AW: [governance] outcomes of CSTD Bureau meeting

[Jeanette Hofmann]

Ralf Bendrath wrote:
> Jeanette Hofmann wrote:
>> The longer New York waits with any announcement regarding the future of
>> the advisory group, the more contested its informal status will become.
> The MAG does not exist anymore, and it seems to tranform into an informal
> consultation process with no webcast nor scribes - at least that is the 
> status quo at the moment.
> 
>  From what you write, Jeanette, would you also subscribe to this?
> "The longer New York waits with any announcement regarding the future of
> the IGF organizing structure, the more contested Nitin's (and the SG's) 
> status will become."

Hi Ralf, certainly not. And I never meant to imply that in case there 
has been any misunderstanding.
What I realized only the last two days here in Geneva is how very 
fragile this whole process still is.
The entire preparatory process with several open consultations, an 
advisory group, Nitin's and Markus' reports to New York and various back 
and forth interactions cannot be taken for granted. There are several 
groups who would like to replace this very informal process by something 
more constitutionalized. Among them certainly some countries such as 
Russia and China and also some civil society people or groups.

On a principle level, I would always argue for a more formal, rule 
driven process. The reason would be that in the long run I think one 
should never solely rely on the personal integrity of the people 
involved. Nitin and Markus might not be around forever, and we will 
probably fully realize only afterwards how much this whole process owes 
to them. Rules may serve as a safety net against all kinds of 
undesirable behavior.

On a practical level, things look slightly different. A formalization of 
the process at this point implies the danger of killing it altogether. 
It is anyone's guess how small or large this danger is. My sense is that 
the forum and its preparatory process will eventually become more 
formalized. However, like the forum itself, this could happen as an 
experimental process where things can be tried out like, for example, 
new membership mechanism as Avri suggested. We need to keep in mind 
though that governments, international organizations, private sector and 
civil society governments all have different recruiting practices with 
various rationalities involved, and that it won't be easy to find some 
common ground here.
I would thus argue for a slow pace if possible to avoid dammaging this 
precious new process and to give it a chance to come with innovative 
solutions to old procedural problems (representation, legitimacy, 
transparency, accountability, etc, etc) that would find support among 
all the actors involved.
jeanette
> 
> Explanatory note: I talked to some government people this afternoon 
> while sneaking out of the IGF informal consultations and having a 
> coffee. They were a bit surprised - to say the least - that this 
> informal meeting was not announced as open. This will hit Nitin, not the 
> MAG. He said yesterday at the request of Russia:
> CHAIRMAN DESAI: I think the only reference so far to meetings was that a
> further consultation like this in September. I know there's nothing else 
> on my agenda between now and then.  So I'm not aware of anything else 
> between that and the September meeting.
> 
> Best, Ralf
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