[governance] Re: IGC questionnaire Q2 for review

[William Drake]

Hi

On Jul 13, 2009, at 3:12 PM, Parminder wrote:

> Bill
>
> Firstly, your own description of WSIS principles  have considerably  
> changed subsequent to my email

Yes, I wrote a paper two years ago because of an email you wrote two  
hours ago.  Rather prescient, no?  ;-)

> from the just 'multi-lateral, transparent, democratic and  
> multistakeholder' to include substantive aspects of '“should ensure  
> an equitable distribution of resources, facilitate access for all  
> and ensure a stable and secure functioning of the Internet, taking  
> into account multilingualism.” I see it as a very very significant  
> progress from my point of view, and would request all subsequent IGC  
> statements to take note of this. You have asked me what i meant by  
> 'self-selected'. You know that you  (and  IGC statements)  have  
> till  now only spoken of the  process related principles and not  
> these  substantive principles which are obviously very important.  
> Thats self-selection :).

It is? I thought self-selection means one selects oneself to  
something.  That seems a different thing from saying that when I, IGC,  
APC or anyone else have advocated procedural assessments and reforms  
we referenced in support the part of the WSIS principles dealing with  
procedural assessments and reforms.

On the substantive/development side, the principles are arguably less  
systematic and coherent, an artifact of the negotiation process and  
phrases particular governments wanted in.  But one can argue that  
taken together they reflect a normative stance that IG should promote  
development, even if there's no agreement on exactly what that means  
or how it could be achieved.  (Of course, others could argue that I'm  
making an undue interpretive stretch, but I think it's fair to read  
the phrases in light of the legislative history, as it were.)  Hence,  
I've argued for a couple years that development has been given short  
shrift and should be central to the IGF's focus, have organized  
development agenda workshops on that basis, etc.

> Secondly, when I say all DoP is WSIS principles it is obvious that  
> with regard to IG we will only be counting those which can be seen  
> in relation to IG. (However i do read your statements of history of  
> negotiations with interest.) When IG is directly referred to in  
> detailing these principles so much the better, but I wouldnt  
> hesitate to apply other principles in WSIS docs to IG, thats the  
> idea of prefacing such summit docs with declaration of principles.

I agree that there are other sections in the DOP that could be seen as  
relevant to IG, even if the governments who negotiated them didn't  
frame or even see them as such.  But that's different from conflating  
the entire DOP with the IG principles.

> I, as others from civil society did during the last MAG meeting,  
> will push for a rights-based approach to IG as part of such WSIS  
> principles taking from the relevant DoP text on rights.

I have no problem with a rights-based approach and as I said both the  
procedural and substantive components could be approached from this  
angle.  But the arguments as to what exactly that means have to be  
made persuasively rather than posited to be self-evident.  I've not  
seen that done yet.  Might be a good exercise for the R&P coalition...?
>
> Thirdly, I am very sure that I am not doing a bilateral soliloquy  
> here, and am spending time on this because I consider it an  
> important discussion. I have this slight aversion to emails that end  
> with text to the effect 'please dont reply to this' :). It is just  
> not respectful.

I suggested that if we disagree, let's agree to disagree.  This widely  
used and understood phrase does not mean "do not reply" or have  
anything to do with respect or its absence.  And in fact, we are  
actually agreeing, at least in part; stop the presses, no? :-)

Bill

PS: Just saw this...

On Jul 13, 2009, at 3:30 PM, Ginger Paque wrote:

> Bill, Parminder, everyone...
>
> I agree with Parminder--Bill, I do not think you should  
> underestimate the importance of the topics and the value of these  
> discussions for the rest of us, even if we do not intervene.


If I didn't think the topic was important I wouldn't have written two  
long and turgid messages about it.   I'm not underestimating it, but I  
am skeptical that we can quickly resolve it and get suitably broad- 
based agreement on a text.

