[governance] Re: IG questions that are not ICANN [was: Irony]

[Meryem Marzouki]

Le 12 déc. 07 à 23:34, Jeanette Hofmann a écrit :

> So, do I understand this correctly, some countries have decided to  
> go intergovernmental again for areas such as security stuff

Oh, shame on them.. Shame on these governments that are doing  
intergovernmental stuff.. Haven't they learnt any lesson from WSIS,  
WGIG and IGF?!

> and use the ITU as their preferred platform to coordinate with  
> other countries?

ITU is *the* intergovernmental platform to coordinate on most of  
these issues.

> Why would they choose the ITU instead of other standard setting  
> organizations such as the IETF?
> Because the ITU is now more predictable or more efficient regarding  
> outcomes?

Let me guess.. Because it's a UN intergovernmental Agency? Because  
ITU, as a UN intergovernmental Agency, can make binding decisions and  
adopt normative texts, with all governments having -- equally, at  
least in formal voting procedures -- their say?

> I get this idea that security is a topic I have neglected for too  
> long and now need to find a window into. Very difficult to  
> understand...

And we haven't even started discussing Intellectual property, content  
regulation, labor, consumer, trade, etc. issues, yet:)

On security, after ITU, I suggest one investigates, say, ICAO  
(International Civil Aviation Organization).. Very interesting, very  
intertwinning technical and political decisions, very binding, very  
UN intergovernmental Agency, very closed, elaborating standards and  
making decisions having very immediate consequences on each  
individual citizen: I assume you have a passport and maybe you need a  
visa to enter some countries, probably a biometric passport and a  
biometric visa with the biometric data on an RFID chip (if not yet,  
this will happen soon).
Guess who can set the world standards for machine-readable travel  
documents and now for biometric passports, who can decide which  
biometric identifier is the mandatory one, etc.?
Guess how, in general, governments decisions at national and regional  
levels and global intergovernmental decisions are mutually  
reinforcing each other?
Guess how, once a decision is made at global level, it impacts  
individual users at national level even beyond the subject of the  
decision itself: e.g. in this case, biometric ID cards are justified  
by the existence of biometric passports and other travel documents,  
and actually uses the same standards in view of rationalizing  
processes, limiting costs and centralizing control (for production of  
documents and for actual control of these documents, i.e. control of  
activities and movements, a.k.a. social control).

Oh, and BTW, ICAO is one of the UN Agencies identified as co- 
facilitator of one of the post-WSIS action lines, although this  
action line deals with another part of ICAO mandate (environmental  
protection). Actually, almost all UN Agencies and structures are  
involved except which one? The OHCHR (Office of the High Commissioner  
for Human Rights). Isn't this interesting?

It's by no mean about you personnally, Jeanette.

I'm upset because I'm staggered at such naïveté (or is it arrogance?)  
appearing sometimes on this list. From time to time, people seem to  
wear blinckers: they only see the small piece they're focusing on,  
ignoring all other issues, all other venues where these issues are  
discussed, all other people or group having been working on these  
issues for decades.
I'm not arguing that everyone and every group should deal with  
everything everywhere. But at least one should make the effort of  
getting a global though even rough idea of what's happening outside  
of one's small world, and use this knowledge to coordinate, to  
coalesce, to support other groups doing stuff one agrees on and be  
supported by them on one's own activities. One should also listen to  
others with whom s/he doesn't agree, not to try to find a  
"consensus", but to learn from them, and to fight their positions if  
needed.
In summary, one should try to get a global, holistic picture of  
what's going on, make his/her own views, and act according to his/her  
possibilities. Instead of wondering what's the topic of the day and  
to forum-shopping running after the hype.
Is that too demanding to people such as those on this list who seem  
to be able to travel everywhere, to attend so many meetings and  
conferences, and even sometimes to be in positions to act in various  
structures touching on Internet governance?

Meryem

> je
>
> Avri Doria wrote:
>> On 12 dec 2007, at 03.44, William Drake wrote:
>>> No, I was making an argument that governments and industry from  
>>> around the world that can and do take actions of consequence  
>>> plainly believe in the importance of and get involved in ITU,  
>>> which seems a parsimonious explanation of why they spend a great  
>>> deal of time and resources participating.
>> one small anecdotal data point i have.  The S. Korean ministry of  
>> information and tech in 2007 made a decision to focus its  
>> standards making investment on the ITU for the NGN convergence  
>> architecture/protocols, which caused the leading research  
>> institute to reassign everyone to IT work and to lay off  
>> contractors (that's me) who were working on any other standards  
>> activity.  anyone who has been to the ITU SG meetings lately wil  
>> have noticed this change of focus on their part (several have  
>> pointed it out to me).  to have  substantial indistrial player  
>> like S. Korea make suc a decsion is not a small thing, especially  
>> if you look at how intertwined their Industrial R&D is with Govt  
>> policy and research funding.
>> Yes, this is only a technical standards body in ITU-T and not one  
>> of the more policy oriented bodies.  But one accepts any part of  
>> the thesis that  technology and policy are tight coupled and that  
>> much of technology represents hardened policy, then this is a  
>> significant data point.  This can certainly be seen, one small  
>> example, in the way various technological choices could facilitate  
>> the ability  to set policies (in the sense of actions to be taken  
>> by a intermediate system entity) for actions to be taken upon deep  
>> data inspection of the traffi passing through a network.  Actions  
>> such as; drop, slow down, record ...
>> I would argue that since the WSIS defeat, ITU has been  
>> strategically picking its battles and cannot be safely counted as  
>> an insignificant force for the future. And would argue that the  
>> decisions made there, will have an effect on the nature on the  
>> Internet in the future.  So the more that people who care can  
>> participate in all phases of heir activities, the better.
>> I would also argue that we don't need a unified front position in  
>> CS o get involved.  It is enough the multivariate views of CS get  
>> expressed and get expressed effectively and often for them to  
>> affect the trade-offs made in the engineering/policy decisions on  
>> a decision by decision basis.  Sure if there is a unified position  
>> CS an be stronger, but we don't need to wait for that golden day.
>> a.
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