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

[jlfullsack]

Dear Parminder

I thank you warmly for having expressed the very concerns (and even the fear) of most of the grass-root CS organisations that are implied in the WSIS follow-up process. 

Personnally and on behalf of CSDPTT I am pleased to share with you the prevalence of public interest and the permanent worry about real development : these should be the major drivers in all our activities and commitments, and -in this case- in Internet governance issues which will have an important -either positive or negative- impact in developing countries.

Friendy yours

Jean-Louis Fullsack

----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Parminder 
  To: governance at lists.cpsr.org ; Milton L Mueller 
  Sent: Wednesday, April 01, 2009 6:48 AM
  Subject: Re: [governance] Proposed text for a sign-on or IGC statement re:


  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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