[governance] Proposed text for a sign-on or IGC statement re:

Wed Apr 1 00:48:11 EDT 2009

Robin and Milton,

IT for Change will sign on the text put up by Milton, and I as a member 
of IGC also support that  IGC signs it.

I must however mention a couple of issues, on behalf of my organization, 
which do not impact the above endorsement. I apologize for this longish 
text, but we have reservations about the ICANN's governance model and we 
need to mention them while supporting an endorsement of a relatively 
minor structural change in it.  It is also relevant to mention these 
issues in some detail because of the surprise, and perhaps exasperation 
(I dont say that it is not justified), shown by some members on this 
list as to why do some members active in IGC/ IGF not engage 
sufficiently with ICANN where some 'real work' may be getting done.

This is how we see this space, and decide on our engagements, thinly 
resourced that we are.

Either ICANN, and its GNSO, is merely doing 'relatively' mundane, though 
often important, administrative tasks in managing some critical Internet 
resources, meaning tasks that do not have much political implication, or 
ICANN indeed does tasks with significant political implications. In case 
its is the former, we are not really that interested in its work. 
Perhaps that may appear a little rude. Better to say we do not have the 
time vis a vis our primary inclinations as an organization. We primarily 
do development work, with a keen understanding of the political nature 
of development. In this context, we consider it our task to specifically 
represent the the interests of the currently disadvantaged and 
marginalized sections.Technical governance is not our core mandate; only 
to the extent it has strong political implications vis a vis 
'development constituencies' do we get involved.

However, in case ICANN/ GNSO does work with important political 
implications we simply do not agree with much of its constitutive logic 
- for instance, of equality/balance between demand and supply side of 
the 'domain name' marketplace, or even between other commercial and 
non-commercial parties. We also do not agree to its basic criterion for 
legitimate interest/ representation that requires one to at least be a 
domain registrant. We do not think that is the point - for instance even 
in the KTCN campaign of NCUC on the FoE issue.

Such 'user' based and stakeholder based global governance systems 
disproportionately favoring organized private sector (US-ians may read, 
business sector) - to counter whose power is a central governance issue 
at the global level - are exactly the wrong models of global governance 
to promote. Such models are poised to overall do much greater damage 
than good to the global public interest. They are especially dangerous 
when they seek political sovereignty, which we are afraid much of these 
minor structural adjustments are aimed at consolidating. To the extent 
that there is a certain complicity in the ICANN arena in this regard - 
including of some of the involved civil society actors - we must 
strongly disassociate ourselves from supporting any such implications of 
the present, or any other, proposal for structural changes in the ICANN.

On the other hand, we can understand and accept user/ stakeholder models 
for relatively low-level technical policy tasks, which are politically 
accountable to globally legitimate entities (sorry, but US government is 
not). We also agree that a simple inter-governmental system is not 
enough to constitute such an 'legitimate entity' as representing global 
public interest, especially in the new global circumstances created by 
the Internet. New, and perhaps innovative, ways to construct the needed 
legitimacies must therefore be tried out. Such efforts should however 
remain rooted in key percepts of what is public interest, and what can 
constitute its legitimate representation. The separation between private 
interest and public interest needs to be maintained, indeed honored. 
There should be sufficient proactive effort towards disproportionately 
higher representation of those currently marginalized, and not the 
opposite as these new models of governance do, in the name of some kind 
of neat efficiency and the like. All  such  governance innovations - 
out-of-the-box, subversive, whatever - that look like they are 
especially pushing forward marginalized interests attract our strong 
interest. All 'innovations' that further entrench dominant interests 
-whether economic, political, geo-political, class -  are 
correspondingly received with strong political opposition.

Warding off illegitimate statist interests has been a chief, at one 
stage even the central, struggle in the IG arena. Many actors who have 
shown exemplary dedication as well as foresight in fighting these 
interests, with a good degree of success, must forever remain our 
heroes. However, some of the same actors, and/or their second generation 
flag-bearers, are much less cognizant of another struggle in the IG 
arena which is at least as important. The struggle to make sure that the 
Internet does not become an instrument of a new global order that it 
even further dominated  by the already powerful; where political power 
is allocated on the basis on the economic power one already posses, 
instead of moderating it, and where new governance systems provide 
political cover and legitimacy to economic exploitation. It is no longer 
acceptable for any civil society constituency claiming any degree of 
global legitimacy to not represent both these struggles equally. We not 
only find the global governance models implied in the ICANN system quite 
ominous for the future of global governance, we would also like the 
global civil society engaged with its forums to better represent the 
political interests of the currently excluded/ marginalized sections.

However, we do recognize that the battle has to be fought on many 
fronts, and many in the NCUC have done great work in developing more 
spaces for public interest constituencies, and taking up some important 
public interest issues.

We will like to see the NCSG 6.0 charter developed by the NCUC adopted 
by the ICANN instead of the alternative one, and especially agree that 
its direct instead of constituency based election of council members is  
a much better process. It is better because it has a higher chance of 
representing global public interest, each candidate having to muster a 
much wider support.

Parminder

Milton L Mueller wrote:
>
>  
>
> The organizations and individuals listed below are members of and 
> participants in the civil society Internet Governance Caucus. We wish 
> to express our support for version 6.0 of the Noncommercial 
> Stakeholders Group (NCSG) charter developed by the Noncommercial Users 
> Constituency. While there may still be room for minor improvements, we 
> believe that the basic principles on which the charter is founded 
> provide the fairest and most effective basis for civil society 
> representation in ICANN's Generic Names Supporting Organization.
>
>  
>
> We specifically support the proposal because:
>
>  * It was developed transparently and with many opportunities for 
> input by relevant ICANN participants;
>
>  * It makes it easy to form constituencies or affinity groups, but 
> avoids fragmentation of noncommercial stakeholders into independent 
> constituencies with separate mailing lists, administrative structures 
> and representatives;
>
>  * It permits individual membership in the NCSG and does not require 
> individuals to fit themselves into arbitrarily-defined categories that 
> may not correspond to their interests and needs;
>
>  * It fosters representation of minority viewpoints in consensus-based 
> Working Groups, but does not rigidly assign votes to small factions, 
> instead offering them a chance to build consensus
>
>  
>
> We also note that the alternative charter proposal seems designed to 
> give a specific faction guaranteed Council seats and does not foster 
> global, geographically diverse representation.
>
>  
>
> We appreciate ICANN's effort to make its GNSO more representative and 
> urge you to ratify and accept the NCSG charter.
>
>  
>
> Signed,
>
>  
>
> --
>
>  
>
> --
>
>  
>
>  
>
> Etc.
>
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