[governance] Muti-stakeholder Group structure (some ideas)

[Parminder]

Lee

Think, you addressed your email below to me by mistake. I didn't post the
IGF emails, Guru did :) 

Well, I, like Guru, have had access to these emails for a few days now,
since they have been discussed in some e-groups.  But I wasn't sure what to
do with them because I know there are people who hurry to a 'conspiracy
against ICANN' kind of alarm very easily (even when other disclosures of
official docs like the Condeleezza Rice's letter to European governments on
WSIS stand vis a vis IG are considered important in public interest. See
http://i-policy.typepad.com/informationpolicy/2005/12/read_the_letter.html
). And as IGC co-coordinator even informal rules of closed interactions
seemed more important than they need to against imperatives of public
interest disclosures, which in the present case I think are overwhelming...

Looks like Guru thought it necessary to come in, in reference to 'ICANN
threats' in Willie's and Bill's emails and share these mails in this list.

Parminder 

________________________________________________
Parminder Jeet Singh
IT for Change, Bangalore
Bridging Development Realities and Technological Possibilities 
Tel: (+91-80) 2665 4134, 2653 6890
Fax: (+91-80) 4146 1055
www.ITforChange.net 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Lee McKnight [mailto:LMcKnigh at syr.edu]
> Sent: Friday, June 08, 2007 7:55 AM
> To: guru at itforchange.net; governance at lists.cpsr.org
> Subject: RE: [governance] Muti-stakeholder Group structure (some ideas)
> 
> Parminder,
> 
> I read this the opposite way, actually: it's a good sign if people are
> making real or implicit threats about what the IGF may or may not do, it
> means it matters to them. Not bad for a 1 year old!
> 
> And yeah in politics it all comes down to budgets, so discussing that
> isn;t brazen, it's basic.  Marcus is using this to say to others: 'how
> about coming up with $$ for IGF too if you disagree?" which is just what
> he should do.
> 
> Lee
> 
> Prof. Lee W. McKnight
> School of Information Studies
> Syracuse University
> +1-315-443-6891office
> +1-315-278-4392 mobile
> 
> >>> guru at itforchange.net 6/7/2007 12:05 PM >>>
> Excerpt from BD mail below -
> "I didn't hear this threat at the meeting.  What are you referring to?
> My
> sense was that the ICANN crowd understood that there was no way this
> could
> be kept off the agenda in the face of so much demand."
> 
> I thought this 'threat' was fairly well known ... See the attached mail
> from
> a MAG member suggesting that  ".... There is a grave danger that
> financial
> support and general involvement of non government participants will be
> withdrawn...."
> 
> This mail has been circulating in some elists that I am a member of,
> and I
> thought it a matter of great interest for the IGC ...
> 
> Though the mail is  part of MAG's processes, by sending a formal
> communication, quoting outputs from a meeting of some MAG members, to
> Nitin
> Desai and Martin Kummer (to which Kummer gave a fitting response, also
> attached) qualifies for putting it in the public domain. I think that
> this
> serves the best interests of accountability, transparency and people's
> right
> to know.
> 
> I feel sad that the mere act of broadening the discussions to include
> the
> agenda proposals of other stakeholders is resulting in such threats.
> The
> traditional' powers that be' apparently don't want democratisation of
> the IG
> space. Such a brazen use of the lever of financial support to
> influence
> substantive agenda of a global public policy body is a matter of grave
> concern, on which I hope IGC will take some position.
> 
> If these mails or their contents are not factually true, I would stand
> corrected, would be glad to get a confirmation/rebuttal on this count.
> 
> 
> Regards,
> Guru
> 
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: William Drake [mailto:drake at hei.unige.ch]
> Sent: Friday, June 01, 2007 1:59 PM
> To: Governance
> Subject: Re: [governance] Muti-stakeholder Group structure (some
> ideas)
> 
> Hi,
> 
> A couple of points on Willie's "Gramsci does IG" post...
> 
> On 6/1/07 12:50 AM, "wcurrie at apc.org" <wcurrie at apc.org> wrote:
> 
> > I wonder in reading the discussion how the notion of 'hegemony' might
> 
> > come into play here. The response to the counter-hegemonic thrust of
> 
> > civil society activism in WGIG, in the WSIS was to win a position
> that
> > no single government should have pre-eminence in IG. This conclusion
> 
> > was accompanied by four
> 
> FWIW, while there are bits that can be attributed to CS, most notably
> the
> forum, I would attribute that 'win' to the G77 and EU.  We echoed but
> were
> not the main voice.
> 
> Snip
> 
> > consultations in Geneva. It appears that critical internet resources
> 
> > will be accepted as a theme for discussion in Rio. A veiled threat of
> 
> > the withdrawl of funding for the IGF is made from the ranks of the
> > hegemonic bloc. (I should point out that I am using the notion of
> > hegemonic bloc as a descriptive term to indicate where power lies in
> 
> > the arena of internet governance and not in any pejorative way - as a
> 
