[governance] Re: IGF Review Statement for Consensus

[William Drake]

Hi,

On Jun 9, 2009, at 3:15 AM, Ginger Paque wrote:

> Garth, thank you for repeating your statement. I interpret silence  
> of response on the list as lack of time or interest for a particular  
> issue.

And also lack of support, which a number of people expressed re: this  
statement.  There were also expressions of interest in using the next  
month to generate something more substantial and useful.
>
> Given the value of the Internet in sustaining connection,  
> integration and interdependencies in the conduct of human affairs,  
> we believe that the discussion must eventually move beyond the WGIG  
> definition of Internet governance to something more open.  Rather  
> than a matter negotiated among governments, the private sector and  
> civil society, “in their respective roles,”  if roles and identities  
> are agreed to be self-determined then the definition must become:  
> "The development and application by ANYONE of shared principles,  
> norms, rules, decision-making procedures, and programmes that shape  
> the evolution and use of the Internet."

Perhaps a bit of memory would be helpful here. The definition was  
drafted by IGC members in WGIG and advocated by us for months there  
and beyond in WSIS.  Its adoption helped put aside some very confused,  
debilitating, and self-serving battles among governments, 'interested'  
IGOs (guess which), business, tech community etc and helped the WSIS  
move on to a nominally successful conclusion including establishing,  
IGF based on this understanding of IG.  It would therefore be a bit  
odd for us to call for abandoning one of our more definable  
contributions to the process.  This is especially so since the above  
language reflects a misunderstanding of the definition.  The  
definition does not in any way say that IG is necessarily negotiated  
among governments, the private sector and civil society.  IG can be  
imposed by particular actors, it can emerge from within a single  
stakeholder group, it could in principle even be spontaneously  
emergent rather than negotiated (custom), etc.  And the definition  
already reflects an understanding that IG can be developed and applied  
by any actors, so if that is the concern it has already been met.  One  
can read the WGIG report and the WGIG background report for  
elaboration on these points, or the related scholarly and policy  
literatures.  Finally, as has been discussed here before, one should  
not get hung up on the "respective roles" clause in the definition,  
this was just a purely political sop to a few insistent government  
reps in WGIG (particularly Saudi Arabia and Iran) that wanted it  
understood that governments are always and everyone supreme and  
singularly responsible for public policy, which is empirically,  
obviously untrue (see, e.g., ICANN).  The clause has been of no  
practical significance to subsequent discussions or processes and is  
generally understood for what it is, a non sequitur artifact of doing  
conceptual work in a UN context.

Best,

Bill



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