[governance] Where are we with IGC workshops?

[William Drake]

Hi,

I still wonder about how four workshop proposals from one entity would be
received first in MAG (especially if space constraints + robust demand
compel them to turn some down) and then by the larger 'community' if
approved.  Plus, if IGC co-sponsors any of the events planned by individual
members/CSOs, the name would sort of be everywhere on the program.  But if
people, especially our MAGites, think it's not an issue, ok.

>From an operational standpoint, four is a lot to organize properly.  Just
the one was time consuming enough last year, given the demands of consensus
building on text formulations, line-up, etc, on list and off, not to mention
allaying fears outside CS that it would be too "controversial" etc.  I
suggest that opt-in subgroups be established now to formulate each of the
proposals, vet these back through the list by the end of next week latest,
and then reach out to potential speakers and co-sponsors (long lead times
normally needed, especially if we're asking governments).  Otherwise the two
weeks left before the deadline will pass quickly with us going around and
around debating across the four and we'll end up having to do another 11th
hour dash to finalize.

Few specific comments:

On 4/11/08 9:32 PM, "Michael Leibrandt" <michael_leibrandt at web.de> wrote:

> Le 11 avr. 08 à 16:58, Michael Leibrandt a écrit :
> 
>> 
>> 1- "Role and Mandate of IGF"
> ***Is it really worth the time - and attractive to potential listeners - to
> use the ws for ex post analysis? People want to know why it makes sense to
> contribute to the IGF process towards India and beyond. At least many
> government guys do. Anyway, past and future could be combined in the title as
> you suggested. 

Bahiameister, if you check the archives you'll see that we spent a lot of
time last year in the caucus and with other stakeholders we approached
having exactly the same discussion about whether it is good to talk about
"the past."  I think it was ultimately accepted that the mandate was not
agreed in the Neolithic period and that discussing it was not equivalent to
deconstructing cave drawings.  And in practice, the workshop discussion was
very much forward looking, with what was agreed the IGF should be doing now
as a starting point.  I think this was reflected in the ws report.  We have
a serviceable ws description now, it could be tweaked a little to make clear
the follow up will build on rather than repeat last year, but I wouldn't go
back and reinvent the wheel unless we just want to blow scarce time.
 
>> 2- "Critical Internet Resources"
>> 
>> Maybe we can openly say >Internationalization of Internet
>> Governance<?
> 
> Why not. A bit of a holdall, though, just like CIR.
> 
> ***Agree. Maybe colleagues have a better wording.

I agree this would be the right focus, value-adding and not really explored
since WGIG/WSIS.  Better than just "CIR" which it could be claimed has been
done etc.  One concern: I hate to sound like a poli sci weenie, but to at
least some folks, internationalization means inter-nationalization, that is,
an inter-sovereign state process.  Do we want to go there, open up a blast
from the past discussion with Russia, Iran, et al. about whether the term
means shared sovereignty and intergovernmentalism, or can we find a better
framing, something about global multistakeholder gov of CIR?

>> 3- "IG and global jurisdiction - political, legal, contractual,
>> technical and private means/instruments"
>> 
>> Is it really about >jurisdiction< at the global level, or more
>> about >decision making< processes in a wider sense?
> 
> For former messages on this, I understand it's actually about
> jurisdiction
> 
> ***Maybe I have a problem with the phrase >global jurisdiction< because I
> don`t see a one world government defending a global legal framework yet (and
> don`t want to have that, to be clear). WIPO ADR decisions on gTLD, for
> example, are actually not >jurisdiction<. The growing problem is, to my
> knowledge, that national/regional jurisdiction more and more have de facto
> extraterritorial effects.

Maybe I'm filtering through my own little prism, but I thought that the idea
was to look at the consequences of competing national claims of jurisdiction
and the extraterritorial extension of laws, regulations, court decisions,
etc., not just with respect to CIR (e.g. the US/Cuba business) but also
other aspects of IG as well---content issues from Yahoo to YouTube,
e-commerce, IPR, etc.  Raising concerns about the fragmenting impact of
unilaterally imposed governance doesn't necessarily point to a "global
jurisdiction" or "world government" solution. Encouraging the exercise of
restraint, consultation and coordination etc. would be more appealing; other
architectures are imaginable as well.  We might even be able to get industry
or "TC" co-sponsorship on this one, depending on how it's framed. If we form
subgroups to push forward proposals, I volunteer to be on this one.

>> 4- "Coexistence of commercial and non-profit spaces on the Internet -
>> implications for IG"

I'd like to hear more from proponents as to what exactly is the problem this
panel would address.  Are we saying that such spaces cannot coexist and
commercial spaces are somehow going to squeeze out non-profit ones (seems a
stretch) or just that some arenas of the commons are getting partially
walled off by IPR rules or what?

Thanks,

Bill



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