[governance] Rights in IG research

[Jeffrey A. Williams]

Milton and all,

  Horrors indeed!  You make a very good argument that collective
rights are more policy objectives than they are or include any actual
"Right" in a "Real" sense.  Individual Rights as they apply to the
Internet, are much more important, and as you I believe rightly assert,
are "Rights" that are far more "Real" and therefore effective as well
as enforcable on a global scale.  Still, such a endevor is a steep hill
to climb.

Milton L Mueller wrote:

> These responses are somewhat perfunctory, but no time for much
> more....
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Parminder [mailto:parminder at itforchange.net]
> >Lets go in two steps to reach right to development (a collective
> >right) from the 'negative rights' you subscribe to, through the
> > category of 'positive
>
> First, I don't believe in "collective rights" and it is not difficult
> to prove logically that collective rights are incompatible with the
> notion of equal rights. It takes you back to the pre-modern notion of
> castes, estates, or classes, each with different privileges and
> claims. And of course, these collective claims, being unique to each
> group, must always clash against each other and lead to irreconcilable
> social conflict. People are part of dozens and perhaps hundreds of
> different groups and collectivities. All of them can organize to place
> demands on the state. Those are not rights, that's just politics and
> policy. What society needs to maintain justice are clear, common,
> equal rights assigned to individuals. That preserves and protects
> their ability to form and participate in collectivities as they
> please, and prevents one group from dominating or abusing another.
>
> I think it was Cees Hamelinck who once said that you couldn't possibly
> protect religious minorities without some notion of collective rights.
> To me an obviously false assertion; we have protected religious and
> cultural minorities for centuries by assuring individuals freedom of
> association, freedom of expression and religion, all individual rights
> unrelated to a collectivity. Historically the notion of collective
> rights is as likely to be used to justify ethnic cleansing, social
> dominance of one group over another and even genocide as it is to
> protect minorities. Only way to avoid that is to appeal to a higher
> level, liberal notion of the individual rights of the people within
> the groups.
>
> >First, tell me if you think 'right to education' as mention in the
> >UDHR, and as applied in many developed countries justifying
> imprisonment of
> >parents etc is considered by you as a (real) 'right' or not.
>
> A right to education is at least meaningful, but it is obviously an
> individual right. Or do you believe that one's right to education
> varies with one's race, culture, etc? While that might be more
> consistent with your collectivist bent, you can see where it would
> lead and the risk of abuse it creates. Aside from that, as Tapani
> pointed out these positive "rights" are contingent upon the ability
> and willingness of other people to provide the necessary resources,
> labor etc. "Moral assertions" as you put it, don't generate the
> resources necessary to deliver the goods. So while I believe that
> universal education is a Good Thing, and even that wealth
> redistribution is often justified to achieve it, I would not put
> education in the same category as the more basic "negative" rights.
> Note also that such positive rights require the state to define what
> is "education" and often (though not necessarily) to monopolize its
> delivery and crush minority religions and cultures in the process. But
> never mind that, you've made a moral assertion, so nothing immoral
> could ever come of it, eh?
>
> >collective right - collective cultural rights - which all countries
> (not
> >only developing ones) other than the US have agreed to, most recently
> in
>
> I think so-called collective cultural rights are about 80% cultural
> and economic protectionism, and about 20% a legitimate attempt to
> carve out a role for publicly funded culture, which I don't view as
> being all that threatening, or threatened.
>
> > Right to
> >development (among a few other things) is a moral assertion - seeking
>
> >insituional/legal applications - that default global institutional
> systems
> >(as use of FoE for cultural domination, in above case) that are
> deemed
> >neutral and good for all are often a form of (neo-imperialist?)
> domination
> >and that that developing countries have a right to challenge such
> >domination.
>
> No offense, but that sentence is too ungrammatical to respond to. But
> if I understand it, I would simply reply that you can challenge
> political domination without asserting a fictitious RTD -- and did you
> know that people have actually done it for centuries?
>
> > If you read the Right to development document you will find
> >references to a 'new economic order' a couple of time. (a
> non-hegemonisitc
> >'new Internet order' may be similarly demanded.)
>
> I don't need to read that document, I've read all the NWICO documents
> and am familiar with the "New Economic Order," The New World
> Information Order," and the "New World Information and Communication
> Order." and all the related aging 1970s-vintage ideology.
>
> "New Internet Order," eh? Wow, what an original idea! I hope you are
> impressed with what, after 30-40 years, those "new economic orders"
> produced.
>
> >The framework of RTD underpins efforts in global polity on
> development
> >agendas in WTO, WIPO, NWICO, and why not, claims of perhaps a 'new
> Internet
> >order'.
>
> In the WTO, as we discussed before, the assertion of RTD has no
> connection to the legitimate attempt of developing countries to resist
> American and European efforts to open markets they can compete in
> (like IPR) and keep closed agriculture and immigration, where they
> were not competitive. Nor do you need it to bargain for better terms
> of trade.
>
> The WIPO development agenda has made accomplishments but I see no
> connection whatsoever between a RTD and those accomplishments. One
> does not have to assert a "right" to development to claim that royalty
> collection for MNCs should not be the only priority for WIPO. In other
> words, development is an objective, a goal of policy. When other
> claims or goals conflict with development, it is perfectly legitimate
> to assert development as a higher value. We can agree on that. No need
> to misdefine it as a human right. Development as policy objective
> involves a careful attempt to find policies that actually lead to
> development. (And once you do that you might actually discover that
> less state and more market is in needed in many situations. Horrors!)
>
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