[governance] Should IGF negotiate recommendations? (Re: IGC

[Parminder]

William Drake wrote:
> Hi Bertrand
>
> On Jul 16, 2009, at 1:22 PM, Bertrand de La Chapelle wrote:
>
>>
>> 1) The title of the thread (should the IGF _negotiate_ 
>> recommendations ?) goes beyond what the Tunis Agenda says ("make" 
>> recommendations). I do not think anybody in the IGC wants to go 
>> backwards on the Tunis document : the capacity of IGF to produce 
>> recommendations is in the text and it is important. What the 
>> reluctant people mean is that "negotiations" as a way to produce 
>> recommendations is the wrong way to go. The experience of those of us 
>> who participated this year in meetings like CSTD and ITU WTPF shows 
>> the danger of reverting to traditional ways of intergovernmental 
>> negotiations.
>
> Right, CSTD and WTPF really make the point.  So I said negotiate for a 
> reason.  It is extremely difficult to imagine how the IGF per se could 
> "make" recs without it becoming a negotiation, that's just how 
> governments operate, it's in their DNA.  I can't think of a single 
> IGO-based process in which governments sit as peers with other actors 
> and collaborate on texts without clear differentiations in "respective 
> roles and responsibilities," i.e. nongovernmentals can weigh in but 
> then the governments agree the text. 
If we in this early evolving phase of this (probably) promising novel 
multi-stakeholder institutions - IGF - get into self-fulfilling 
prophecy  of condemnation to  governmental DNA, we are done.

> Can you?  (Even in ICANN this doesn't happen; Milton's proposed 
> disbanding GAC and having governmentals just blend into supporting 
> orgs, but I'd be shocked if they went for that.)
>
> Which is not to say it is absolutely impossible.  In some standards 
> and security groups there's peer-level MS cooperation.  So, as I said 
> before, it would depend very much on the modalities etc, which are 
> unknowns, and dialogue would be needed to see whether a palatable 
> model could be arrived at.
In that case we share a common objective. What do you think we can do to 
best push for such a new model? I have been trying what I think is the 
best way to push for it, but we dont seem to agree much at all. What is 
your strategy?

I am very much for a IGF session on this dialogue - which is very 
different from stating it in the IGC response to IGF's review. This 
response should contain what would be the likely position we will take 
at such a dialogue. It is in this sense i asked for your views that you 
contribute to the proposed dialogue.

>  But insofar as most of the governments that have been calling for 
> recs are hardly friends of CS, and indeed would like to go back to 
> WSIS procedures if anything, it's hard to be optimistic.
Thats the problem. You are not optimistic. Others are, because this may 
be our only bet. Think of the alternatives.
>
>>
>> 2) During the Hyderabad meeting last year, an interesting distinction 
>> was made between "recommendations _by_ the IGF" and "recommendations 
>> _at_ the IGF". This would mean that groups of actors, including 
>> Dynamic Coalitions for instance but also ad hoc gatherings after a 
>> workshop, could take the opportunity of an IGF meeting to prepare 
>> recommendations that they would make public at the IGF and invite 
>> other actors to join. This is a truly multi-stakeholder and bottom-up 
>> approach.
>
> Right, and a number of us supported that.  And there was 
> Wolfgang's related proposal for "messages from the IGF."  But do you 
> think the governments calling for recs would be satisfied with that, 
> really?  I'd be rather surprised, to put it mildly. 
We are not trying to satisfy the governments you talk about - we are 
trying to make tentative movements towards a model that suits us best, 
and is possible.
>>
>> Q6 Tunis Agenda 72g mandates the IGF to make recommendations "where 
>> appropriate". This dimension of the IGF mandate should not be 
>> forgotten, but this does not necessarily mean traditional resolution 
>> drafting. The IGC believes that it is important in that respect for 
>> the outcomes of workshops and main sessions, and of the IGFs in 
>> general, to be presented in more tangible, concise and 
>> result-oriented formats. IGF participants should also be encouraged 
>> to engage in concrete cooperations as a result of their interaction 
>> in the IGF or in the Dynamic Coalitions and to present their concrete 
>> recommendations at the IGF, that would be posted on the IGF web site. 
>
> I would be fine with that.  Or with a formulation that combines this 
> with my suggestion of a call for open, inclusive, and probing 
> multistakeholder dialogue on whether adopting recommendations at the 
> IGF level could be appropriate.
that suggestion should go in our inputs for the next IGF agenda. In the 
review document more than anything else it throws serious doubts on some 
text on IGF mandate which really is not our purpose.

parminder
>
> Finally, just for the record,
>
>> On Jul 16, 2009, at 11:17 AM, Jeremy Malcolm wrote:
>>>
>>> Also, it's not even accurate to say that "IGF stakeholders have been 
>>> divided as to whether the requirement of appropriateness ever has 
>>> been or could be met".  In fact they haven't addressed their minds 
>>> to this point at all.  I don't recall anyone ever saying, "Well yes 
>>> the IGF could make recommendations, except for this requirement of 
>>> appropriateness".  They haven't even gotten to that point - rather 
>>> they have harped on the fact that the IGF has no mechanism to 
>>> produce recommendations, and implying that no such mechanism is 
>>> possible without destroying the IGF as we know it.
>
> I don't know who you talked to in Tunis or during the preparatory 
> process Jeremy, but there were definitely governments and major 
> nongovernmental stakeholders that absolutely did not want a commitment 
> to do recommendations, period.  "Where appropriate" provided a way out 
> that could be presented as consistent with the mandate.   If they had 
> read the TA as you do, they would not have agreed to it in Tunis, 
> and there might not be an IGF.   
>
> Bill
>  
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