[governance] Where are we with IGC workshops?

[Parminder]

Bill

 

I do not have your close knowledge of what happened in the US in those days,
but what I see from the documents that I can access I stand by my assertion.
Well, mine was surely a shorthand description of the thinking and background
which shaped the current IG regime, but I don think it is a caricature. And
I take the proof of the pudding from its taste, as we can feel, here and
now. Is it your case that the present IG dispensation is not essentially
ordered on regulation of commercial activities? In fact it is worse than
that. It is to a good extent an industry self regulation regime, which
doesn’t meet even the canons of a good commercial activity regulation
regime. 

 

>Hence, re: “Anyone would agree that the two kinds of areas of activity
require different governance and policy >approaches,” nope, not me, I think
the issue is >misconstructed.

 

What I meant to say here is that purely commercial activities, on one hand,
and a wider set of economic, social and political activities, on the other,
require different kinds of regulatory/ governance regimes. Do you say that
you don’t agree to this proposition? That’s all is what I meant when I said
‘anyone will agree (except diehard neolibs) 
.. 

 

>net was seen in the Clinton era.  The commercial GII stuff was part of a
broader understanding in the White House that >included the noncommercial
aspects, >e.g. tackling the global digital divide.


I have great problem with how ‘global digital divide’ issue was interpreted
by US, and probably form there taken to G-8’s meeting which gave birth to
DOT Force, and the Digital Opportunities Initiative and then through UNDP
and other donor systems was adopted as the dominant ICT4D theory and
practice in developing countries. These initiatives did some good in giving
initial impetus of ICT adoption in development, but we do trace the roots of
the present systemic failure of ICT4D theory and practice to these foreign
roots, and to the embedded commercial interests of developed country MNCs in
telecom and other IT areas. Don’t want to go into further elaboration, but
needed to mention that this too is line of thinking with some good basis and
support
.. So whether ‘tackling the global digital divide’ really, and
entirely, represented as you say ‘non-commercial aspects’  of the thinking
that shaped present IG (or ICT governance) regimes is greatly contestable.

 

In any case, if you really do not think that the present IG regime is
disproportionately oriented to (1) industry interests and/or (2) (to give a
more gracious interpretation) only to regulation of commercial activity,
and not sufficiently to social, political activities and possibilities
(which are increasingly a greater share of the Internet), and even much less
to developmental activities and possibilities, I fail to understand what is
the basis and significance of a development agenda addressed to the global
IG regime that you often propound. Dev Agenda (DA) in WTO arises from a
recognition of structural bias in the global trade regime towards the
interests of developing countries and its capital, that of WIPO comes from
similar grounds, and a bias towards IP (commercial) vis a vis access to
knowledge (social/ political/ developmental). What is the basis of a DA in
IG if not a structural imbalance/ distortion in the global IG regime. And if
so, what imbalance/ distortion do you identify, if you think my industry
interests/ commercial activity versus social-political/ developmental
dichotomy is as you say ‘false’?

 

>I don’t believe there is “a” regime for IG.  There are many regimes.  And
there is no international regime governing >access,

 

Unlike Michael, I am not talking only of the access regime. But I understand
your take on dev agenda also speaks of more than the access regime, right.
If not, ‘there being no one regime’ argument extends to dev agenda issue as
well. And if it does go beyond access regimes what are these – and what
‘problems’ and ‘issues’ with these regimes (and with access regime)  fire
your imagination of a dev agenda since you say my caricature of the
structural problem with these regimes is false. BTW, why don’t we do an IGC
workshop on ‘dev agenda in IG’, which I am sure you want to do, and think
APC also mentions in its recent substantive inputs as does Swiss gov, and
yes, ITfC also have some views on it. 

 

Parminder 

 

  _____  

From: William Drake [mailto:william.drake at graduateinstitute.ch] 
Sent: Sunday, April 13, 2008 4:02 PM
To: Singh, Parminder; Governance
Subject: Re: [governance] Where are we with IGC workshops?

 

Hi Parminder,

There are too many conversations going on simultaneously to spend much juice
on any one of them, but since you’re replying to me directly:

I don’t agree with your restrictive historical reading of how the net was
seen in the Clinton era.  The commercial GII stuff was part of a broader
understanding in the White House that included the noncommercial aspects,
e.g. tackling the global digital divide.  I knew the staff involved---Gore’s
people, the NEC, the OSTP, etc---and went to a number of meetings they
organized to build consensus across branches of government, business, and
CS, and can say with absolute certainty that you’re offering a caricature of
the thinking and efforts. The same multidimensionality was evident at the
domestic level and very much reflected in the enormous debates around the
NII initiative, the 1996 Telecom Act, and even the GEC initiative and ICANN
launch (seriously---Magaziner and company were explicit on this, it was part
of their reasoning for building something to keep names and numbers out of
the ITU).  And anyway how the WH framed things in certain contexts to
mobilize ITAA et al doesn’t define “how the net was seen”  in the US or
anywhere else, it was one element in a much larger set of debates.

