[governance] Reconstituting MAG

[Parminder]

> I think this might backfire in re; getting the kind of CS folk that
> you (and some others on the list) seek.  To get adequate
> representation on the MAG for the technical community, most of those
> "slots" would need to come from CS side, so at a minimum, I would say
> that we (as CS seeking expertise) would want;
> 
> 1 ICANN staff (currently T. Swinehart)
> 1 ISOC staff (representing users) (currently Matt Shears)
> 1 (non-profit) gTLD person (.org?, no rep as of now IIRC)
> 1 (non-profit) ccTLD person (currently Emily Taylor/Chris Disspain)
> 1 NRO/numbering community person (currently AA)
> 1 IETF person (IETF) (currently Pat Fältström)
> 1 W3C person (currently Daniel Dardailler)
> 
> This would give adequate "clue", but take up about half of the CS
> "slots", leaving 6 or 7 (if divided equally) for academics and other
> NGOs working in this space.  Is that enough for the "human rights,
> ICT4D, intellectual property, international trade and global
> electronic commerce, access to knowledge, and security" (quote from
> our charter).

McTim

Thanks for responding.

I will discuss the main issue of tech community representation first, and
respond to others a little later. 

Your analysis of the possible practical consequences of a simple 3 way
division of members for CS membership is quite logical.  I quite understand
that most of these IG institutions will need to be represented in the MAG
for it to do any meaningful work. I am willing to consider a separate
category of 6-7 'institutional members' (representing existing IG
institutions) in the MAG, and the rest of the numbers equally divided among
three stakeholder groups (gov, CS, business sector). I seek your and other
members response to this proposal.

In this case one will know that each member clearly represents a particular
institution (and, if it makes any sense, they collectively represent the
interests of the extant IG establishment). These institutions surely have
legitimate interests and the right to represent them. 

The problem is of mixing of these interests with those represented by CS. CS
by definition represents non-institutional interests(non-gov, non-market,
and if now we have add another category, non- existing IG bodies). That’s
the meaning of CS. 

With technical community I understand a community of people with high degree
of technical expertise. But this expertise can be used to further X
company's interests of propertisizing as much of the global ICT
infrastructure as possible, as much as for Y country's censorship and
surveillance system. Association with these activities will not make them
any less 'technical' or take away their membership of 'technical community',
or will it.  

And there are those technical community members who spend a lot of time and
resources to uphold public interest values, which makes them worthy civil
society members/ leaders. 

But when I said every group should bring in adequate technical expertise in
their nominations for MAG, I wasn’t looking for all the kinds of expertise
represented in the above list you have given. Many of these have no
technical expertise at all. 

In this list many of those passing off as 'technical community members' have
had nothing to do with technology. Theresa Swineheart representing ICANN is
a lawyer ( a law graduate at least) and so is the new ICANN chair (with a
long background of representing the IPR constituency), and I am sure many
others in the above list may not be technical persons. 

So, what really is the definition of this technical community - on what
criteria do you exclude someone who may be an outstandingly capable
technical expert leading a country's surveillance activity, and include
lawyers in this category.

We all recognize and greatly respect all the work, sacrifices etc done by
great technical persons in making the Internet into what it is, and perhaps
in keeping it so. These are the people who stood by public interest values
and did not allow themselves to be supplanted to narrow insituional
interests. And as I said they must rate as CS leaders. Our problem is that
the 'term 'technical community' is deliberated employed in confusing ways to
use the cover of legitimacy of the great work done by these persons for
narrow sectional interests. And yes, often times, technical experts
themselves feel the pangs of 'power' going out of their hands as Internet
becomes something requiring great social and political attention, and
contribute to this continued obfuscation of the meaning of the term
'technical community'. 

So, lets get our definitions right, and then we can argue about what to do
with which group. In light of above, can you tell me what you mean by
'technical community'.

If it means technical experts who want to work for upholding public interest
values, they are simply civil society members, with special knowledge of the
subject, and therefore deserving special attention from all of us. 

It is means any person who have a high degree of technical expertise, I am
not willing to give someone working on entrenching an x company's monopoly
on the Internet any special political representation, on account of his tech
competency, on any public policy body.

If the term means representatives of exiting IG institutions, yes, these can
together be given 6-7 positions on the MAG. I am open to that. We will then
know exactly what and whom do they represent.

