[governance] Statement for Feb 13, version 2

[William Drake]

Hi,

On 2/10/07 8:46 PM, "McTim" <dogwallah at gmail.com> wrote:

>>> Moreover, we express our dissatisfaction for the very limited
>> representation of civil society in the first instance of the Advisory
>> Group, which amounted to five
>>> or less members over about forty.
>> 
>> Why "five or less"? From the CS IG Caucus 5 people were selected and I
>> know another person from Africa who is member of the Advisory Group and
>> who is from civil society. I suggest we say "about 6".

> How about 12??  I am sure we already had this discussion, and never
> decided how to decide how to count who was CS and who wasn't.  Or was
> that a parallel universe I visit?

We have indeed discussed this repeatedly and there's no need to reconstruct
again the historical meaning of the term, the way CS is commonly understood
in all other global policy spaces and institutionalized in UN and other
processes, or the stratagems that have led to it being rendered problematic
and mysterious here, unless the objective is simply to reignite old debates
and run out the clock on a caucus statement.  I would suggest a simple
solution: insert "coalition that came together during the WSIS process" in
the statement, i.e. "dissatisfaction [with] the very limited representation
of the civil society coalition that came together during the WSIS process."
That is after all what Vittorio is really referring to, and it factually
uncontestable that ISOC was not part of that coalition and generally
promoted positions that were at odds with those of both the caucus and the
larger WSIS CS assemblage, most notably on whether there should even be an
IGF.  With this modification we wouldn't have to get stuck navel gazing on
the social ontology of the half of McTim's 12 that come from entities that
weren't involved in the CS movement but which of course should be and are
well represented in the mAG.

More generally, it seems like we are teetering on the edge of the same abyss
we've fallen into repeatedly since the above and related fissures blossomed.
Throughout WSIS the IGC managed to formulate consensus statements and make
useful interventions, some of which arguably affected the process. But
unless I'm misremembering, post-WSIS we didn't manage to submit any written
inputs for the prior IGF consultations or for Athens.  We've repeatedly had
texts rushed together at the 11th hour which were then picked apart with
person x wanting change to provisions 1, 3, 5 and person y liking 1, 3, 5
but wanting change to 2, 4, etc until we just deadlocked.  Everyone can
quibble with parts of Vittorio's statement; there's certainly a number of
things I'd prefer be changed too, if we had time.  Since we don't, can we
maybe try to live with something that doesn't perfectly reflect each of our
first preferences and get something submitted?  It'd be helpful to the IGF's
planning for the caucus to raise some concerns, particularly if these are
not expressed by other inputs.  Maybe just clean up the English a little...?

Best,

Bill



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