[governance] Re: Last call for comments IGC questionnaire for IGF Secretarial

[William Drake]

Hi

Just noticed a couple little things.

On Jul 16, 2009, at 10:25 PM, Ginger Paque wrote:

>
> 2. To what extent has the IGF embodied the WSIS principles?
>
> We suggest that a process for the ongoing assessment and promotion  
> of those principles within IG processes be established, per the  
> Tunis Mandate. To that end we support the APC/COE/UNECE initiative  
> "Towards a code of good practice on public participation in Internet  
> governance - Building on the principles of WSIS and the Aarhus  
> Convention" as a building block for such an effort.

The code speaks to the procedural component of the principles but not  
the substantive component, directly.  Per the conversation between  
Parminder and I, and the specific endorsement of the Swiss government  
in the above-mentioned statement (which we left out), would anyone  
have a problem adding a third sentence something like,

"In parallel, we would welcome sustained, cross-cutting efforts to  
consider the linkages between Internet governance and development and  
to evolve a development agenda for Internet governance, in keeping  
with the Tunis mandate."

IGF 2.0 really needs to pay more attention to developing country  
issues, no?

> 4. How effective are IGF processes in addressing the tasks set out  
> for it, including the functioning of the Multi-stakeholder Advisory  
> Group (MAG), Secretariat and open consultations?
>
>
> ****Membership of the MAG**
>
> • We agree that the organizations having an important role in  
> Internet administration and the development of Internet-related  
> technical standards should continue to be represented in the MAG.  
> However, their representation should not be at the expense of civil  
> society participation.

This is from an earlier phase, do we still have the same concern about  
the balance re: the TC particularly?
>
>
> 7. Do you have any other comments?
>
> The IGC considers rights and principles to be inherently linked to  
> the Internet Governance agenda. Yet the IGF has side-tracked efforts  
> to give rights and principles a significant emphasis in the meeting  
> agenda, allowing a minority of voices to over-ride what is clearly a  
> central obligation of the IGF.

I think treating rights coherently in one place and not conflating it  
with just the IG principles is logically coherent and avoids us  
appearing to unilaterally reinterpret the latter just because of where  
the MAG decided to shoehorn a topic on Sharm agenda. It does not give  
up the linkage between rights and the IG principles, it makes rights  
an overarching concern with respect to everything, including the  
principles, without being conceptually confused.  So this works for me.

I will be largely offline the next few days, so however the text is  
finalized, I vote yes on adoption.

Best,

Bill____________________________________________________________
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