, particularly if it was pretty broadly framed. If
however you proposed concrete language on something, that I'd save and look
back at.  I've said several times I this is very broad, I don't know what
you have in mind, please clarify, and as that hasn't happened you cannot
expect that people with very diverse opinions are going to all agree that
yes, the caucus should say we want a plenary on a topic that's framed like a
cloud.

You asked yesterday for more precise language on the mandate question, so I
gave you a few sentences.  Milton's provided a few sentences on the access
of disadvantaged people/groups.  I'm simply asking you to do the same for
global public policy so people would know what we'd be proposing.  I don't
understand the resistance to doing so and how you expect to move the process
absent this, and a long back and forth on whether it'd be useful to say what
we mean is not a good use of anyone's time.
 
>> I also don't understand the formulation, "EC, FC and all such concepts;"
>> "such" implies equivalence, but these seem like apples and oranges to
>> me.  And the apples would presumably be on the table in a session about
>> ICANN, whereas the oranges are nowhere near being ripe and ready for
>> mass consumption in a plenary.
> 
> When I speak of EC, FC and all such concepts' I mean various approaches that
> have been spoken of to address the issue of global public policy (substance
> and process) in IG arena. I am not sure I understand your apples and oranges
> logic completely... but as I understand, the oranges logic is that EC is
> only about public policy related to ICANN, but Tunis agenda doesn't seem to
> suggest this (p 69 TA). Neither did I get this impression from majority of
> discussions on this list....

I'm familiar with the TA, and am asking you to say what beyond names and
numbers you would see as the global public policy issues/institutions on
which the international community needs to discuss " do we need it, who does
it and what is it," presumably because these questions are unresolved.  In
reality, in a great many cases, they are not unresolved, they're known, so I
can't imagine the mAG being enticed.  Again, if you can't identify what's in
the set beyond names and numbers, people won't buy that it's worth doing,
and if there's nothing and you're primarily thinking names and numbers, then
I'd fold it in with your ICANN topic.
 
> And your oranges logic is even more difficult to understand. You seem to say
> that there aren't any significant Internet related (non ICANN) public policy
> issues at the global level, or at least not ripe enough to be discussed. We

No, I'm saying that a FC is not a ripe concept that people will agree to
discuss.  Of course there are issues, but the number of people who think
that it necessarily follows that we need to start with a FC, which as
described thus far sounds qualitatively different from EC, seems rather
small.

> spent a lot of time at WSIS to get such public policy issue recognized and
> for the documents to make note of at least some space/ process for
> addressing these issues (for instance p 61). Why are we now shy to speak of
> them?? As I said, I am not able to get a good grip on your position.

My position is please be clear, full stop.  Please don't misread anything
else into it beyond that.
 
> In any case, to pose a direct question, since at this stage we are more
> interested in developing a common IG position - Do you NOT want a plenary on
> IG related public policy issues/ mechanisms at IGF 2?

If I know what it's about and it sounds important and worth doing, of
course.  I suspect others would like to know this first, too.

Best,

BD 


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