AW: [governance] multistakeholderism

["Kleinwächter, Wolfgang"]

Milton 
Let's not confuse the transitional form with the end state.

Wolfgang:
Good point, Milton. The MS principle/process/dialogue is still in its infant stage. There is a long road to go. It emerged as the result of political process where governments (and private sector) realized that they can not manage the Internet alone. And it needs to be further enhanced. We moved from A to B but Z is still far away. What would be the alternative to MS? The right of the jungle?  
 
Do not forget that the IG definition of the WGIG - which calls for an inclusion of all stakeholders in IG PDP - was a compromise between the Chinese position for "governmental leadership" and the US position for "private sector leadership". The "new beast" which emerged in the WSIS process and neutralized to a certain degree this black and white-conflict was the "civil society" which matured in the WSIS process ands produced a workable policy structures (Pleanry, Content&Theme Group, WGs, Buro etc.) and demonstrated its capacity for policy making with its Civil Society WSIS Declaration from 2003. I invite everzbody to go bacxk to this document and read it and remember how it emerged.
 
The weak point - both in the WSIS process, in the WGIG definition and also in ICANN - is that there are no procedures in place for a reasonable interaction among the stakeholders. Everything remains vague. If ALAC gives "advice" to the ICANN Board, what is the legal nature of such an ALAC advise? 
 
Insofar, Daniel makes a good point by articulating the warning, that the @inclusion@ in a dialogue with more powerful partners can be counterproductive and justify one sided  power or profit oriented decisions by governments or corporations by refering to the "participation" (and consent?) of civil society in the dialogue. We know this from corrupt trade unions. But this does not speak against trade unions in general and against the usefulnees of dialogue among all involved parties, this calls for better procedures how the dialogue can be translated into policy decisions. 
 
To enhance the system there is a need to draft such procedures for interaction. The IGF Dynamic Coalition on Rights and Principles can make a good contribution by propoising a set of rights and duties for governments, private corporations and civil society in Internet Governance. Such a MS IG Declaration could become a reference for cases where one stakeholder tries to misuse the presence of another stakeholder in the dialogue to justify illegitimate actions. 
 
Wolfgang
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