[governance] Inputs for synthesis paper

Mon Sep 8 16:48:04 EDT 2008

On Tue, Sep 9, 2008 at 1:11 AM, Ian Peter <ian.peter at ianpeter.com> wrote:

>  within the context of the general request, which is to make rights a main
> theme for Cairo? (which doesn't seem to be disputed)
>

Hello Ian and Parminder,

I have one of Parminder's documents embedded in my blog and took a rapid
look at it to find interesting alternatives to the theme of rights, and
found that the document talks about Internet as Public Infrastructure.

There has been a lot of passion about this topic of "rights" but this topic
is dangerous territory. Can we think of "Internet as Public Infrastructure"
as the overwhelming theme of the IGF, Cairo?

The other themes that occurred to me are "Depoliticizing the Internet",
again from Parminder's document, but this theme again is a double edged
sword like the theme of "Rights" and would charge the IGF atmosphere with a
lot of political debates.

One more theme could be the broad theme of "preserving the essential
characteristics of the Internet in the process of unrestrained growth" or
even simply "Internet for the next billion users- challenges in Governance"

>
>
> Ian Peter
>
> Ian Peter and Associates Pty Ltd
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> PO Box 10670 Adelaide St  Brisbane 4000
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>
>   ------------------------------
>
> *From:* Sivasubramanian Muthusamy [mailto:isolatedn at gmail.com]
> *Sent:* 09 September 2008 04:35
> *To:* governance at lists.cpsr.org; Tapani Tarvainen
> *Subject:* Re: [governance] Inputs for synthesis paper
>
>
>
> Hello Parminder and All,
>
>
> All the heat is about the connotations of the term "collective rights". I
> tried to understand the distinction between individual right and collective
> right and this is what I found:<http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Olympus/5357/ihr6a.html>
>
> *Individual Rights apply to the generic individual without regard to his
> or her identity.... These rights are determined with no knowledge of what
> our actual economic standing, educational level, gender, or ethnic origin
> would be. Most international and national formulations of human rights are
> drafted in such a way as to apply to a generic individual.*
>
> *Collective rights, however, do not start with the individual but rather
> with a specific group. Individuals are defined by their membership in that
> group, which thus differentiates them from others in society. Some
> collectives are formed by choice (religious affiliation in the United
> States, for example). Others are predetermined (the traditional
> understanding of gender, for example). Collective rights begin with the
> premise that the group has a claim to make. Historically, we can see
> numerous examples of group treatment (generally negative). In the Roman
> Empire, for example, Jews possessed the status of a religio licita, and as
> such enjoyed specific rights as Jews--the right not to work on the Sabbath,
> or to recognize the divinity of the Emperor. Such rights were granted to the
> Jewish collective and thus to the individual Jew of the Empire by virtue of
> being Jewish and thus distinct from Greeks or Syrians or Celts in the
> Empire. The Ottoman Empire was governed under the millet system, by which
> each group in the Empire was defined via their religious community. Thus,
> people living in the same town but belonging to different faiths had
> different rights and obligations on account of their group membership. A
> vague notion of collective rights also lay behind the concept of
> extra-territoriality, that people, by virtue of their citizenship, in
> foreign lands should be governed, not by local law, but by the laws of their
> originating state. ---- from a Lecture of Dr. Nikolas K. Gvosdev, Editor
> of The National Interest and a Senior Fellow in Strategic Studies at The
> Nixon Center.*
>
> Internet Governance Caucus can propose Collective Rights if we would like
> to see different bandwidth plans for men and women, priority access for
> "backward and "most backward" classes as invented in India,  publishing
> space discrimination between different churches, and free DVD movies for
> those who live in mountains.
>
> Sivasubramanian Muthusamy.
>
> India.
>
>
>
> On Mon, Sep 8, 2008 at 10:41 PM, Tapani Tarvainen <
> tapani.tarvainen at effi.org> wrote:
>
> On Mon, Sep 08, 2008 at 10:02:20PM +0530, Parminder (
> parminder at itforchange.net) wrote:
>
> > 'Collective rights' is obviously an analytical category and not a right
> as
> > such. So when I speak of collective rights I am clearly meaning specific
> > rights like rights of indigenous people, linguistic rights, cultural
> rights,
> > minority rights, right to development etc.
>
> > To say that one doesn't believe in collective rights one must be able to
> say
> > that one doesn't believe in the above rights.
>
> It does not follow if one does not agree that those rights are collective.
>
> I suspect one or maybe the key problem here is that the term indeed
> carries different meanings, and people want to reject some of them.
>
> In particular, probably few (?) people would oppose collective
> rights as justification of individual rights - rights individuals
> would have because of their membership in a group.
> The opposition stems from the other meaning, where collective
> rights would justify depriving individuals of their rights.
>
>
> > In fact I am fine if one is ready to accept a long list of all these
> rights,
> > and not mention the terms negative, positive and collective rights. That
> > merely would mean one thinks all these rights, along with those that may
> be
> > considered negative and positive rights are in the same category, and
> need
> > not be differentiated. I could in fact be happier with such a position.
>
> That might be a useful approach.
>
> --
> Tapani Tarvainen
>
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