[governance] Reconstituting MAG

[Jeremy Malcolm]

On 23/01/2008, at 7:47 PM, Parminder wrote:

> (1)     A main issue is about stakeholder quotas. Should it be  
> fixed, should there be a minimum number, or should there be no such  
> guideline at all and  it be left to the judgment of the ultimate  
> authority for constitution of MAG to come out with an appropriate  
> composition representing the full diversity of stakeholders.
> (2)     Then there is the issue whether ‘technical community’ (which  
> also needs some kind of definition) should be considered a separate  
> stakeholder group or not.

These two questions go together, and as far as I am concerned there  
should not be a division between the two sub-groups, and there should  
be a fixed quota for each of the other three groups.[0]

A few reasons why there should not be a new stakeholder group for the  
technical community are that:

* The Tunis Agenda (although pretty confused on the whole question)  
doesn't
   recognise it as a separate group, but as a segment of the other  
groups;

* If the technical community is a distinct stakeholder group, then the
   academic community will argue that it should be also, and if them  
then why
   not also the press, and if the press then why not also...

but most importantly:

* One of the biggest problems with the whole process has been the  
distrust
   between the technical community and the rest of civil society.  The
   technical community thinks that civil society is just a bunch of  
whinging
   career activists who have no understanding of the Internet's  
culture and
   history.  Civil society thinks that the technical community is an  
insular
   and hubristic club of technocrats in the pocket of the private  
sector.
   In my view, if we cannot break down these divisions within broader  
civil
   society then we have not much chance of tackling the even deeper  
gulfs
   between civil society and the UN and governments.

> (3)     How do we see the balance of skills versus representative- 
> ness as criteria for composition of MAG. What other criteria and  
> guidelines are relevant in selecting members.

This asks the wrong question.  Consider ourselves as the founding  
fathers of a new nation here.  The nation, if it is democratic, does  
not ask, what are the qualities we most want in our government?   
Rather it asks, how do we most transparently allow our citizens to  
select their own government, by whatever criteria *they* see fit?

Of course, a democracy protects the rights of its minorities through  
mechanisms such as human rights and equal opportunity.  So there is  
merit in allowing criteria of gender equity and regional balance to be  
institutionalised in whatever process for MAG selection is adopted.   
But that is as far as it should go.

Since we do not have a demos for civil society to elect the members of  
the MAG, the alternative as I have suggested is to form an open,  
voluntary, randomly-selected nominating committee to do so, not unlike  
the IGC's own.  We then have to work on outreach to ensure that this  
NomCom is as diverse as possible.

> (4)     What percentage of MAG members should rotate annually?

I would have suggested half, but I'm not going to argue against those  
who are pushing for one third.

> (5)     How members from each stakeholder group should be chosen?  
> Should it be  a strictly a stakeholder group controlled process,  
> should stakeholder groups give nominations and the UN SG mostly go  
> by it other than for clearly stated reasons like of geo/ gender  
> balance, or it should largely be a UN SG controlled process whereby  
> a good consideration is given to stakeholder nominations.

It is a fallacy to put forward that UN SG or his delegates are neutral  
parties who bring none of their own values to this process.  In fact,  
from the get-go, Nitin and Markus have been partisan to the interests  
of governments, have pushed to ensure that the IGF remains closely  
controlled by WSIS insiders, have consistently talked down the scope  
of its mandate, and through inaction have limited the scope for  
participation in the IGF by ordinary Internet users.  (But this is not  
personal; of *course* they will do that.  They work for the United  
Nations.)

The selection of stakeholder representatives *must* be reserved to the  
stakeholder groups themselves, subject only to basic universal  
criteria of social equity.

> Then there are more structural issues like,
>
> (1)     what is the nature and authority/ decision making power of  
> the MAG

Its authority is going to be very closely tied to its legitimacy.  So  
although, of course, this question needs to be addressed, let's wait  
until after it has been made more representative and accountable  
before doing so.  (That's one reason why I and others have preferred  
to talk about a decision-making MAG in different terms, as a multi- 
stakeholder bureau rather than an "advisory group".)

> (2)     What kind of decision making processes should be put in  
> place to make MAG effective (we noticed the paralysis it suffered on  
> perhaps the only, and very minor, issue that it has ever tried to  
> take a decision on – selection of speakers for the plenaries.

Consensus (but expertly facilitated using a consensus workshop process  
or similar, to help ensure that the more powerful stakeholder  
representatives do not abuse their power to silence other voices),  
with a fall-back to voting.

> (3)     The very important issue of what should be done to ensure  
> transparency and accountability of the MAG.

I'm going to sound like a broken record here, but open the mailing  
list.  If governments are going to insist on Chatham Rule, then  
someone (hell, I'll volunteer to do it) can easily write a script to  
strip out all identifying headers and sigs from the messages before  
they are publicly archived.

> There are some other minor issue like the role and selection of the  
> Chair and the relevance and role of a co-chair.

The co-chairs should rotate between two of the stakeholder groups  
every year.  One of them should be from the host country secretariat.

[0] This should really be the other four groups, except that  
intergovernmental
     organisations have only been observers so far and I am not  
proposing that that
     should change.

-- 
Jeremy Malcolm LLB (Hons) B Com
Internet and Open Source lawyer, IT consultant, actor
host -t NAPTR 1.0.8.0.3.1.2.9.8.1.6.e164.org|awk -F! '{print $3}'


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