Parminder 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: McTim [mailto:dogwallah at gmail.com]
> Sent: Tuesday, February 12, 2008 10:23 AM
> To: governance at lists.cpsr.org; Parminder
> Subject: Re: [governance] Reconstituting MAG
> 
> hi,
> 
> kudos for the draft.  Comments inline:
> 
> On Feb 11, 2008 8:53 AM, Parminder <parminder at itforchange.net> wrote:
> On Feb 11, 2008 8:53 AM, Parminder <parminder at itforchange.net> wrote:
> >
> >
> >
> > We appreciate the transparency measures

..  (here we can mention our
> > appreciation for the new measures, as well as our suggestions how best
> to
> > take them forward, which are being discussed in  a separate thread.)
> 
> fine
> 
> >
> >
> >
> > On the issue of the renewal of MAG we have the following points to make.
> >
> >
> >
> > -         First of all we urge the secretariat to use the full name
> 'MAG',
> > instead of AG, at least in the official documents. There is a lot in a
> name,
> > and the multistakeholder part is the most important characteristic of
> this
> > body.
> >
> >
> 
> ok
> 
> >
> > -         The number of MAG members should be around 40, and one third
> of
> > them should be rotated every year.
> >
> 
> I think it is an unwieldy number.  I would prefer 20, but could
> stretch to 30 (still too big imho). I understand that it will be
> unlikely to move off 40 tho.
> 
> >
> >
> > -         Its membership should be divided equally between governments,
> > civil society, and business sector.
> >
> >
> 
> and the technical community
> 
> 
> >
> > -         On the issue of representation of technical community it is
> > important to appreciate that the above three way division is as per
> > political representation based on interests of, or representation of
> > different interests through, these three sectors. Technical community's
> > presence on the other hand is based on the requirement of necessary
> > expertise, and therefore is of a different nature. This is also clear
> from
> > the language of relevant paragraphs of TA. This may not be construed as
> > undermining the importance of the technical community. The expertise
> > provided by this community should be appropriately divided between all
> the
> > three sectors, and the expertise criteria should be given due importance
> at
> > the time of final selection.
> >
> 
> I think this might backfire in re; getting the kind of CS folk that
> you (and some others on the list) seek.  To get adequate
> representation on the MAG for the technical community, most of those
> "slots" would need to come from CS side, so at a minimum, I would say
> that we (as CS seeking expertise) would want;
> 
> 1 ICANN staff (currently T. Swinehart)
> 1 ISOC staff (representing users) (currently Matt Shears)
> 1 (non-profit) gTLD person (.org?, no rep as of now IIRC)
> 1 (non-profit) ccTLD person (currently Emily Taylor/Chris Disspain)
> 1 NRO/numbering community person (currently AA)
> 1 IETF person (IETF) (currently Pat Fältström)
> 1 W3C person (currently Daniel Dardailler)
> 
> This would give adequate "clue", but take up about half of the CS
> "slots", leaving 6 or 7 (if divided equally) for academics and other
> NGOs working in this space.  Is that enough for the "human rights,
> ICT4D, intellectual property, international trade and global
> electronic commerce, access to knowledge, and security" (quote from
> our charter).
> 
> Business interests may appoint one or two Inet community folk, but I
> don't think Gov'ts will (perhaps ITU persons already in Geneva, but
> they probably don't think of themselves as internet technical
> community folk).
> 
> In any case, it seems likely that 40 will be the number, it also seems
> unlikely that there will be consensus in the MAG to remove the 4th
> stakeholder group.
> 
> as for this list, I am counting ~50 of ~300 individuals on the list as
> being Inet "technical community" folk, I doubt there will be consensus
> here to remove the 4th stakeholder group either.
> 
> >
> >
> > -         We are concerned at the over-representation of governments in
> the
> > MAG, and under-representation of civil society. We think this should be
> > corrected at the time of the present rotation. For this purpose the
> > selection process will have to not just go by getting a new member from
> the
> > same sector as the one who is retiring, which will only replicate the
> > present lopsidedness of the MAG.
> >
> 
> fine
> 
> >
> >
> > -         Stakeholder representatives should be selected based on
> > appropriate processes of self-selection by stakeholder groups. We do
> > appreciate that it is difficult to recognize any one stakeholder entity,
> or
> > even a given set of them, as completely representing the whole of that
> > particular stakeholder group. This complicates the process of selection,
> > especially in the case of civil society and business sectors, and makes
> for
> > some scope for the final selecting authority exercising some amount of
> > judgment.  However, the exercise of such judgment should be done in a
> > completely transparent manner. Deviations from the self-selection
> processes
> > of stakeholder groups should be kept to the minimum and be defensible,
> and
> > normally be explained.
> 
> no objection
> 
> >
> >
> >
> > -         We find interesting the recommendation of a few members of the
> > technical community that "AG members should be chosen on the basis of
> how
> > large and diverse a community they connect to (which is different than
> > "represent")". We very much agree with this, and will like to further
> > explore the implications of this criterion.
> >
> 
> ok, I guess. potential can o worms tho.  For example, the govt of
> India could claim to "connect to" every single person in India,
> IT4Change and ISOC India could try to make the same claim.
> 
> Can't wait to hear MM explain why this is a "trick" tho ;-).
> 
> On his point that "most technical people work for business", well I
> have written often and extensively on this list that those people
> participate in IG fora NOT as employees of a business, but (like