> > simple statement of fact, if you will)  A number
> 
> I didn't hear this threat at the meeting.  What are you referring to?
> My
> sense was that the ICANN crowd understood that there was no way this
> could
> be kept off the agenda in the face of so much demand.
> 
> > of questions arise from this scenario:
> 
> 1. why don't the developing countries
> > arguing for critical internet resources put their money where there
> > mouth is and put some real financial resources into the IGF
> > secretariat so it can get the job done properly and see off the
> threat
> > of withdrawal of funds from the
> 
> This has been a big problem from the start.  IGF is a classic unfunded
> mandate.  Governments voted to create it and then looked at their shoes
> when
> the bowl was passed around.  I suppose the host countries have
> excuses,
> they'll be laying out cash to hold the meetings, but if more of the
> others
> had each given even a pittance, in the aggregate the secretariat would
> not
> be operating on a shoe string and looking for love in what some here
> regard
> as the all the wrong places.   With only the Swiss, Dutch and
> Norwegians
> ponying up, the significance of the contributions from ICANN and other
> technical and administrative orgs is naturally amplified.  Then the
> governments that didn't pay complain about that.   Frankly, if
> contributions
> were to reflect service rendered, it's the US that should have been
> paying.
> Without the IGF, the headline from Tunis would have been, "UN summit
> breaks
> down in acrimony over US control."  Instead the US got to declare that
> everything's great, we love the IGF, and then walk away.
> 
> > hegemonic bloc.
> 
> 2. Why do the developing countries taking up the issue of
> > critical internet resources have such a poor sense of strategy that
> > their interventions simply amount to waving a red flag at a bull.
> They
> > don't spell out what particular aspect of critical internet resources
> 
> > they wish to address and there are quite a few to choose from such as
> 
> > the whois debate. As a result the hegemonic bloc correctly reads
> their
> > proposal as yet another attempt to get control of ICANN and acts
> > accordingly to neutralise it. Subtlety and
> 
> Snip
> 
> Strongly agree that the developing country strategy, at least as it's
> been
> expressed publicly (not quite unanimously), has sounded too backward
> looking.  Revisiting "oversight" will not get us anywhere.  At the
> same
> time, the forward looking items IGC has raised, like the growing role
> of the
> GAC, are presumably not their main bones of contention.  I'd think a
> better
> option would be to support a Development Agenda focus that looks at how
> the
> respective bodies (emphatically, not just ICANN) do or don't promote
> development substantively and procedurally, but then I'm biased.
> 
> > some sort of outcome that could be contained in a 'message'?
> 
> I propose we
> > adopt Bertrand's proposal and write a letter to the UN SG outlining
> it
> > cc to the IGF secretariat. Then we should  move on to consider the
> > substantive
> 
> I'm not comfortable yet with the fourth stakeholder category, think
> this
> merits more discussion.  While in principle I agree with John that IGO
> secretariats often have a measure of relative autonomy from state
> interests
> (consider the ITU's positions on IG under Utsumi, in the face of
> strong
> opposition from the US---Toure appears to have U-turned), in practice
> the
> reality in orgs relevant to IG is more variable.  For example, the
> WTO,
> WIPO, OECD and others almost invariably support the US agenda, or else
> whatever compromises between the US and EU may be needed.  Moreover,
> which
> IGOs exactly would be considered the relative polity to be represented,
> and
> are their roles/stakes comparable to other orgs from the
> technical/admin
> environment?
> 
> > issues and how we might engage with Brazil (and probably South Africa
> 
> > and
> > India) about the shortcomings of their strategy and the need to
> > distance IGF Rio from Iran's proxy war with the US, with  Canada and
> 
> > perhaps other OECD countries as potential allies and with the IGF
> > secretariat about issues of substance. We could write formal letters
> 
> > to the governments we think we should engage. We could propose that
> > Brazil appoint a civil society liasion for the Rio iGF  asap. And we
> 
> > should communicate formally with BASIS on these issues includng
> > Bertrand's proposal.. A communication with ICANN may also be
> > worthwhile on the issue of how to address the critical internet
> resource
> issue in a reasonable manner.
> 
> There is only a month to get this together and given
> > how long the IGC takes to get consensus, there is no time to waste.
> 
> Willie
> 
> > Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile
> 
> Yeses to the above, with the caveat that all this would require a level
> of a
> higher level of consensus and speed than we've managed in a long while.
>  But
> as Gramsci said, pessimism of the mind, optimism of the will.  Of
> course, he
> was in prison when he wrote this..
> 
> Cheers,
> 
> BD
> 
> 
> 
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