[governance] Reconstituting MAG

[Meryem Marzouki]

Le 14 févr. 08 à 02:02, Jeremy Malcolm a écrit :

> On 13/02/2008, at 7:43 PM, Parminder wrote:
>
>> On the other hand, we are the opinion that the organizations/ 
>> bodies that are
>> in charge of Internet administration currently (ICANN, RIRs, IETF  
>> etc)
>> should have a right to be represented as a distinct category,  
>> which not to
>> be confused with technical expertise, should be referred to as '  
>> existing
>> Internet administration bodies' (IABs) and a clear separate quota  
>> of around
>> 6 should be set for them. The rest of the number should equally be  
>> divided
>> among governments, civil society and the business sector. The
>> representatives of IABs will have the same standing as other  
>> members of the
>> MAG.
>
> Thanks for these draft statements.  I agree with Bill about  
> avoiding the acronym "IAB" (how about IGB or IGI for Internet  
> governance body/institution?), and personally I would have taken a  
> different tack, suggesting that Internet governance institutions  
> should be treated the same as intergovernmental organisations who  
> are allowed to appoint observers to the group.  I won't block  
> consensus though if the group prefers your approach.

As for the acronym:
- prefer "body" or "institution" rather than "organization" (which  
sounds more incorporated - think of IETF)
- prefer "administration" or "management" rather than  
"governance" (we want to distinguish them from IGF, right?)
- "Internet" seems unavoidable:)
==> IMB, IMI, IAI are possible acronyms.

As for the status in MAG:
We have to show coherence in our statement: the whole point is that  
this "technical community", renamed or not, shouldn't be a  
stakeholder of the same nature as governments, business, civil  
society (which are the sole three natural stakeholders of any global  
governance forum), but more relevant players, ad hoc to the specific  
governance field (Internet). If IGF was dealing with, say,  
environment governance, then we would still have gov, biz, cs, and  
some other ad hoc players.
I do agree with Jeremy that, because of their nature, they should be  
treated in the same way as, probably not intergovernmental  
organizations in general (i.e. not like OECD, CoE, La Francophonie,  
etc.), but certainly as UN Agencies involved in the field (ITU,  
UNESCO, etc.).
Suresh's point about observers status is right in general, but  
remember that here we're talking of the MAG, and the important word  
here is "Advisory": it's fine for an observer to advise in such an  
arena.

As for the number/quota:
Strategically, it's not a good idea to give a number. First reason is  
that we don't know the future size of the MAG (6 out of 40 may be  
fine, 6 out of 20 is far too much). Second reason is that these  
bodies will immediately start to count themselves, and the discussion  
will soon be focused on the quota. Third reason is that giving them a  
quota may weaken the point that they're not a stakeholder of the same  
nature as gov, biz and cs.
So we should prefer a general formulation like, e.g., "in addition to  
the three stakeholders represented in equal proportions, the MAG  
should include a limited number of representatives of other relevant  
players: Internet Management Institutions operating at global level,  
Intergovernmental organizations and UN agencies relevant to and  
active in Internet governance.
Or any other formulation that leaves for later discussions the quota  
issue.

Best,
Meryem____________________________________________________________
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