[governance] rights based approach to the Internet

[Michael Gurstein]

McTim,

The issue of a "Right to the Internet" is rather different from the means by
which one accesses the Internet i.e. whether through a paid service (your
local water board) or some other... 

What a "Right to the Internet" does is to establish that a public good is
understood to be realized through the Internet being made available to ALL
within the community.  

How it is delivered or how this availablilty is practically ensured (by the
State; by the private sector through incentives, regulation, Public Private
Partnerships; NGO's; or other) really doesn't matter. 

The State, as the representative and means for assurance of the realization
of the public good is the ultimate guarantor that that benefit is available
(that that Right is enforced).  Ultimately, in many jurisdictions Rights
such as these become elements of the law and enforceable through the court
system cf. human rights, gender rights etc.etc. and subject to tort.

The issue of owner, co-ownership, public regulation etc. is of course at the
heart of such issues as Net Neutrality.  In a "Rights" based regime the
Right of the State to support measures for the public good trump the rights
of private owners to dispose of their property as and how they wish.  This
at least at the theoretical level has little to do with how the Internet
"grows" etc.etc. 

MG 

-----Original Message-----
From: McTim [mailto:dogwallah at gmail.com] 
Sent: April 14, 2008 6:29 AM
To: governance at lists.cpsr.org
Subject: Re: [governance] rights based approach to the Internet

On Mon, Apr 14, 2008 at 2:43 PM, Parminder <parminder at itforchange.net>
wrote:

We can state it all we want, but that doesn't mean it is independent of the
marketplace.  I have a "right to water" (IIRC via the UN), but I still have
to pay the local water board for it.
>
> Yes. 'Right to the Internet' is the precise statement of the issue, 
> and we think it is worthy of a workshop discussion. However, my 
> assertion goes beyond access and right 'to' the Internet, where 
> Internet is considered as a given entity, not in itself subject to 
> social and political construction, and therefore to politics and 
> policy. I think the construction of what the Internet is, in all its 
> layers - logical, content, applications etc (and not only the 
> infrastructural layer which provided 'access' to this Internet) - 
> itself is as much an issue and space of rights as it is of market 
> based exchange, which is how it is at present pre-dominantly seen.
>
> Thus 'right to the Internet' should include certain rights to what is 
> 'on' the Internet, and also to own and co-construct the Internet (cf 
> co-constructivism in education). All this implies a very different 
> basis of IG regime than what we see today.

You are incorrect.  My ability to own and co-construct (as an
end-user/network operator/content producer/$ROLE) the Internet is EXACTLY
the IG "regime" that we have today.

I think that you don't really understand how the network grows, perhaps the
Diplo course will help you.

-- 
Cheers,

McTim
$ whois -h whois.afrinic.net mctim
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