Cheers,

Bill

>
>
>
> William Drake wrote:
>>
>> Hi Parminder
>>
>> On Jul 13, 2009, at 11:28 AM, Parminder wrote:
>>
>>> William Drake wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Hi Ginger,
>>>>
>>>> The secretariat's questionnaire and the Tunis mandate refer  
>>>> specifically to the WSIS principles on Internet governance, not  
>>>> the entire Geneva Declaration of Principles on information  
>>>> societies generally.
>>> Not quite true Bill. The secretariat questionnaire hyperlinked '  
>>> WSIS principles' to the Geneva Declaration. To make it further  
>>> clearer the current program sheet makes it clear that WSIS  
>>> principles include DoP (Geneva declaration of principles)  
>>> principles. To quote the paper
>>> "This session builds on the WSIS Principles, as contained in the  
>>> Geneva Declaration of Principles and the Tunis Agenda for the  
>>> Information Society"
>>
>> That the questionnaire links to the Geneva Declaration is not  
>> surprising since that's the first official document in which the  
>> principles are agreed (unless you want to count earlier version in  
>> the regional declarations etc).  That doesn't mean that the WSIS  
>> principles on IG are now understood to mean the entire DOP  
>> (covering e.g. e-education, e-health, etc etc etc).  Indeed, the  
>> second bit you quote, "as contained in the Geneva Declaration of  
>> Principles and the Tunis Agenda," demonstrates the point.  The  
>> entire Geneva DOP is not contained in the TA.  The WSIS principles  
>> on IG are, and they are enunciated in a limited number of paragraphs.
>>>
>>>
>>> I have consistently opposed in the IGC a narrow self-determined  
>>> construction of the meaning of 'WSIS principles' as mentioned in  
>>> para 72 of TA to the four process issues - multilateral,  
>>> transparent, democratic and multistakeholder -   that you mention.
>>
>> I don't know what self-determined means, it's been pretty clear for  
>> years what everyone's been talking about, as the transcripts of the  
>> consultations etc would demonstrate.  But I would agree with you  
>> that people have often been selective in invoking the principles,  
>> depending on their objectives and the particular matters under  
>> discussion.   As I've written elsewhere (piece in Wolfgang's power  
>> of ideas book),
>>
>> Paragraph 48 establishes guiding principles on the conduct of  
>> governance processes, namely that, they “should be multilateral,  
>> transparent and democratic, with the full involvement of  
>> governments, the private sector, civil society and international  
>> organizations.” The latter point is amplified by Paragraph 49’s  
>> statement that Internet governance, “should involve all  
>> stakeholders and relevant intergovernmental and international  
>> organizations.” Going further, Paragraph 50 holds that Internet  
>> governance issues “should be addressed in a coordinated manner.”  
>> While this point is raised as a preface to the call for the UN  
>> Secretary General to convene a Working Group on Internet Governance  
>> (WGIG) to study the issues, the need for coordination was invoked  
>> often enough in the course of the WSIS process to suggest that it  
>> stands as a generalizable principle as well. Taken together, these  
>> prescriptions constitute what could be called the procedural  
>> component of what came to be known as the “WSIS Principles on  
>> Internet governance.” In addition, Paragraphs 48-50 set out a  
>> substantive component, i.e. that Internet governance “should ensure  
>> an equitable distribution of resources, facilitate access for all  
>> and ensure a stable and secure functioning of the Internet, taking  
>> into account multilingualism.”
>>
>> I think it's clear that the agreed principles on IG include both  
>> procedural and substantive components, and the latter pertain  
>> directly to the notion that IG should promote development.  I'd  
>> guess you'd agree with that.  But this is very different from  
>> saying that the rest of the DOP that is not on IG can be  
>> characterized as the WSIS principles on IG.
>>
>>> The present state of discourse in MAG/ IGF validates this position  
>>> that WSIS principles basically means all of 'DoP plus' which  
>>> includes the four principles that you mention.
>>
>> The MAG doesn't have a mandate to redefine or reinterpret  
>> international agreements or rewrite the entire history of the WSIG/ 
>> IGF discussions.  It has a mandate to program a conference, and in  
>> trying to figure out where to place discussions on programs in  
>> order to satisfy stakeholders has frequently taken some liberties  
>> with concepts etc. Moreover, the discourse you refer to is of  
>> course contested, with the Chinese saying one thing, others saying  
>> other things, etc.  So if some parties are actually contending that  
>> the principles on IG include every DOP provision on every issue  
>> concerning the global information society, rather than just the  
>> ones on IG, then with all due respect this is pretty far from  
>> dispositive.  Utterances made in program committee meetings for  
>> international conferences are not authoritative.
>>
>>> In fact the compromise on the rights debate in the MAG was that  
>>> rights will now get discussed under 'WSIS principles' section in  
>>> IGF - 4. I consider it as a major step forward from a narrow  
>>> 'process-oriented principles' approach that a a few in civil  
>>> society  want to exclusively take to a broad ' substantive  
>>> principles' approach that was the real intent of TA and other WSIS  
>>> documents.
>>
>> Both the procedural and substantive components can be viewed from a  
>> rights perspective, although that would require a certain level of  
>> conceptual precision.  The text I was responding to was different  
>> in scope.
>>
>> So...if you are suggesting that a caucus statement on the  
>> principles should go beyond the procedural component (which was the  
>> focus of the prior statement I referenced) and cover the  
>> substantive, we can readily agree.  If you're saying that every  
>> last bit of the DOP is actually about IG and/or that this is true  
>> because some people said so in a MAG meeting, let's just agree to  
>> disagree rather than subjecting the list to one of our patented  
>> bilateral soliloquies :-)
>>
>> Cheers,
>>
>> Bill
>>
>>

***********************************************************
William J. Drake
Senior Associate
Centre for International Governance
Graduate Institute of International and
   Development Studies
Geneva, Switzerland
william.drake at graduateinstitute.ch
www.graduateinstitute.ch/cig/drake.html
***********************************************************

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