[governance] communicating with our peers

[Parminder]

Thanks for all the responses.

Just two points.

I never spoke of any conspiracy. I am discussing how CS MAG members can
report back better. 

Second, I don’t think China and Russia will even themselves ever be found
claiming great love for CS participation and too much openness. So, I don’t
think you all need to argue too much to convince anyone on that count. I was
making a factual point. And China did ask for making MAG meeting open to
observers. That’s all. Now whether they did it so that it can kill MAG/ IGF
is something of a long shot theory, but I have no comments to offer to that.

And if your Feb 07 proposal for more openness and transparency was made as a
part of open consultations, a transcript if which was available to me to
see, I apologize that I said I know of no efforts from CS MAG members
(though you are not strictly that as a special advisor to the chair)towards
greater opening up of MAG deliberations. 

Parminder 

-----Original Message-----
From: Kleinwächter, Wolfgang
[mailto:wolfgang.kleinwaechter at medienkomm.uni-halle.de] 
Sent: Thursday, February 07, 2008 6:37 PM
To: governance at lists.cpsr.org; Jeanette Hofmann; governance at lists.cpsr.org;
Parminder
Cc: Adam Peake
Subject: AW: [governance] communicating with our peers

Dear list,
 
Jeanette is right. There is no conspiracy or a dislinkage from MAG members
and its constituencies. 
 
I also argued during the IGF consultations in Febeurary 2007 in Geneva in
favour of more openess and transparency. My proposal was to allow "silent
onlookers" as we had in some sessions of WGIG. Under such a regime only
members would have a right to talk in the discussion, but non-members can
always individually talk to members so that their position can be
transported directly to the debate. This allows to work in a smaller group.
Otherwise you blockade any progress. There will be no free and creative
discussions within groups of more than 100 members. This is a practical and
not a political question. Human wisdom tells this. One condition for such a
regime would have been also that the silent onlookers should follow the
Chatham House rules. In WGIG this worked. After the second meeting to number
of "silent onlookers" went down but more trust was created. 
 
A majority of MAG members (mainly from governments) rejected my proposal in
February. However as far as I remember, it was the CS reps in the MAG who
supported it and agreed finally under the conditions that the issue should
come back at an appropriate time. So again, no conspiracy. 
  
This is the CS position under the At Large label in ICANN since 1999 when
CS/ALM people critisized the closed sessions of the GAC and under WSIS since
PrepCom I. In Geneva in June 2002 - after the opening ceremony of WSIS I -
CS (and PS) people were removed from the conference hall in the GICC and
chaos emerged with people knocking loudly on the closed doors while the
security was blocking access and governmental representatives were starting
a discussion among themselves behind closed doors. It was a big step from
Geneva 2002 to the Geneva 2008 (from turmoils to trust, from input to
impact). This is an evaluation with some ups and downs, but the directions
is clear. And its an innovation in global diplomacy not welcomed by many
governments. 
 
To be frank neither China nor Russia had been on the forefront fighting for
transparency and openeess (as Jeanette remembers correctly). The Russia
delegate asked in the closed May 2007 consultations, why all these
non-governmental people are sitting here in the room and where they are
coming from. He was a newbie and talked about his excellent experiences in
the ITU. I was a special target of his intervention because I asked the
Russian delegate whether he wants to bring IG under a telecommunication
oversight regime as excersiced by the ITU or whether he supports the
end-to-end principle, bottom up policy development processes and
multistakhoderism for IG. 
 
One cirtical point of the debate is obviously that MAG CS members should
report back more regularily (within the Chatham House rules). But there was
only litle to report in 2007 (a renewal of the mandate came only in August
2007) and since Rio there was a lot of silence. 
 
But thanks for the discussion. CS members should taske this seriously and
report back as much as possible. It is good to see, that the list becomes
active again as it was during the WSIS time. 
 
Wolfgang

________________________________

Von: Jeanette Hofmann [mailto:jeanette at wzb.eu]
Gesendet: Do 07.02.2008 13:32
An: governance at lists.cpsr.org; Parminder
Cc: Adam Peake
Betreff: Re: [governance] communicating with our peers






> In continuation of the email on CS activity inside MAG, what worries me is
> that this has happened without any significant (or any at all) role of the
> CS members in the MAG. At least I do not know of it, and will be very
happy
> to be proved wrong.
>
> It has happened almost entirely due to UN SG's instructions. And we are so
> keen on calling UN names and celebrating the virtues of CS. Why weren't
the
> CS group so keen active and aggressive in pushing for this change. In
fact,
> I remember during September face to face consultations China, yes, China,
> wanted these meetings to be open to observers.  And CS doesn't seem to
have
> any views on it. In fact I sometime hear views more in favor of what would
> amount to less transparency.

Comparing civil society and Chinese positions in the MAG beats really
everything!
A few governments did indeed opt for a complete opening of the MAG. My
comment (if I still count as civil society in your eyes) on this
proposal was that a complete blurring of the MAG with its environment
can be regarded as an elegant way of killing it altogether. It is not by
accident that MAG members like China who are most opposed to the idea of
a multi-stakeholder group were also the ones most eager to open it up
without any reservation. If I remember correctly, Russia took the same
stance as China in that meeting.

What China and Russia both saw is that transparency and openness involve
trade-offs. It can enhance the legitimacy of an organization but it can
also render it dysfunctional. Such decisions need care. And I think its
good if the cs members in the MAG use their individual brains instead of
simply operating on the assumption that only a request for a maximum of
openness and transparency is compatible with an uncompromising civil
society position.
jeanette
>
> Parminder
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Jeremy Malcolm [mailto:Jeremy at Malcolm.id.au]
> Sent: Thursday, February 07, 2008 7:01 AM
> To: governance at lists.cpsr.org
> Subject: Re: [governance] communicating with our peers
>
> This has just appeared on the IGF's front page (unless it was there 
> before and I missed it):
>
> "Digests of the discussion held within the Advisory Group are 
> available on the Forum Section on a regular basis."  I like it how 
> this is stated as if it had always been the case, whereas in fact it 
> is now 2008 and the Advisory Group was established in 2006.
>
> Anyway, the upshot is that the selection of comments on rotation that 
> were posted last month are intended as the first of a series.  This is 
> good, except for the fact that  most of the critical decisions on the 
> IGF's structure and processes have already been made, and will be much 
> more difficult to change now than if we had had a window into the 
> MAG's veiled world two years ago.
>
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