> myself) as individuals, concerned mostly with the health and
> well-being of the network (security and stability in I* speak). This
> is probably more true in the numbering and standards bodies than in
> the domain side, but there are still loads of folk who participate in
> domain side IG stuff trying to better the Internet rather than their
> employers bottom line.
> 
> All in all, there are many tens (or hundreds) of thousands of
> volunteer person hours put in annually on "IG" work by people who
> participate in fora operated by non-profit organisations. These
> technical people may be "technically" employed by businesses, but that
> doesn't mean they aren't involved in CS activities.
> 
> >
> >
> > -         All stakeholders should be asked to keep in mind the need to
> > adequately represent diversity in terms of gender, geography, and, where
> > applicable, special interest groups.
> >
> >
> 
> fine
> 
> >
> > -         The role and necessity of the Special Advisors should be
> > clarified, as also the criteria for their selection. Adequate diversity
> > should be represented in the selection of Special Advisors as well.
> >
> 
> ok
> 
> >
> >
> > -         We are of the opinion that in keeping with the multi-
> stakeholder
> > nature of the MAG, there should only be one chair who is nominated by
> the UN
> > SG. The host country should be able to nominate a deputy chair, an
> > arrangement that would be helpful in context of various issues of
> logistics
> > for the annul IGF meetings. In any case, we will like to understand the
> > division of work and responsibility between the two chairs, which is the
> > present arrangement?  Does the UN nominated chair has the central
> > responsibility of MAG's interface with the UN SG (which, in its present
> > configuration is MAG's principal role/ responsibility) and the host
> country
> > chair of managing IGF meeting logistics? How much role does the host
> country
> > chair have in substantive issues? Does not too much of an substantive
> role
> > for the host country chair seen together with the fact that IGF is an
> open
> > meeting place where the host country will in any case be over-
> represented
> > skew the balance of the IGF. It is also to note that a constant
> government
> > chair is an inappropriate arrangement for a MS body. It may be too late
> to
> > move over to this suggested arrangement for the New Delhi meeting,
> > especially if the Indian government representative has already taken
> over as
> > a co-chair, but we can take a decision for following a new arrangement
> for
> > the 2009 meeting onwards.
> 
> ok
> 
> >
> >
> >
> > With 2 years of experience behind us, we would like to have a greater
> > clarity of the mandate, role and structure of the MAG. Does MAG have any
> > substantive role at all apart from the responsibility of arranging the
> > annual IGF meetings? For instance, inter alia, would it not be an
> > appropriate role for it to discuss how well is the IGF fulfilling its
> Tunis
> > mandate? If the MAG does not examine this issue, who is supposed to do
> it?
> > Is it left entirely to the secretariat and the UN SG to do so?
> >
> 
> ok
> 
> >
> >
> > We will like MAG to examine its own internal processes for greater
> > effectiveness. One possibility is to divide work among a couple of
> working
> > groups. We will like to see some introspection in the MAG about
> improving
> > its decision making processes, or generally, its processes for
> delivering
> > substantive outputs. It may, rather should, base such outputs on open
> > consultation for process related issues, and on the IGF itself for
> > substantive matters, but there needs to be an adequate process of
> > formalization of these by the MAG.
> >
> 
> no objection
> 
> >
> >
> > IGF submits an annual report to the UN ECOSOC Commission on Science and
> > Technology for Development. Does MAG have any role in writing this
> report?
> > If not, why so? In real spirit of a multi-stakeholder body we think that
> an
> > annual assessment of IGF should be prepared by the MAG itself, and not
> just
> > by the UN SG's office. In this context, it will also be appropriate that
> the
> > annual report gives information/ assessment as per different parts of
> > paragraph 72 of TA which lays out the mandate of the IGF. We very much
> look
> > forward to such a report which we understand should be ready by the
> > Information Week events in May, 2008. It should also revisit the overall
> > spirit of the TA, and the imperatives that it sought to address in the
> area
> > of IG, in making its assessment report for the IGF.
> >
> 
> ok
> 
> >
> >
> > We will also like to know if the IGF has any plans or possibility for
> > inter-sessional work? Also, how does IGF relate to national and regional
> > level IGFs, which have begun to be take shape in some places? Will IGF
> like
> > to directly encourage such entities, which are strongly multi-
> stakeholder,
> > modeling themselves on the IGF, which will also be in accordance to
> relevant
> > parts of Tunis Agenda for WSIS follow up activity at regional and
> national
> > levels.
> >
> 
> ok
> 
> >
> >
> > Greater financial support for the IGF, through untied public funds, is
> one
> > of the central imperatives for improving the effectiveness, and
> > consequently, the meaningfulness, of the IGF. We understand that a
> meeting
> > among potential funders is being held in Geneva around the February
> > consultations on this issue, and we look forward to some positive
> results
> > from that meeting.
> >
> >
> >
> > IGF should also fund the participation of at least 5 members of civil
> > society from developing and least developed countries to ensure
> meaningful
> > participation in its open consultations.
> >
> 
> Do you mean participation in MAG open consultations, or participation
> in the MAG itself?
> 
> >
> >
> > (Closing thank you stuff 
)
> >
> >
> >
> > (ends)
> >
> 
> --
> Cheers,
> 
> McTim
> $ whois -h whois.afrinic.net mctim
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