I don’t believe there is “a” regime for IG.  There are many regimes.  And
there is no international regime governing access, a largely national (and
in Europe, regional) issue at present (we’ve been here before).  And per the
above, if there was such a regime, the notion that it’s purely commercial to
the exclusion of the referenced broader range is a false dichotomy.  Hence,
re: “Anyone would agree that the two kinds of areas of activity require
different governance and policy approaches,” nope, not me, I think the issue
is misconstructed.

Friendly disagreement, let’s agree to disagree rather than debating it ad
infinitum.  I would not support proposing an IGC ws on this unless the
problem to be addressed was clarified AND the ws you want on EC AND the
mandate ws AND the jurisdiction ws AND the “internationalization” ws and on
and on.  That said, if there’s lots of support for this from others besides
you, I fine, I’ll roll with whatever people can actually agree on. I would
again suggest that with two weeks left we try to agree a small set of
compelling, coherent and operationally doable proposals rather than have the
sort of wide-ranging, multiple discussions that made agreeing a few position
statements to the last consultation such a Homeric odyssey.   

Unless I am mistaken, we now have on the table:

*The nomcom thing, and if memory serves, nominations are due by today, and
we have one, Adam’s self-nomination.

*Enhanced cooperation and responding to Sha.

*Narrowing the range of workshop ideas to a consensually supported and
operationally viable set, getting groups organized around these, then
drafting texts and identifying potential speakers and cosponsors, vetting
through the list, then nailing them down.

*Any interventions IGC might want to make at the May consultation.

Suggest we need some structured processes here.

Cheers,

Bill



On 4/13/08 11:21 AM, "Parminder" <parminder at itforchange.net> wrote:

> >> 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
> 
 
Bill,  I am not completely happy with the present title but for
clarification on the content I refer you to the original email by Michael
Gurstein of 17th May, which I  quote.
 
“However, governments have not similarly acknowledged the public
responsibility attendant on that development which is to ensure some form of
broadly distributed universally accessible public Internet access. (Should
taxpayers be charged a second time for accessing public information
particularly when that second charge would (most generally) represent a tax
on those least able to pay?)”
 
“I would understand the significance of the above from an "Internet
Governance" perspective as reflecting a shift from concerns with Internet
Governance as developing the broad framework for the "governance" of a
privately delivered widely valuable but discretionary service to the
"governance" of a public good being delivered in the public interest with
the various "governance" implications that would flow from this.”
 
“Surely a significant role for CS in the area of Internet Governance
(understood as the Governance of the Internet) is to find ways of affirming,
supporting and reinforcing this latter perspective and working with
governments and others to determine the policy/programming approaches that
flow from this.”
 
(ends)
 
Michael argues from how the Internet service is seen, and the need to derive
from it the appropriate policy response, and indeed the appropriate policy
framework, for Internet, and IG. I will extend it further is an allied
direction – of not only seeing provision of Internet as one kind of service,
but seeing it as a basic infrastructure for some form, and sector, of
activity or the other, and the implications of it for the IG and Internet
policy frameworks. 
 
Internet was initially seen as a infrastructure of global commerce (ref.
documents on US’s idea of Global Information Infrastructure) and its
governance and policy structures and frameworks still conform to such an
view of the Internet. However, increasingly the Internet has become a key
infrastructure of a much greater range of social activities – including
governance, and political activity – but the nature and premises of its
governance remain the same. In fact much of the (a big section of) civil
society’s and ‘progressive groups’ opposition to the present regime of IG
arises from this structural issue, and not just from the issue of how
transparent, accountable etc ate these IG institutions vis a vis what they
undertake and profess to do. In fact, this structural problem with the
present IG regime versus the transparency/ accountability issue in the
manner these organizations function is at the base of differences within
civil society – including within IGC – on the attitude to these IG
institutions. Ok, I may be digressing  a bit, but this line of argument does
show the relevance and importance of the subject

 
So, what we want to discuss in this workshop is to analyze and debate how
Internet which started chiefly as a commercial space and infrastructure is
now the space and infrastructure of a much greater range of social activity,
and (perhaps) cannot continued to be governed as it were a space an
infrastructure of merely commercial and economic activity. Anyone would
agree that the two kinds of areas of activity require different governance
and policy approaches. (Though that may be a bit of an overstatement to say
‘anyone will agree’, because the neo-liberal assertion is that commercial
and economic logics, and by implication governance systems, are adequate for
all/ most sectors of social activity.) 
 
I think this question – or set of questions – is at the base of much IG
related contestation, and even if it appears a bit esoteric to some, I think
it is important to address and discuss. We would like to do so in this
workshop.
 
Parminder 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: William Drake [mailto:william.drake at graduateinstitute.ch]
<mailto:william.drake at graduateinstitute.ch%5d> 
> Sent: Saturday, April 12, 2008 1:33 PM
> To: Governance
> Subject: Re: [governance] Where are we with IGC workshops?
> 
> 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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***********************************************************
William J. Drake  
Director, Project on the Information
  Revolution and Global Governance/PSIO
Graduate Institute of International and
  Development Studies
Geneva, Switzerland
william.drake at graduateinstitute.ch
***********************************************************

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